Sweetly scented of toasted almonds, amarena cherries, sun-warmed hay and vanilla custard, tonka is one of the most luscious and seductive in a perfumer’s palette. Ever heard of the good 'ole Tonka bean? Its one of the most common and important perfume ingredients today. The tonka bean tree (Dipterix odorata), a legume also known as cumaru, may grow to be 1,000 years old in the tropical rainforests Central and South America where the rose-colored flowers produce a fruit that bears a precious single bean over an inch in length.These trees rise over the dense tropical canopy as they yearn for sun where the fruits ripen in the summer. During this time, the tonka beans are gathered freshly fallen by indigenous locals of the tropical rainforest while...
Titillating news, folks. The Big Mama of white florals has bloomed at last. I say “titillating” because the scent of this flower has a risqué reputation. The website Fragantica.com describes it as “the harlot of perfumery . . . carnal, creamy and contradictory.” Tuberose itself, is like the femme fatale of the flower world: so heavenly and alluring it’s dangerous. The website also leaked that the Victorians (so priggish, they put skirts on their piano legs) forbade young girls from inhaling the odor of tuberose for fear they might have “spontaneous orgasms.” Whew. We can’t, alas, confirm such an occurrence ourselves (this being a family article) but the online scribblers of such saucy information do make a...
Layered is a premium fragrance house for all perfume lovers. We make unique and exotic Eau de Parfum that empower our customers to feel devine. The company started in 2018 as a side project that catered to people who requested custom made fragrances. Today, Layered serves thousands of customers around the world, our products are still 100% handcrafted, and freshly made to order. We're headquartered in Los Angeles, California but our journey started in Cairo, Egypt. Founder Story In 2002, after graduating school, Hany Hafez decided to open his first boutique in Cairo, Egypt. Then in 2010, Hany picked up his bags and journeyed to Europe. Finally, a year later he found his new home in the United States...
Self-indulgent, intoxicating and potent. Tipping the scales at nearly $5,000 a pound, Oud is one of the most expensive and most desired perfume ingredients in the world. Also known as oudh, aoud, or 'Liquid Gold' with it's heavy, rich and almost animalistic smell that combines wood, incense, and ambergis, it is a synonym for East where it comes from. Oud is the channel, that bridge between the eastern and western perfume industry that are seemingly polar opposites. That can explain its popularity in the West lately. “Oud is astonishingly rare,” says Chandler Burr, the former New York Times perfume critic and author of The Emperor of Scent. “It has a very particular scent and there is nothing like it on the market. It’s dark, rich and opaque.” Rooted in...
