NofNirvana

Heels clack on the stone floor of Croft Manor as Lady Lara Croft descends the stairs.
She wears a white strap dress and a cream-colored hat with a wide brim adorned with a white flower.
I have never seen this facet of her before. I am not used to seeing her so femininely dressed. Even her dark hair falls loosely over her back.
And those shoes. Are they custom-made? She recently mentioned a Florentine shoemaker.
No straps and no cuts to compensate. Definitely bespoke.
This transformation from adventurer to cultured lady surprises me, but it is simply an extension of herself. Lara is autonomous enough to wear what she wants, when she wants. A subtler form of strength has emerged in her, not combative, yet she is characterized by poise, style, and confidence.
I think what impresses me about her is the interplay of softness and strength that makes her so elegant.
She hasn’t changed roles; she has shifted perspectives. And she remains true to herself, precisely because she stays so agile.
One single suspicious sound and she could effortlessly slip off her custom heels just as easily as she put them on, and run barefoot with a focused gaze.

“Yes, a lady should be modest.”

The scent starts for my nose with 4711. However, this citrus note is quickly overshadowed by a resinous, almost slightly bitter galbanum.
Then the fragrance becomes greener and fresher, evolving further, becoming delicately floral and suddenly very soapy with powdery nuances.
After a short time, I can already perceive the incense; it flashes through here and there, adding balsamic, woody tones and becoming increasingly present over time.
Everything is rounded off by a fine, sweet, gentle veil of patchouli that beautifully envelops the clean, green, and floral facets of the fragrance with a very almond-like tonka bean.

High Heel White is not an inconspicuous scent; after just one or two sprays, which last about six hours, I feel elegant, calm, almost ceremonial, and indeed like a "lady" in the classical sense. And therein lies the tension that defines this fragrance; it creates a balancing act between many levels and impressions, revealing soft, seductive facets while still appearing assertive.

I came across Devotion by chance.
While visiting another city, the bottle caught my eye first, and to be honest, I wasn't as optimistic about it as I am with other fragrances from the house.
An oversized, golden heart surrounded by flowers and tied with a bow? Not really my style.
While the bottle may polarize - the inner values reliably bring me back to the D&G counter.
The label, founded in 1985, delivers exactly the kind of clear, uncomplicated freshness I always seek with L'Impératrice, Light Blue pour Homme Forever, and the good old Light Blue Eau Intense.
Also, The Only One 2 and Q Parfum feel like little gifts; reliable and charming.
But with Devotion, they have truly won me over.
Right after the first spray, I knew that this fragrance would eventually find its way into my collection.
I managed to endure its absence for about two weeks, during which I thought about it far too often.
Today, about a year later, my bottle is half empty. And probably even less would be left if I hadn't layered it throughout the fall/winter.
I prefer to do this with Vanille West Indies.
With this combination, compliments pour in from both genders, but even without a powerhouse on top, Devotion is simply melt-worthy.
Doesn't devotion even mean love in a metaphorical sense?
When I think of devotion, I simply think of love, and the bottle design subtly hints at this as well. But now I will stop complaining about appearances, I promise.

About the scent:
It works almost always; you can wonderfully build it up according to the occasion or personal feeling. I also find that Devotion works year-round. Personally, I see it less in a serious setting, as it comes across as very joyful and gourmand. Devotion is sweet; the fruity lemon has lost its acidity when it was candied. The orange blossom is also sweet, yet fresh, and flows almost seamlessly with the creamy vanilla. The scent usually accompanies me for a good seven hours, which completely satisfies me.

The sun hung in the sky like an angry eye, unmoving, merciless. Every dusty step felt like a broken promise of improvement. The cloudless sky created a shimmering heat beneath it, from which his mind conjured liquid, clear, cold water.
His gaze flickered and his thoughts evaporated, barely conceived, they turned to silence and finally dust. His feet found a rhythm that forced him to keep dragging himself forward, not to become a completely dry piece of leather, like his throat already was.

He only looked up when the first breeze in hours gently brushed across his face. Before him stood a sign. In disbelief, he closed his eyes. It was hard for him to open them again, but when he did, he saw the sign once more. He stumbled now more hastily. “Oasis No. 7 - Drinks, Dreams & Dust” he read with squinted eyes. He followed the arrow beneath the letters with his gaze and noticed a shape in the distance, bright, flickering, continuously melting into multicolored hues. White, angular edges emerged from the heat haze as he got closer.
Finally, he stood before the round, recessed archway of the whitewashed Mediterranean flat-roofed house, which smelled chalky and whose walls beckoned him coolly inside. Colorful LED lights lined the walls, and he didn’t even notice the sparse windows, for before him stood a bar.

“Water,” he croaked to the bartender. The bartender raised one corner of his mouth and nodded at him. Swiftly, he grabbed a heavy long drink glass, set it down in front of him, opened a drawer from which cool mist emerged, and pulled out a perfectly shaped greenish lemon. The bartender's speed took on new dimensions as he rolled the lemon softly and sliced it. But when he turned on the tap and the water shot into the glass, the half-thirsty man realized that impatience was no longer just pulling at him, but also pleading. A chrome siphon came into play, bubbling not only the water but also the pronounced desire to finally drink.

“Here you go.” The bartender set the glass in front of him, and his thirst knew no manners anymore. He drank. The water fizzed, electrifying his mouth like a kiss after a long abstinence. A hint of citrus cut through the fatigue of his senses with its fine acidity. The lemon gave the water a soul, providing long-awaited relief and freshness.
“Another please,” he said breathlessly towards the bartender, who was just adjusting his bow tie. He could hardly hear himself anymore. Around him, the bar disappeared. Shady afternoons under lemon trees that he had never experienced appeared before his eyes. He drank and dreamed. And when he woke up, everything was dusty, except for his memory.

Blanc Polychrome is refreshing, it calms, carries me to another place, and almost makes me feel like I could drink it. To me, it smells like sparkling lemon water. But it also has a fig-leaf green quality and a bit of bitter moss, and if I may let my imagination run a bit, somehow even like rain. Ambroxan is also present here, but I don’t find it disturbing; rather, it serves as a framework on which the fresh notes, foremost the juicy-looking lemon, sit and enjoy themselves. There’s also a clean, warm musk as a gentle base. The rhubarb primarily makes it zesty and gives it a pleasant acidity. Lavender gives it a wonderful balsamic quality that I wouldn’t have expected in a freshie. The scent also has a sweet, slightly floral side. I had thought of orange blossom, but it’s actually mandarin and jasmine. Blanc Polychrome is a modern scent, yes, also synthetic, but in the best way, in my opinion.
And with that: Cheers - to the moment when you realize that your imagination tastes better than reality.

Far out, away from the coast lies an island.
With a chapel as pure and bright as the moon, if it had only been cleaned with baking soda and vinegar.
There rests a mystical artifact that has existed since the dawn of civilization, if not even time itself. So my grandmother told me when I no longer wanted to hear the story of Ariel, the washing mermaid.
While she performed wonders in the laundry room, with a spin cycle so powerful it seemed to want to drive the weight of the world out of the fabric, she told me about her journey to that very island.
Back then, I knew nothing of the sworn community of housewives. Her words were full of reverence, imbued with care, like freshly ironed cotton can only show.

But back to the immaculate secret.
It’s about the white chapel on the bright island.
Shining like a freshly starched sheet, like innocence that has never encountered a stain.
You can only reach it by boarding a boat to cross the Clean Powder Sea. Not a particularly dangerous journey, unless you fall into the 60°C hot water. If you quickly traverse the freshly washed, fabric softener-soft waves, you can soon land on the Flower Pure shore. Fluffy foam piles up on the shore, sparkling in every imaginable color from apple blossom green to citrus fresh yellow. When you step into it, nothing clings to you.

Here begins the trial, and only those who pass may stay on the island; pristine cobblestones mark the way, so clean that you almost want to take off your shoes, as they seem freshly wiped. But are they already dry?
If you’ve made the right choice, you follow the shimmer to the heart of the island. The closer you get to the chapel, the more shimmering it appears, whiter than snow, brighter than the smile of an angel. Before you can wash your hands, an altar rises, shaped from white enamel, more radiant than any plate in a dish soap commercial.
Upon it lies:
the perfect piece of soap.

Michael B. Knudsen, born in Sweden in 1911, came to America in 1920 and created his first fragrance in 1950. From 1957, he hand-filled his creation “A man’s cologne” in New York and sold it to a men’s outfitter on 46th Street. The fragrance house Gravel was founded and marketed the first men’s fragrance from the USA. In the elegantly minimalist designed bottles, the name-giving pebbles from the Hudson River can be found, which have always identified the brand’s scents as unique; the alcohol dissolves minerals from the pebbles and creates a coloration. Knudsen’s vision and realization of a fragrance that remains unmistakable yet timeless proved to be a challenging process, as his high quality standards hindered classic marketing. A concept we now know as niche perfume.
After Knudsen’s death in 2009, the production of Gravel was halted until a new rights holder emerged in 2018 after nearly two years of negotiations, who made it their mission to preserve the founder’s legacy.
“In over [...] 60 years of his creative period [Michael Knudsen] developed many different fragrances. He didn’t just create perfumes for himself, but also for other brands. [...] He launched the fragrances under different names than we do now,” says Christian Blessing, who took over Gravel with his father. They are working “little by little through the estate [...], letting particularly promising formulas be recreated for testing, [...] seeking advice on which compositions are feasible. Sometimes we find formulas [...], to which there is a personal connection.”

Speaking of personal connection, when I first discovered this fragrance in an upscale Munich department store, it was the pebbles that caught my attention. To this day, such little stones remind me of carefree childhood days by the water. When I then discovered Evolution and sprayed it, I was lost. I immediately had the image of my grandmother in front of my eyes and suddenly remembered exactly what her laundry room had looked like. Evolution had drawn me into its linear, squeaky clean spell.
This fragrance has little to do with Evolution - one might think. If I think a bit outside the box, the opposite of cleanliness comes to mind: dirt. For some people, like my grandmother, dirt is not tolerated for long. Disgust itself is an evolutionary early warning system, a neural mechanism, and hygiene the resulting logical actionism. Cleanliness is indirectly rewarded evolutionarily, as long as it does not take excessive form. Hygiene represents a survival advantage and is a primary component of social selection.

About the scent: There is almost no progression. From beginning to end fresh, soapy aldehydes. Hidden beneath; white flowers, slightly sweet, and a ginger that continuously refreshes the scent with citrus but also rounds it off with spice. Occasionally, I can recognize woody notes, warm like sun-warmed wooden furniture, or perhaps grandma’s rocking chair?

Thank you for being there, Evolution.

You are late. And your steps sound like questions on the gravel.
I smile like a big cat. Hello, stranger.
May I accompany you for a while?
Yes, my teeth are sharp, but you have no reason to worry - I won’t do anything to you, nothing you don’t want.

Are you wondering about my gloves?
With them, I look soft, believe me.
Black leather over my fingers and body.
I don’t wear it because of the cold, but because of you.

We know each other. Don’t you remember me anymore?
You’ve seen me before. On that day, I wore a light dress, in my hand, I had a bouquet of white flowers you’ve never seen, foreign like a dream from which you woke up too soon. My black hair danced in the warm breath of the summer wind.
Well, it’s irrelevant. That was some time ago.

I know a shortcut. To you. Or let’s say: in your direction.
This way, through this gate - it leads to a garden. Come, follow me.
Do you feel how the garden breathes?
Golden branches stretch towards distant stars, sparkling pearls in the dark night blue.
In between, fruits as big as apples, dull like aged gold and heavy like forbidden names.
“They are poisonous,” I whisper.
But you’ve already bitten into one.
I see it in your eyes.
They shine differently now. Like someone who knows too much or can forget too little.
Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. Don’t look at me like that.
I will leave now. You can follow my shadow.
It flows over the path, becoming narrower, fainter, until it disappears - like a thought you must not think.

And you?
You stand in the garden.
Between branches of gold.
With the taste of forbidden fruit on your tongue.

“Like a devilish trail of smoke left by Satan in paradise,” Serge Lutens himself describes this scent. He adds: “Some say this scent will enchant you; others say it will drive you mad. And yet others claim, too much of it - and you are doomed to death.[...]”

Datura Noir is one of my favorite floral scents. However, in the first months, I perceived a note that strongly reminded me of shoe polish:
Thick, black, almost leathery goo that vividly reminded me of tar, garnished with a sweetness that carried a scent of white, yellowish flowers. By now, I smell less shoe polish; a surprising olfactory path that I am not averse to, as it also evokes leathery associations. More powder, musk, and also something creamy, gentle resonates, vanilla, tonka bean, coconut? I sense a hint of almond, perhaps also cyanide, the scent does play with the lethal theme.
Datura Noir is a beautiful, floral fragrance that comes with a depth I don’t usually find in floral scents; like bright flowers at an abyss, it plays with its captivating facets, enticing the noser. Here, caution is advised.