“And now I [f]oam to wheat, a glitter of seas.” - Ariel by Sylvia Plath

While most botanical perfumes celebrate the beauty of plants and bring the most popular notes to life again and again, I thought of creating scents which could stand out on their own, since perfumery is an art form and is supposed to be very personal, expressive and highly subjective, hence forget about the rules of classic perfumery when you happen to smell Ariel and Manuscript perfumes in general: they are raw and unedited (made after a sparkle of inspiration without long and deliberate tweaks which may last for weeks before the final blend is ready).

Dark notes are easy to encounter among the natural aromatics but most are hard to incorporate in the common fragrance families. It is also so easy to overdose the blend and many perfumers are afraid to ruin the scent completely. Dark notes come not only from the aroma chemicals but also from the aesthetics of a word itself. The complex game of poetry writing, perfume making and self-expression/exploration are the dominant theme of Ariel.

What is Ariel poem about? “Ariel‘ by Sylvia Plath describes the terror of a wild horseback ride and the mental and emotional transformation that the rider, and speaker, goes through as she faces death… In an interview after her death, Ted Hughes, Plath’s husband, explained that “Ariel” was the name of her horse. Without this information, understanding this poem is almost impossible.” - Poem Analysis

The notes I have chosen for the perfume speak for themselves: dark mood (galbanum, black pepper, black tea, black spruce, patchouli), ‘Ariel’ word literal interpretation as a hint at the ‘Little Mermaid’ and her dismal fate, the Little Mermaid dies with a broken heart and dissolves into sea foam upon the waves (seaweed, cypress atlantica, orris root, lavender), the momentous horse riding experience (botanical musk). So the fragrance can be divided into three main subtopics which appear and vanish throughout the poem too: a swift ride through the predominantly dark mood (or rather death oriented one as in most Plath’s poems) on a horse through the local landscape (or rather personality landscape) which varies, stumbles and gets aborted through lines.

Ariel starts with very dark verdant notes of galbanum which sounds almost bitter but is balanced by black pepper and warmer black tea which are woven into the heart notes of black spruce and lavender absolute which give a hint of the sea along with orris root with its translucent powdery scent forming a touch of the foaming saltwater, followed by cypress atlantica and seaweed, an aquatic blend, salty, yet omnipresent throughout the blend; the perfume ends with an earthy but still shadowy touch of botanical musk (a plant alternative for animalics in vegan perfumery) and patchouli which is a classic finishing noir note.

The perfume is not a reflection of the single poem, rather a reimagined artwork of a certain persona who Sylvia Plath has always been to her readers. Ariel was not made to impose dark spirits but rather invites you to explore a different side of our personalities, not often spoken about, in times of despair, hopelessness as well as ways to overcome them through poetry and scent, since poetry and writing in general are very often prescribed as therapy for melancholic moods. Think of Ariel perfume as a healing ritual for your mind and psyche: trenching on the lowest places a soul may take and the highest where light can be seen by using the right tools at the right moment. ‘Read’ Ariel slowly, as it changes abruptly in its phases: brisk, bitter salty, obscure, animalic, flowering and blinking at times…

Recommended reading for those in love with Sylvia Plath’s writing and Ariel perfume notes. The order of the books is my personal preference but you can start with any of them simply because S.P. was a prolific writer and the bigger part of the oeuvre published after her death was in fact personal diaries and letters which are immensely fascinating and absorbing and are a must read for those who want to improve their writing skills or are looking for a source of daily life reflections.

• The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather L. Clark

• The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath and Karen V. Kukil (Editor)

• Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume I and Volume II by Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil (Editors)