Sanctuary and Reverence. No 3 Cedarte and No 2 Myristica. Collection ‘Ceremony’- Porcelain Perfumery. Stine Hoff

Writ here in perfumes crafted with a pure intention are words whilst in communion with two of the three creations of Stine Hoff, Porcelain Perfumery, Denmark. There is something that runs like rivulets through the perfumery that arises from such Nordic places, I recognise it and it me. A purity, a certain light, a clarity of its components that gives rise to a perfection in composition . Continuing through all aspects of the production, from the pristine lines of the porcelain bottles, the production of the perfume and the ethics of Stine.

Simple is Beautiful - Cedarte and Myristica both dwell in realms of rites, forged before time, one resides in an ectasy of dancing amongst the sentinels of wooded places and the other in the reverent gaze through which we view the Gods. Stine had sent me the samples a while ago and now is the time to write their tales, strong and true. Deeply emotional voyages within the realms of each accompanied by the hauntingly beautiful photographs of Kirsty Mitchell for her memorial tribute book, Wonderland. There is within the simplicity of these perfumes a power that resides in nature which is nuturing to the very Soul matter of humans.

1, 4 and 5 Kirsty Mitchell, 2, 3 Cecile Hummeny 6. Kirsty Mitchell - Dryad

No 3. Cedarte - Collection Ceremony

Far, far away and yet within your flesh, there is a key, a key of elemental fabric wrought through with tears of joy, forged with clearest unadulterated airs, earth -fecund , deep and with the murmuring of ancient trees bound within. Cedarte is the forest as if encountered for the very first time, raw, all senses opened anew, intense and alert, the scent that offers a virgin sensorial revelation erasing all previous memory of what our senses thought they knew. A path of redemption, walking on untainted soil with newborn feet, a sanctuary offered in a purity. Eyes will see with unoccluded clarity, all forces of the forest are enveloped in Cedarte, clary sage, willowy, emanating a tendrilled caress, smudged in a cloak of purification, orris delivering a woven tapestry of dreams in a vermillion velvet box.

It divests me of all my gathered detritus and melds upon me a new skin of my original fabric. Filtered light through filigree arbre fingers dancing on virgin earth, a forest murmuring with cocooned rites and verdant embrace, an ecstacy that arises in billowing waves quenching my thirst upon the shore of its dappled ombre.

Cedarte is a fabled land where communion with nature exists, all good things of earth, it cloaks me in its burnished magic and elemental robes and I cannot be found or intruded upon, undone to myself once more.

American cedarwood

French clary sage

Moroccan orris butter

Labdanum

No. 2 Myristica - Collection Ceremony

A concoction of great unravelling, its voice begins with a bright intoning, a clarion call to shift, to recall the sense of awe and anticipation upon approaching a hallowed place. All shifts physically in accordance with the intention to focus illuminated by Myristica’s incandescent lemon, like a clear chime from an unknown source, its only purpose to measure the step, polish the thoughts and elevate the senses to perceive the extraordinary. All the elements dance on my skin, to draw me beyond the daily. The ever present overtones in low chants of Frankincense, whispering hauntingly beautiful breaths in harmony with my own.

Bathed in its luminousity, sun on winter parched skin, it is an essence of the heightened states we encounter in devotional, one foot in the physical realm and the other adrift in worlds elsewhere. Interwoven with spices that capitvate and entrance, subtlety imbuded with nutmeg and pepper, so pleasing to the perceptions that the envelopment is welcomed. Bewitching, breathtaking reverence, sensual and warm, it is the surges in all places of devotion, the sanctity of all my pilgrimages.

Myristica is all my sacred moments of communing, an altered rhythm of my heart, to walk in places where a thousand incantations have been laid with gentle hands at the feet of the God’s, a transcendence of my mortal self, briefly to touch the hem of Immortal vestments.