BEHIND THE SCENES: THE MAKING OF A FRAGRANCE SERIES - PINK HEART v.6
PINK HEART v.6 - THE HEART OF ECSTASY
THE STORY OF ECSTASY - CONTEXT
There were 2 dates that were crucial to the way we began the development of the Pink Heart, as remembered by Map of the Heart Partner and Fragrance developer, Giovanna Aicardi.
November 2015, Paris:
Jeff and Sarah came to Paris to shoot a film on Pierre Dinand and a fruitful brainstorming on the new Pink Heart v.6 began.The starting point for us was the Lotus Eaters in The Odyssey by Homer and words like hypnotic and blissful. The idea was to create a blissful state that you don’t want to ever leave, a kind of a swoon.
The chosen bottle colour was an opaque saturated pink and its pairing with the black collar was inspired by this image.
image credit: unknown
We knew we wanted to associate this dimension and this colour to a new olfactory family to add to our Map of the Heart collection: the idea of a floral being reimagined - one that would transport us into the heady hypnotic floral world of the mythical Lotus Eaters.
April 2016, London
A bunch of Narcissus bought at the Farm market became the new scent of my room….and the idea of the Narcissus, as the one who leads the fragrance during all perfume evolution has taken shape. Following a rendez-vous with Senior Perfumer, Jacques Huclier, he started to work from that. Narcissus is an emblematic ingredient of Haute Parfumerie and therefore being able to master this flower is an art requiring high agility and know-how.
HERO INGREDIENT:
NARCISSUS ABSOLUTE - ORIGIN: FRANCE Natural | Orpur® by Givaudan PART OF THE PLANT: Flowers HARVEST: April and May.
Usually the Narcissus is used more like a technical ingredient, few perfumes claim this as their main ingredients. I was fascinated to use the Narcissus Absolute at the centre of the creation not only for its preciousness (1kg of absolute is made from 1800kg of flowers and twigs) and strong opulence but above all for the complexity of its smell and the possible multiple facets.
Offstage
Pink Heart v.6 added not only a new olfactory family to the brand but a precious collaboration in the perfume creation: together with the senior perfumer Jacques Huclier, we started working with Nisrine Grillé a junior perfumer in the Givaudan team. The collaboration of the 2 perfumers, gifted the brand with 2 exclusive accords: one for the top notes: the Shiso leaf; the second for the drydown: the Sumac.
During the Pink Heart v.6 juice development, the film Jeff shot was simply the perfect imagery to express this mirroring multifaceted experience. The fragrance development was incredibly enriched when he shared with me the brief for the film and it became a confirmation with the vision of WIP (work in progress) film.
THE STORY OF ECSTASY - FILM BRIEF
"The Pink Heart V6 film is a true fantasy inspired by a scent that emotes a feeling of ecstasy. Here was an opportunity to play into the eccentric and we had the right cast and crew to do it. Kate Crash, a flamboyant Los Angeles musician and performer, was our protagonist and Marcos Lutyens a close friend, production designer and concept artist brought his hand to ideas of design. Attracted and somewhat overpowered by the colour pink and mesmerised by her own image our cast eccentrically explores her environment. It is a surreal world somewhat Alice In Wonderland like and a journey of the ecstatic. We shot at the end of a busy year in LA and Paramount kindly gave us their New York backlot to explore bringing a huge amount of production value to the screen."
- Jeffrey Darling, Director + Co-founder - Map of the Heart
THE SCENT OF ECSTASY
With the first smell of Pink Heart v.6, you clearly understand that it’s not just a pinkish juice but it is the start of a mesmerizing ride into the Narcissus, which makes the perfume instant sensation jubilantly. The backbone of Pink Heart v.6 is without any doubt the Narcissus absolute, meanwhile each ingredient of the pyramid was included to make even more alive and evident all its beautiful sides.
For the green facet:
The green, exhilarating, rich character of the narcissus absolute expresses directly thanks to the playfulness of the Shiso leaf accord. Extremely diffusive, the Shiso leaf accord brings a natural impact to the fragrance and enhances the creation. It embodies a “new green-freshness”, that brings luminosity to the fragrance opening, and enlightens the opulent Narcissus.The exclusive Shiso leaf accord created by perfumers Nisrine and Jacques is a unique green signature, inspired by Japanese Shiso. They recreated together the sensations of those tender, flat and soft-textured leaves. The accord finds balance between mint and Thai basil facets: metallic, sharply sour but with a hint of sweetness, and an underlay of cinnamon. With facets fresh and warming, clean and subtly spicy, pungent and grassy, its flavour is unique and genuinely surprising.
For the hypnotic floral facet:
The fragrance leads into an opulent white floral bouquet (a selection of the most beautiful and loved white flowers- Jasmine, Tuberose…) featuring the narcissus absolute in a journey of discovery, intrigue and cascading worlds playing off this sense of addiction. Within the scent is also the idea of the intriguing and questioning background of the synthetic: the regressive addictive smell of our childhood toys. Something that captivates you with a hypnotic effect and makes you feel great, as your childhood never ended.
For the animalic facet:
Arriving at dry down, narcissus absolute is newly relevant once again, within its warmer animalic facet and the floral explosion mingles on the skin with the spiciness of the sumac accord, cistus absolute and muscs. They bleed into each other, in a deeply floral and sour emotion. Sumac is a very delicate and unique spice to facet as a perfumer, because of its subtle sour-earthy flavour It doesn’t overpower the creation but gives it a highly sensual and elegant stature. The sumac accord of Nisrine and Jacques brings an attractive and captivating accord performed as a fresh henna note.
All these elements are important to know but not enough to explain the feeling you have on your skin when you live the distinctiveness of this floral languid seduction. Euphoric, joyful and transporting.The art of perfumery astonishes me every time: how we have an idea and then once created, this idea coincides totally to the fragrance you smell on your skin. Thank you Nisrine and Jacques.
THE COLOUR OF ECSTASY
The colour of Pink Heart v.6 was not only about the colour of the bottle, but very much also the collar of the bottle which is black. The pink was chosen as the fragrance was created to be a floral that was to be hypnotic and blissful. It was this depth of pink, that for us represented the colour of bliss. The exact colour took several attempts to get right, apologies to our glassmakers, eventually we found the exact colour in a small vintage plastic cup and sent it to them, and they matched it perfectly. The collar is a warning that the fragrance though blissful has an attitude to it.
RECOGNITION AND AWARD
We were thrilled when the prestigious Parisian magazine, NEZ included PINK HEART v.6 as one of their top fragrances for the year which was published in their 05 edition Natural vs. Synthetic.
Finalist: the 5th Art and Olfaction Awards, 2018.