NATURAL WELL-BEING AS A REVELATION OF EXISTENCE
In his quest for beauty and perfection, the pastellist shuns the easy way out, finding his balance in the art of mastering cameo combinations and offering compositions of astonishing figurative dynamics. The impressionist, on the other hand, composes with a layered effect, creating an instant sensation of light.
The sense of smell is the sovereign sense of memories and emotions. By chance, a fragrant breeze hits your nose as you stroll through an alleyway. While the language areas of your brain are still searching for the name of the scent you’re inhaling, your limbic system has already sent you images of the memory and emotion associated with that same scent.
The film starts to run again in your head, and it’s a total sensory experience that you relive virtually: you’re able to describe what you were doing, who was there, where you were, the colors, the sounds, your sensations as well as that famous smell that links all these elements together. Then, the name or source of that smell is transmitted to you, like a wagon that has fallen behind schedule.
Proust describes this phenomenon in A la recherche du temps perdu, with his famous madeleine. Smells are direct vehicles to the most intense snippets of your past. Emotional catalysts, intuitive, instinctive. The prowess of an archaic sense used for survival purposes since our distant ancestors, now put to good use for hedonism.
The nose creates a memory through infinite patience, waiting for the alchemy to take place. The sense of smell is one of our most intimate senses, and must penetrate us in order to be perceived and analyzed. Odor molecules fuse chemically with our olfactory sensors. This physiological fact prompts us to be as scrupulous as possible in selecting the inputs that go into our fragrances.
Some perfumery creations can take several years to finalize. The idea of giving free rein to the play of association between luminosities and textures of changing materials is accompanied for the perfume composer by the art and patience of mastering long timescales. Behind each material lies the expression of a multitude of sensitive data that unfold over time.
According to Annick Le Guérer, anthropologist, philosopher and historian of odors, the sense of smell and perfume, the primary use of perfume is therapeutic. Today, this ultimate fascination with protection has resurfaced in the form of inventive perfumery, combining the quest for well-being with a taste for sensory pleasure.
the creative spirit
of MAISON BLANC
Curious, observant, attentive, thoughtful, inventive, intensely hard-working – these are just some of the facets that a creator of olfactory forms needs to develop. Attracted by the mystery of olfactory creation, the practice of perfume composition helps to channel a life tormented by ignorance of a nature that eludes us. Wandering in the face of a profusion of possibilities, in perpetual search of a balance that eludes us, olfactory assembly is an addiction that soothes an all-consuming curiosity.
Creative thinking in perfumery is constant, and can be based on insignificant stimuli or complex forms, such as the indefatigable memory of a morning flooded by the blossoming of a rosa centifolia bush in the Grasse region, the echolalia of the memory of a vibrant jasmine on a summer’s night in Menton, the spring scent of the ingambe breath of a lime blossom breeze in Provencal Barony.
Driven by a desire to understand the logic of plants through the inventiveness that perfumery requires, the journey is constant, the escape beneficial. Perfumery creation is fraught with obstacles, codes and standards.
A wall stood in front of them.
Unable to avoid it, they set out to climb it.
Self-educated, daring to think outside the box, trying to penetrate the complexity of a world whose secrets are better preserved than the secrets of the universe.
“Our aim is to express the fundamentals of an authentically natural perfumery that will leave no one indifferent.”