Selperniku January Scent Project 2017 Eau de Parfum

My first try at a January Scent Project scent. Unique for sure but how wearable is Selperniku? Please watch my video review to find out. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed.

Selperniku is a real head-scratcher. The list of notes, impressions, and ideas I have had while wearing this one goes on for several pages. I puzzle over this one in particular, wondering if my experience of sandalwood and butter (butyric) notes is so vastly different to everyone else's so as to render my report invalid. John has nailed the limey, curdy texture of real sandalwood, but the fragrance itself does not, in fact, smell at all like sandalwood. Neither does it smell like butter, in any way, shape, or form, to me. Or salt, really.

Instead, what the fragrance seems to be doing is to take one small facet of all its constituent materials - salt, apricot, sandalwood, butter - and isolate them in the perfume, excising them from their wholeness. The result is that the nose recognizes one part of the material, but because it has been removed from its overall context, it strikes us as being both unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. Some of us are taking those fragments of sandalwood and peach and butter and rebuilding the whole picture in our mind; I personally cannot, only perceiving fragments here and there. Thus, I smell the slightly vomity undertone of milk, but not actual butter. I smell the rubbery, tart skin of the apricot, but not the fruit itself. Very clever.

I should mention that the topnotes of Selperniku smell entirely of freshly-crushed lavender buds to me, and specifically, the dried English lavender variety that one gets in sachets. I get the fierce, purple roar of lavender at exactly the same moment as I am smelling a juicy, overripe peach or apricot note, and the dual experience momentarily shocks me. It is a very unusual effect, and one that I find so compelling that I spray it over and over again to experience. Your mileage may vary (and, boy, has that overused phrase in perfumery circles really earned its keep with the January Scent Project!).

Directly under the lavender and peach opening, I sense a layer of curdled milk shifting below. It is only slightly vomitous, and probably only to me, but joined with a purplish “saltwater taffy” note I perceive, it adds up to something that approximates a lactonic wood accord.

The peach/apricot disappears for a while, but makes an appearance again after a few hours, this time in the shape of a slightly sweaty, rubbery note that hints at fruit skin more than the flesh. Kafkaesque notes that this could be osmanthus, and I'm inclined to agree, because at one point, the scent recalls the rubbery apricot leather of Osmanthe Yunnan. The rubbery fruit skin of the apricot mixed with the lactones certainly adds up to something suggestive of human skin, and perhaps specifically, the scent of a woman's nape after a full day of wearing a gently peachy perfume, like Chant d'Aromes.

In the far drydown, blowing on my skin revealed a layering of piquant green leaves over the tart, rubbery lactonic peach skin note, which smells to me like the juice from dock leaves we would use to treat nettle burns when we were kids. That, plus, the late return of those dried lavender buds, make me think of Selperniku as being far more a rustic, countryside-ish fragrance than it at first makes itself out to be.

This is the ultimate lactonic apricot scent-not that that's a deeply explored niche, but I have a few samples that fit the brief kicking around. On first spray, you're hit with an intense blast of salt carried on the wind of cypress and petitgrain, sharp and foresty. Almost immediately the greenery is chopped back (but not entirely away) with a machete of juicy, picked off the tree apricot, served up beside a luscious, freshly churned pat of butter. The apricot NEVER quits-I'm on hour seven of this on a warm summer day and I'm still getting bright, citrusy wafts of its creamy goodness, wrapped up in a mild sandalwood, on the air.

A few JSP scents can go a little headachey for me, and I assumed Selperniku would be the same, but it really doesn't cross that line. The scent is persistently present, but floats on the air in a way that moderates the heaviness of the perfume. This is an all-time fave for summer, different, well-crafted and very fun. This is definitely a scent that could wear you, so you have to come correct for it. A delight!

I’ve finally received my bottle and can now share my own impressions
This fragrance is truly unusual. Personally, I’ve never smelled anything quite like it.

From the very first notes, there’s a burst of vivid greenery. The combination of petitgrain and cypress seems to create a slightly chemical nuance — almost like the smell of something you’d find in a hardware store.

Then it shifts into the feeling of a lush patch of greenery on a hot summer day: cypress, southern pines, and something else distinctly southern and nostalgic, straight from childhood. The sea is nearby…
You’re sitting on the shore, eat crackers, apricots, and other little tasty things your mom brought along to the beach. Your heart feels light, and you’re simply happy.
That’s the vibe this scent gives me.

That said, I didn’t actually find any apricot here. I’m from Novorossiysk and know many varieties of apricots firsthand — but I don’t smell them at all. Maybe apricots are different in America?

In the base, a soft, slightly creamy butteriness remains. Still, I definitely wouldn’t call this fragrance sweet. It does transform dramatically compared to the opening, but it’s more creamy than sweet — with about as much sweetness as a glass of milk.

So I went out with the dog wearing Selperniku and my usual eccentric outfit. Outside in the fresh air, Selperniku's sillage is still amazing. But you mostly smell like melted butter. This is probably proof that I have enough self-confidence. I could run into acquaintances, and they would wonder why I smell like clarified butter. Family tester Q put it this way: "it reminds me of the butter lamps in the Buddhist center." She is right. I think this might be because perfume-making is a hobby for Mr. Biebel. He doesn’t live off it, and it’s probably just one of many ways for him to express himself creatively. Therefore, he doesn’t necessarily have to create something that excites the masses.

Tragically, Selperniku smells wonderful directly on my arm when you get your nose really close. Really great. The butter there merges with the juniper, the immortelle, and the fresh chamomile. Heavenly. Nose close - really great. Nose away - butter lamp.

Family tester M cannot share this assessment and generally finds that Selperniku smells like vomit. That’s nonsense. Selperniku is many things, but not sour. I occasionally deal with vomit in my profession and know what it smells like. But you can’t argue about scent impressions. Family tester M would give Selperniku 0 points. At least he didn’t kick me out of the house (like he did with Mukhallat by Montale). I wore Selperniku during dinner with the family, and no one lost their appetite.

As a Buddhist, you can wear Selperniku without any problem at the weekly Puja or other events. You are then a butter lamp among many.