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Post by Azar
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Hello APJ,
There has been a lot of buzz about bats on perfume blogs of late directly related to the new Bat fragrance created by Ellen Covey for Victor Wong of Zoologist Perfumes, Toronto. Ellen has an uncanny ability to recreate the ambient fragrance of places where she has lived, worked and visited. On her Olympic Orchids website, there is an entire category devoted to “Scents of Place”. The Bat fragrance, to my nose, is definitely about a place (a cave) and does not, thankfully, smell like its namesake. On the perfume bottle, the portrait of the bat created by Victor Wong’s colleague Daisy Chan, appears to be some kind of leaf nosed fruit bat (Dermanura sp.), While a few bats are reported to have pleasant odors most do not, at least as far as we humans are concerned.
Over the years, as part of her university work on bat hearing and echolocation, Ellen has visited bat habitats throughout the Americas. If any perfumer on the planet is qualified to create a fragrance for a bat cave it is Dr. Ellen Covey!
Bat by Zoologist Perfumes 2015
Bat by Ellen Covey
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Banana, fruity notes, soil tincture
Heart: Fig, tropical fruits, myrrh, resins, green notes
Base: Musk, leather, vetiver, sandalwood, tonka bean
My first impression of Bat recalls the smell of parched earth moistened by rain, the fragrance of roots, vetiver, lime and a breath of banana (a la Todd Oldham). There is something about this combination of fruit, dirt, wet stone and vetiver that evokes not only the damp darkness of a cave but the magical lore surrounding the creature itself. As the fragrance dries the smell of petrichor changes as Bat takes on the scent of raw beets, decomposing leaves, friable humus, peat moss, musk, figs and myrrh. This description sounds a bit heavy but, like the smell of peat moss, it is vegetal and light. To me the heart of Bat is a scent for gardeners and people who love the smell of cool, rich earth and green growing things. As time passes the fragrance becomes progressively lighter and cooler with a kind of effervescent quality that suggests the airborne grace of bats in flight. At about 40 minutes sandalwood and tonka bean lift Bat into a woody, vanilla realm that, combined with earth elements, musk and banana, create a comfortingly sweet, fuzzy effect lasting for hours.
With the exception of the initial impression of petrichor, Bat is really quite shy. Sillage is, at the most, moderate and the fragrance remains relatively intimate for hours.
Have you tried Bat or any of the Zoologist perfumes? Tell us what you think. Also stay tuned for more about Bat. In March I will be doing a Mega-Draw for all the fragrances I’ve reviewed in January and February 2016.
Zoologist Perfumes has $125/60ml
Azar xx