Baiser de Florence - Ella K
Baiser de Florence - Ella K Parfums
Baiser de Florence
by Sonia Constant
for Ella K Parfums
« It is midday, I see the church open. I must enter »
By these words does Paul Claudel open his most beautiful poem, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. By these also do we describe, without further asay, this perfume : Baiser de Florence. Although it is the second Ella K perfume featured in our Reviews, it is in fact our first love. Baiser de Florence, like the eponymous city, is a crush. It is passionate, striking – it is trustworthy, it doesn’t fade out over time. Baiser de Florence is a kiss at the turn of a fiery street, a lip-to-lip over an horizon of heated tiles.
Fiery indeed for this kiss burns like glowing embers, built around a sublime myrrh, one of the most beautifully rendered since Myrrhe Ardente. It is a wild material with a character of its own, sensual like the Queen of Sheba and terrifying like the wood of the Holy Cross. It is both disturbing and enticing, as hypnotising as a succubus and as vivifying as an onction of Holy Chrism. On our skin, Baiser de Florence reveals a magnificent myrrh, bearing the odour of its colour : a transparent terracotta red. It is sticky like a smear of lipstick on one’s neck, like the shroud on the body of Christ, like honey on a stick, like sweat on one’s head.
Sticky indeed for this Baiser is a slightly broken sugary lip, in which curls drips a nectar-like saliva. Vanilla joins the myrrh to offer a sensual, fleshy, fleshly accord to behold and touch and taste and bite. It is the long awaited kiss of his lover to Lorenzaccio. It is a pinkey lip, soft as an apricot, fleshy as a fig, juicy as a ripe pomegranate. A perfect lip, soft and smooth. The marble lip of Michelangelo.
Of marble indeed for this kiss is white. Like jasmine bells curling up Florentine pillars, bringing a resolutely floral, quietly animal, assuredly regal facet to an overall resinous scent. Regal like marble, though not the one paving the ways of the Escurial, nor the golden ones adorning the walls of Byzantium, but rather the spicy, faceted and sunkissed stone, washen with perfumes and herbs which put all Renaissance artists into vertigo.
Vertiginous indeed, for like the rest of Sonia Constant’s works, Baiser de Florence is neverendingly vertical. It seizes, it lifts, it surprises, getting close to the highest skies as it evokes the incense of silent cathedrals. It is a faithful kiss, a devoted, praying kiss. The kiss of a romantic mind, buried in debts who, as he tries to escape his creditors, weaves in and out of silent courtyards to seek refuge in the silence of the Duomo and kiss, with a cheek bathed in sweat and tears, the feet of the Madonna who greets him with a smile.
The Madonna indeed for Baiser de Florence, just like the Duomo, is an architectural masterpiece and iris is its keystone. Florentine iris. White, immaculate, with an undescribable perfume close to that of newborn babies. Virginal root bearing the scent of innocence offered in bulk to the Unwedded Bride. Boasting a powdery smell from the very first whiffs, getting more intense as you live with it. Iridised kiss, the kiss of motherhood, it is the scent of a mother getting to know her child ; it is the scent of his mother never leaving her child. A cristalline iris, polished on a whetstone, freed of its uncountable dregs : it lost its leathery facet, it forsook its violet accents to only render its own. Simply.
Simply indeed for along with this blend of iris and jasmine and myrrh, an incense rises. Under the pompous dome overlooking Firenze, on the marble interlacing of the cathedral, behind the bichromatic wall of saints austere, echoes the song of canons assembled in the shadow of the pillars. Their lofty silhouettes slowly move on the walls, like the wreaths of olibanum. The cold smoke grazes their skin, goes through their silky ornaments to join the murmur of canticles sung in latin – it fills up the space and void, covering the cupola like a mythic fragrant mist.
Covering it indeed for Baiser de Florence covers one’s body like tenderly cope. The mist covering the magnificent frescoes is akin to the coyness which plucks the lips of the one we kiss. It is a veil of gentleness which conquers a peaceful heart. Heliotrope with its exotic sillage. It is the veil which makes visible the invisible, sensible the unspeakable, which mends broken hearts and bends proud souls. ‘Tis the screed protecting such secret.
Secret indeed for Baiser de Florence is a mystery. It leaves a mark on our skin yet shies away from us. We miss it, he precedes us. ‘Tis the scent of a moment, of a tension, the scent of a glance caught on a second, leaving a trail in our hearts. ‘Tis a sillage caught in a sentence – hauting us. ‘Tis a gregorian sentence clinging onto our soul, the taste of a love we wish we’d never forget, ‘tis the memory of a joy we hope shall never wither.
« It is midday, I see the church open. I must enter »
All is said, my fools for senses.
It is the scent of the Sun, of silence,
Of haste and haven.
The scent of Florence.
Baiser de Florence - Ella K Parfums
EDP 75ml - 230€
Available in France, in the Bongénie in Switzerland, at Bergdorf’s, at the Tsum Moscow and worldwide.
For more informations, visit their website : www.ellakparfums.com