500 years and Spice must flow – Etat Libre d’Orange’s roses from 2019.

From 2006., when the first Etat Libre d’Orange perfumes were launched, until 2019., ELDO presented only one rose-centred perfume: striking Rossy de Palma Eau de Protection.

But in just finished 2019. Etienne de Swardt – bang! – launched three roses: 500 years, Spice Must Flow and Experimentum Crucis.

After being exclusively launched for Selfridge in January, the first two became broadly available in November, and Experimentum Crucis was launched in April.

Just about enough to form 2019. rose bouquet, and this 2019. ELDO’s there-flower rose bouquet is, as Gilbert Bécaud sang, about the rose, the flower that dances on top of time: 
Roses rule the compositions and the ideas behind them – there is an idea of the rose of Yesterday (500 years) and the rose of Tomorrow (Spice must flow), and to them is connected the rose of Now (Experimentum Crucis). 

“With this flower everything begins and ends”, says ELDO. 

Along with the launch date, 500 years and Spice must flow share the main spicy-oriental olfactive profile:

A  crimson Turkish rose in both perfumes is infused with cardamom, saffron and pepper, as the focus of ELDO’s narrative is placed on the merchants of spices in the past and the future:

Spices started to flow intensely 500 years ago, in the wake of modern polemic and plural culture. Spice merchants enabled the Renaissance enlightening processes that transformed Western culture, pushing it further away from the Dark Ages.

Along with sophisticated Arabian oriental knowledge, the merchants who transported spices from the East also brought back to Europe forgotten and rejected Old Greek knowledge in sciences, philosophy, and arts. 
The dominance of flat, two-dimensional perspectives in art, philosophy, and the social order gave rise to the alternative of three-dimensional perspective and anti-dogma, polemic thinking.  

The accumulated wealth of a new third class of merchants and citizens created the social conditions for the more liberal flourishing of the arts.

The perfumery is the child of the Renaissance, too.

In this context, the name of the second in the pair of Etat Libre Orange’s modern Western spicy-orientals—Spice must flow—isn’t just a quote but a direct reference to the cult Robert Herbert’s sci-fi saga Dune, published in 1965 and first filmed in 1984. 

“The spice must flow” represents the imperative of a free-spirited society and culture. 
It points directly to ELDO’s libertarian concept, which promotes and celebrates the pluralism of perspectives and the liberty of trade. 

Once again, Etienne de Sward found a way to sublimate the historical, social and political narrative into perfume, and his creative force did it by producing another immaculate string of both cultural and olfactive symbols:

The rose in both perfumes represents The Perspective.
If the spices flow and the trade progress
we experience its scentful presence
and we flourish,
in any time, from past to future.

In the creation of 500 Years and Spice Must Flow Etienne de Swardt relied on the perfumers of Mane:
Behind 500 years is Cecille Matton, who also created Etat Libre Orange’s gourmands and expressively cardamom Remarkable people (2015.), and for Spice Must Flow is responsible Mathilde Bijaoui, who also created beautifully warm and luminous gingery Like This (2010.).

I do believe that it is not a coincidence that Matton and Bijaoui decided to treat relevant spices in their creations as leitmotifs, connecting their previous works for ELDO with this recent one. So, the spices—cardamom and ginger—flow in the handwritings of both perfumers, too, spicing up the link between the present and the past of Etat Libre d’ Orange’s timeline.

The third dimension, it is.

500 YEARS

A fully bloomed Turkish rose appears from the sparkling haze of fresh bergamot and saffron.
Her crimson petals are enveloped with a generous dose of cardamom. The dense, spicy opening oscillates between the shade and candlelight and deepens as oud emerges as the companion of the bold and dark oriental rose.

The core accord is three-dimensional: cardamom, rose, and oud form a refined and opulent oriental heart. Oud bears no obtrusive heaviness as its more pronounced, demanding facets are carefully removed. It firms the surface petals are spread on and works as a static, supportive woody contrast to the still sparkling bergamot and spices.
Though the oud will lurk beneath the rose almost until the full drydown, its presence unobtrusively supports the oriental origins of a rose and cardamom.

As the perfume blends with the skin, the spicy-oriental heart becomes sweeter and softer, almost on the verge of gourmand. 

In the base, cocoa and maybe even a touch of vanilla flirt with the soft, palatable sweetness of amber (and maybe some cocoa-like patchouli).
The sweet cocoa-ambery layer blurs the presence of spices and oud, and the rose seems enveloped in a warm, soft, dark blanket.

Wearing the perfume, I felt like I indulged in cosiness in a half-dark private chamber enlightened by soft, trembling candlelight.
Afterwards, while thinking about the 500-year experience, I remembered diving into orientally ornamented depths only to find cosy, warm, and calm intimacy.

Spice must flow  

In Robert Herbert’s saga, the Spice (Melange) is a product of giant desert worms living on the sandy planet Arakkis (Dune), and it allows travel through time and space. 

The spice infuses the rose and flows through its dark petals. The spices are making it happen—I flew wearing the perfume, and I felt mighty.

Spice must flow opens with the spice mix, which is simultaneously cold and warm. Swirling of bright saffron, coldly aromatic cardamom, freshly piquant ginger, and warmer cinnamon creates a voluminous illusion of a glittering frame in which the dark ruby rose appears. 

Though it is not listed in the notes, I smell oud enhancing and supporting the rose in the first stages of development, but this might be the olfactive illusion the spice-melange creates.
The crimson darkness sparkles.

Further in, as the rose gains strength and volume, the smokiness appears: it almost feels like the dark smokiness is some side effect or an incense resonance of swirling spices. While the spicy rose blooms into the incense rose, it becomes colder, mystic, almost distant, as if centred only in herself.

Looking backwards, the rose started her progression as voluminously velvet material spicy-rose and ended it as a mystical silver-sparkling and coldish incensy-rose, detached from material self.  

To those who know the world of Arrakis and the characters in Herbert’s Dune, Spice Must Flow might present itself as a true Bene Gesserit rose.
Wearing Spice Must Flow, I got the feeling that I am enveloped in a giant and mighty, deeply crimson and velvety rose, genetically modified for generations and generations to become able to detach herself from the materiality and travel across time and space.