I would say that after all those Soviet years when perfumes were considered a bourgeoisie attribute, we lack beautiful, fragrant and intrinsically Russian olfactive creations - a souvenir, from Russia with love, like vodka, but perfumed.
And now it actually happened: we have a product that I could easily present to my foreign friends without feeling ashamed. The
SWITCH. PERFUMES & MOREcollaboration was created in Moscow for all who need to dream. The full official title of the collection is "SWITCH. Perfumes & More. Collection of perfume and accessories created by Anna Zworykina Perfumes, Sirinbird & JW Image Lab". It delivers a threefold impact on the senses: handmade natural perfumes by Anna Zworykina give an olfactory sensation, silk scarves and silk sleep masks designed by Irina Batkova touch us kinesthetically and visually, and photos by our colleague Evgeniya Chudakova move us visually.
Share your thoughts in a comment below for your chance to receive a mini-bar (set of five spray samples totaling 12.5 ml)!
Put away scientific language – the SWITCH items give you some extraneous thoughts, some new interesting images. They take you out of the everyday rush and pull you out of the matrix in which we are embedded.
Art director and head of communications of the project, Yulia Aleshkevich, described the main idea of the project as follows:
"The name SWITCH conveys the main idea of the collection: its authors want to remind you how important it is to regularly switch from regular objective reality to your personal dreams, and to find time in ones' career for themselves and their own lives. Sometimes monotonous perception may be switched off by color, image, or a pretty silk accessory. Or fragrance. A vivid, deep scent of a natural perfume rather than a common office fragrance. It touches you, and – SWITCH! – your feelings awake. You switch off the routine fuss – and switch on internal concentration. You make a brief – even only for a day, an hour! – escape from objective reality into your subjective reality. From the convulsive city tempo, from hard work, from oppressive circumstances or difficult relationships – into the world of your own fantasies, those most private, elusive but soul-soothing, life-harmonizing and victory-inspiring".
Describing her role as artistic director of the project, Yulia says: "The story of the collection is simple. I love Anya’s perfumes, I like Ira's scarves, I like to match my fragrances to accessories and vice versa. The idea to add perfumes to scarves made by my friends was literally in the air. Now, there are only two items in the accessories line, both made of pure silk - scarves and sleep-masks - but we are planning to develop this collection further."
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The collection consists of five silk scarf designs, also utiized in five silk sleep mask designs (you can switch to become "The Mermaid", "Vasilisa The Beautiful" and "Baba Yaga", you can walk into a forest looking for "Mushrooms and Butterflies" or "Aqua Vitae"). The Slavic names and images of those silks set the base for the collaboration, as both fragrances and illustrations were based on scarf design from an existing brand (Irina Batkova's scarves are known as the Sirinbird brand, a successful 2013 Russian startup). The silk masks were made specially for the collaboration – you need enough rest, sleep and dreams to work fruitfully. In addition, as a famous brand designer, Irina created the SWITCH identity.
Why have they chosen Slavic inspirations?
Anna Zvorykina: ”Perfumes and scarves were merged into a set of conventional metaphors of Slavic folklore, which, like any other, cover all things. And today we, the artists, address these issues in our own way, in pictures or in perfumes. Jean Cocteau said that the privilege of legends is to be out of time. Fairy tales could happen to us every minute, if you dare to notice”.
Anna Zworykina Irina Batkova
Irina Batkova: "Our Slavic cultural heritage is unique and diverse. The cultural layers are rich soil for creation. I want to talk about our history and unique culture using sensual, emotional, modern language. I am sure that the "Russian style" is timeless and our cultural heritage is one of the most extensive, multifaceted and interesting heritages of the world. And I want to make these designs more contemporary and recognizable for people from all corners of the globe”.
The photo series, made for the SWITCH project by Evgeniya, illustrates the main idea of the collection - switching from reality. There is no direct reference to Slavic folklore art used as the main inspiration source by Anna and Irina.
Evgeniya Chudakova:
"In the photo series for SWITCH appear both my 'inner empire', where the edge between reality and dream is blurred, and my hope for people to tap into themselves and their inner world more often instead of following only outer vectors all the time that are illusions sometimes. I wanted all photos to be 'kinesthetical' to the maximum. Of course, there are some inner senses <...> but I still want you to look for yourself".
However, we are mostly interested in the five
Anna Zworykina Perfumes. All the fragrances were created based on the designs. But this does not mean that the perfumes and scarves should be bought in pairs; You can find your own combination. Instead of being named, the perfumes are numbered. But it’s not just numbered moods.
I think that the name SWITCH means to Anna a little more than switching moods; her natural perfumes customers could switch from the standard fragrances of the perfume industry to hand-made, all-natural perfumes, unusual and sometimes difficult to understand. You can switch from urban life to natural life, meet forests, rivers, gardens... You can imagine yourself being another person in a different time and place, or maybe the hero of fairy tales, or to imagine yourself in your favorite places. The fragrances have oak moss, rose absolute, or any other natural material – but not a drop of synthetics. They are made without IFRA regulations.
You can select a 15 mL perfume bottle or a mini-bar (set of five spray samples totaling 12.5 ml). Some fragrances just turned around my attitude to natural perfumes totally: SWITCH №2 and SWITCH №3, for example, could easily compete with some niche fragrances.
№1 is described by Anna as a floral-woody composition with a balsamic tone. My limited experience with natural fragrances makes me say that many of the natural perfumes often smell about the same to me.
An acute dark start, recalling tarry terpenic citruses, transforms into sweet honey flowers – I feel some linden honey, a little peach and some sparks of May rose. If you bring your arm close to your nose, a background of sweetish smoke and soft waxes awakens, which takes the flower part down any time, no matter how complex and intense it was. Waxes and oak moss win always.
For me, this false mermaid love, dark and only partially human, is a comfortable autumnal perfume about an apiary, a smoker and a wooden tub of honey. Flowers are very subtle and implicit here, the scent requires special attention to discern them in the smoke. The aroma is pleasantly long-lasting and you have to wait more than an hour to smell the sandalwood and labdanum with wax.
Official description №1: “A bright, incense-smoky scent with a huge dose of woody notes. The green accord of summer foliage, blooming trees and smoking incense turns into a soft creamy flower heart. Honey and wax with warm woody notes form the base accord”.
SWITCH №1Notes:
Elemi, Mango Leaf, Hyssop, Rosemary, Mimosa, Lavender Seville, Frankincense, Linden Blossom, Tuberose, Frangipani, Ylang-Ylang, Rose De Mai, Osmanthus, Clover Sweet, Fidji Sandalwood, Beeswax, Oakmoss, Labdanum, Vanuatu Sandalwood, Maysoya.
№2, or “green scent with aquatic touch” starts with green, bitter freshness, which is created by blackcurrant buds absolute and violet leaves absolute – two great masterpieces made by Nature, which smell gorgeous by themselves. Then the focus shifts to the side of the spicy freshness of linalool, represented by lavender and rosewood. I think that coriander would be nice here, too – clear masculinity in the spirit of masculine fougeres. Green citrus leaves crushed by fingers waft briefly next to the lavender, and from this point I was waiting for the geranium and sage in the heart and some complex fougere drydown: tonka beans, patchouli, ambrette absolute and moss. But suddenly everything came back to the violet leaves absolute – as if it lives by itself and does not link to any other note in the fragrance. The violet leaves turn into a deep green color: rose, moss and jasmine. Greenery reigns in this magical "Vasilisa the Beautiful" fougere, even when №2 falls into the wet dark green fern undergrowth, with flower sparkles. I have not found any sea in this fougere, but found a far, dark, damp, mossy thicket. And I am sure it has royal fern in bloom. The one that inspired Paul Parquet to create the
eponymous Houbigant fragrance.
Official description №2: "A green fragrance with an aquatic accord, a dense, bitter-sweet fragrance. It starts with a wet resinous dark green leaves accord. A bitter-sweet swamp and garden flowers’ aroma develops in the heart, underlined with citrus candy shades. The base is composed of dark mossy and woody notes".
SWITCH №2 Notes:
Azalea, Black Currant Buds, Violet Leaf, Petitgrain, Jasmin Sambac, Russian Rose, Lavender, Rosewood, Oakmoss, Labdanum.
Perfume
№3 - the "floral smoky forest composition" - could perfectly be the modern niche execution created for the Arabian market. I would not be surprised to smell this as a niche fragrance at the Pitti or Esxence expos. Add to this peaty smoke some soft synthetic musks, and some synthetic oud base, pour it into a gilded bottle with Swarovski crystals, set a price of 300-800 euros – profit! The trick is done; we can offer it in the Dubai Mall. Niche brands like this sort of perfume: bright spices, unexpected herbs and beautiful flowers punching their way through mysterious smoke, and then all settles to light smoke to the joy of all stakeholders. It has extraordinary longlasting power, and it should be smelled from afar. This smoky miracle – the bewitching flowers of wild ledum, jasmine and rose – works perfectly even on a peaty swamp. But closer to the end, the lack of synthetics starts to affect the fragrance – the wrapping softness dissipates, the colors of flowers and butterflies shine brightly here and there. We seem to go out of the woods onto the edge to see the light and the clear sky, and feel the home smoke.
Official description №3: "A floral, smoky-foresty composition. A bright, penetrating scent with a wide aura. It opens with blooming ledum notes and a petitgrain accord that leads to wild flowers in the heart. The base is formed with a balsamic-vetiver-moss accord".
SWITCH №3 Notes:
Ledum, Petitgrain, Azalea, Lapsang Souchong, Juniper berry, Turkish Rose, Jasmine Sambac, Styrax, Himalaian Cedar, Vetiver, Oakmoss, Saffron.
Fragrance
№4 starts green, fresh and camphor-like, but eventually ends in a leather and patchouli basement in dim brown-black tones. I would call №4 the natural perfumer response to all big leather chypres of the 70-80`s period, if there would be even the smallest suspicion that Anna could be concerned with that. The leather has a soft undertone, created by black tea and guaiac wood, and it recalls an etheric body over the gray matte surface of sooty, rough leather, painted in black. It has something that reminds me of Siberian larch balsam, soft, elastic, delicious and gummy. And some censers smoke, from a church service. If there is something primordial Slavic in foreign minds when they think about Russia, here it is, in the perfume №4: smoke, Russian leather (yuft), samovar and black tea, incense burn, bonfire in the steppe, endless forests, lack of comforts. The scent is rather good, although the fragrant portrait of Russia is very limited, as limited as the impression of Germany by only the Berlin zoo, or as a night with Goa trance music makes a picture of The Incredible India.
Official description №5: "A woody-balmy fragrance. Its dark and dense composition is built around base notes. Every shade of earth, roots, dark woods and smoking resins".
SWITCH №4 Notes:
Frankincense, Choya Ral, Black Tea, Guaiacwood, Patchouli, Labdanum, Angelica Root, Vetiver, Opoponax.
“The classical floral bouquet” is represented by the number
№0, and it is the main perfume of the collection. This is the woman, the first woman in the world, the source of all mankind. The woman who embodies all other kids, girls, young ladies, women... An unusual and surprisingly bright perfume, starting with citrus' piercing power and mandatory balsamic smoke. The beauty appears from the smoke like in the circus. Smoke is complemented by the sweetness of citrus liquor and candies, but my strong sensitivity to smoke components makes me not so happy. In the rich floral and powdery heart, the best aria belongs to a beautiful rose chord, that takes us from the mild, sweet breath of otto to the berry jam of rose absolute. The jasmine flowers are a little less articulated – but if the famous Joy Jean Patou rose-jasmine accord came to your mind, forget about it. It’s a different bouquet. The soft sillage is about oriental sweets and woody-balsamic notes.
Official description №0: "A bright, exquisite, flowery scent, built on the classic pyramid with a citrusy start with fruits and alcohol, a rose-jasmine heart and a powdery-balsamic base with gourmand shades".
SWITCH №0 Notes:
Yuzu, Elemi, Mimosa, Galbanum, White Cognac, May rose, Osmanthus, Neroli, Turkish rose, Jasmine Grandiflorum, Jasmine Sambac, Benjoin, Tonka beans, Orris, Ambrette seeds, Vanilla, Siam wood.
For me, the main problem with natural perfumes is their high density and relatively short projection. They are like little birds compared to huge passenger aircrafts. Yes, both can fly. But where man-made fliers need to have powerful engines and huge wings, the natural born birds fly easily and naturally. I wish all the best to SWITCH. PERFUMES & MORE! All victories start with a dream!
Share your thoughts in a comment below for your chance to receive a mini-bar (set of five spray samples totaling 12.5 ml)!
