© Soliloquy Botanical Perfume Inspired by Virginia Woolf

Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things. A table, a chair, a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages. And the petal falling from the rose, and the light flickering as we sit silent.

― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Everyone has a moment when the next book you pick is the one full of quotes, for now, for the future, it is one long poem, written by a master of words to celebrate the inner beauty, the nature, the slow pace of a moment. It is in your hands as if to show you that certain things must be experienced in a different way…

"Mrs. Woolf has not only passed up superficial reality; she has also passed up psychological reality. She is not really concerned in "The Waves" with people, she is hardly concerned in the prosaic sense with humanity: she is only concerned with the symbols, the poetic symbols, of life--the changing seasons, day and night, bread and wine, fire and cold, time and space, birth and death and change. These things treated separately, as facts, are indeed the stuff of a novel; but treated collectively, as symbols, they are the stuff of poetry. In spirit, in language, in effect "The Waves" is--not a poetic novel but a poem, a kind of symphonic poem with themes and thematic development, in prose. It is as weak in genuine perceptiveness as it is rich in sensibility; and even when a character seems most skillful in penetrating himself, it is the essence of a mood that he captures, not a truth. Mrs. Woolf does not give us her characters as men and women; she gives them to us clearly in seed (Rhoda, for example, is "frightened and awkward") and in seed they remain throughout the book. Their thoughts, their words, their preliminary differences from one another become stylized and they themselves fit, at length, into a verbal pattern, half ornamentally. They are not six people but six imagist poets, six facets of the imagist poet that Mrs. Woolf is herself.” - Louis Kronenberger, The New York Times, Issue October 25, 1931.

I consider The Waves to be not only an experimental work which needs a different look at, but a different book, something you can return to many times. And that usually happens to poetry. Written in prose poetry the book explores the inner worlds of the protagonists, showing how much they are in fact connected with each other and the surroundings. The depictions of the scenery make you feel present in the moment, the soliloquies or monologues of the characters create an endless converstation which cannot be heard by anyone but the reader.

As soon as I started reading the book, I realized how much the blend of prose and poetry, the seascapes as if ‘painted’ by Woolf become a vivid inspiration for a possible fragrance, a sea inspired perfume.

Soliloquy is one of the perfumes which was composed based on the colour palette of the ingredients, a synesthesia of perfume making or, as I call it 'painting' a fragrance. Inspired by the sea theme, slow living moments and one of the greatest British novels. Soliloquy is a type of monologue of which the whole work consists. Slow, following the rhythm of the nature, waves and the lives of protagonists, written in prose poetry, the perfume, as the book itself, makes you slow down, contemplate and enjoy simple things in life...

It might be a bit difficult to categorize the scent character as I think it will unfold differently for each person. But as the ingredients are so closely related in their scent profiles, the experience is of a warm but fresh, eneveloping, sea like aroma.

The perfume has green but warm notes of soft green tea, tarragon, salty seaweed, earthy cepes, botanical ambra and oakmoss. The fragrance character is soft green, slightly earthy and salty.

And although I initially planned to make warmer perfumes for cold seasons, I think the slow contemplative novel by Woolf is perfect for long autumn evenings. The sea murmur, the wind in hair, the evocative and salty scent of sea water are something which make us meditate, even for a very short moment…