Papillon Artisan Perfumes upcoming Spell 125 is full of the very first cold light of a summer morning, when there’s still a hint of mist and the night hasn’t quite let go, and the world feels new and full of promise. This is the perfume to wear when you dream of flying.

Wearing it, I feel caught between sky and earth: soaring with the clarity of pine (without a hint of cleaning product) and light-filled frankincense, feet still on damp grass, salted skin dusted with the ash and resin of last night’s fire, dream-wrapped in shadow. It’s an infinite world of texture and substance with no weight.

I want to throw around words like diaphanous, and ethereal, and transcendent. Forgive me, please, because I’m about to get cosmic.

Lockdown has shrunk this last year to small loops, the sight of the same walls and local landmarks, the claustrophobic sense of the world shutting down and horizons closing in. But when I climb out of the window at night I stare up at the hard bright stars until I remember: we can’t feel it, pinned by gravity, but still, the world turns daily, spinning at about a thousand miles an hour at the equator.

The earth takes a 600 million mile journey each year, orbiting the sun at 66,000 miles per hour.

Our galaxy spins like a pinwheel, with our sun circling the centre of the Milky Way once every 225 million years at a stately 483,000 miles per hour. Bound to the sun, we follow along with it.

As the universe expands, the milky way surges through space endlessly, at 1.3 million miles per hour.

Sit still, close your eyes, and fly at impossible speeds, limitless.

All that, without spilling your tea.

I am enormously grateful to Liz Moore for the winter solstice gift of an advance sample. I have loved every single spritz, and can’t wait for the release in July. Spell 125 is a departure from the rich deep comforts of her twist-on-classical style, yet feels absolutely true to her voice. Brava. It is beautiful.

Originally posted 27 January 2021, additional photo november 2021