L’Aventura Perfumes The Faraway
I have traveled to many places but have no desire to leave New Mexico. ~ Rudolfo Anaya, American author
Jessica Mara of L’Aventura Perfumes
Santa Fe-based artisanal perfumer Jessica Mara of L’Aventura Perfumes is possessed of boundless creativity as well as curiosity – and based upon my initial impressions of the sampler she recently sent me, a secure sense of personal identity as an artist. As regards perfumery, my sense is that she composes from her own experience and fertile imaginings. Of her five perfumes, the one which compelled me immediately was L’Aventura Perfumes The Faraway – a foray into the sacred land of northern New Mexico, high deserts inhabited by extreme contrasts; a place in which the visionary St. Jeromes amongst us find solace and inspiration by our wild lones. In such an isolated locus one feels themselves part and parcel of the savagely beautiful landscape as Jessica describes it: “The Faraway comes from the high deserts of northern New Mexico. In this land of extremes, white sage, Douglas fir, juniper and piñon are set amongst wind carved cliffs which tower over an icy river lined by shady cottonwood trees.”
The Ghost Ranch by Georgia O’Keefe via The Georgia O’Keefe Museum which also sells L’Aventura Perfumes The Faraway in their giftshop
I have yet to experience the desert, but I have longed to for quite some time – and L’Aventura Perfumes The Faraway reaffirms that longing by virtue of its startling ability to evoke the varied conifers and flinty mineralic aspect of cliffs chiseled and whittled into heroic forms by the constant wind currents which blow through the Southwest; the multiple earthy and celestial hues which appear with the richness of varying shifts of light. I envision shades of viridian, ocher, celestial blues and dusky violets. I hear the eerie strains of an Aeolian harp or theremin.
“Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.” ~ Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
Desert sage (also known as purple sage) contributes a camphorous cooling aroma with an herbalcy reminiscent of rosemary; juniper is both tonic and jammy – lively and balsamic, both woody and fruity in character. I cannot speak to the fragrance of saltcedar – a deeply-rooted plant which was brought to the US in the 1800s to control erosion, and has proliferated exponentially ever since. Sedges are actually part of the cypress family, are perennials and evergreen: there exist many varieties, including sweet flag, which also known as calamus (hailing from early Egyptian and Biblical times). The crushed leaves possess a strong citrus/spicy odor profile. In The Faraway, the overall effect is one of jammy, cineolic verdancy – the pronounced sense of being surrounded by coniferous plants both soaring above and under foot: spicy, herbal, balsamic and earthy. A mineralic facet is an important thread in this perfume’s fabric, and provides an atmospheric otherworldliness to The Faraway: the northern deserts are a dream landscape which actually exists in real time and is not a phantom of the imagination. Fiercely green and independent, L’Aventura Perfumes The Faraway is a fragrance for the naturalist, the iconoclast, and the dreamer. Notes: Desert sage, juniper, salt cedar, sedge grass, warm sandstone
Samples kindly provided by the perfumer – many thanks! My nose is my own…
~ Ida Meister, Deputy and Natural Perfumery Editor
Thanks to Jessica Mara we have a draw for one 50 ml bottle of L’Aventura Perfumes The Faraway in the US and Canada only. Register here. To enter the draw, you must be a registered reader. To be eligible, please comment on what appealed to you in Ida’s review and where you live. Draw closes 1/6/2022
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Jessica Mara is the 171th in our American Perfumer Series
All photos belong to Jessica Mara unless otherwise noted.
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