I’m wearing Mother’s Milk today, naturally, in honor of mothers everywhere.
The idea gestated, if you will, around the idea that mother’s milk is the original gourmand, the substance that creates our sweet tooth, helping to explain why gourmands are so popular right now. (We want comfort.)
From there, because an ERIS scent can’t just be a sweet thing, the scent would explore our fantasies of the ideal Good Mother (ever-present, all-giving, sacrificing), and the feared Bad Mother (abandoning, mean, punishing).
Ultimately, Mother’s Milk holds space for women and caretakers of all stripes who happen to do mothering - the hardest job there is. Happy Mother’s Day!
“In Mother’s Milk, I was asked to create an extremely milky fragrance that symbolized children’s fantasies of their mothers as either ‘good’ or ‘bad. ’For the ‘Good Mother,’ I drew from a fond memory: the smell of my children’s heads when my wife was breastfeeding them, a creamy and addictive odor of hot milk and Orris root. The perfume’s ‘Bad Mother’ was created through the animalic darkness of suede.- Antoine Lie, Perfumer
📸 by @satoshi_nyc
3rd slide is the original Mother’s Milk mood board
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#erisparfums #antoinelie #mothersmilk #mothersmilkperfume #mothersday
Happy Beltane! On this day — halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice, a celebration of fertility and the earth’s reawakening — I’m re-upping this lovely review of Green Spell.
“I’ve been fantasizing about the perfect green scent, something with the biting, vegetable freshness of crushed stems—not fruity or light, but sharp and bitter, like roots and earth.
Eris’ Green Spell delivers with a blast of galbanum and hyper-realistic tomato-leaf that feels like the deepest part of an Henri Rousseau jungle painting: it makes you think of plant life in terms of blades and spears. In this dream of greenery, there’s no sunlight or even moonlight, just dense thickets of spiky, dewy foliage taller than you are.
Mandarin and black currant are listed as top notes but the citrus and berry tartness seem don’t feel front-loaded to me, they sneak in sideways, along with the nice addition of fig leaf, which warms up the mix a bit, though there’s also violet leaf cooling it back down.
This is like an underworld version of Philosykos—a shadowy, almost poison green rather than the angelic airiness of the Diptyque one...
This one dries down to a spicy, slightly musky and grassy vetiver that lasts for quite a while, though really just as a skin scent. I like this perfume a LOT.” Perfumedboyfriend on Fragrantica
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#erisparfums #greenspell #beltane #antoinelie
“This perfume is, to me, is an absolute scorcher; so sexy that it makes me almost physically blush....an absolute sex bomb, to me at least, especially after it dries down just a little (30 min-ish).
The peppery spicyness is like prickly waves of internal heat rising outward to the surface of the skin, the indolic jasmine notes combined with the musky laundrylike notes is, for lack of better words, super intimate. It makes me feel like I will need stand in front of a fan and drink a glass of ice water before I can get myself into a more everyday and sober frame of mind...” - Marybean on Fragrantica
styling @softsilverscent
📸 @mindfulseductions
BELLE DE JOUR: Moroccan Coriander, Madagascan Pink Pepper, Tunisian Orange Flower, Spanish Cistus Labdanum, Egyptian Jasmine, Indian Pimento Berry, (Allspice), Atlas Cedarwood, Musk (synthetic), and Seaweed Absolute
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#erisparfums #belledejour #antoinelieolfactiveexperience
As the weather gets warmer & we all emerge from our winter cocoons, it seems like the perfect time to re-share this lusty review from @alixfox Alix Fox in The Guardian:
“This perfume borrows its name from a book of erotic short stories authored by Anaïs Nin in the 1940s, for a private client she referred to only as “Collector”. It’s certainly a scent worth adding to your own collection, or that of your sweetheart, particularly if you’re seeking something tropical and fruity yet strictly for grownups. The key note is guava, surrounded by lush greenery, and it’s apparently inspired by Eve sinking her teeth into forbidden fruit amid the leaves and vines of the Garden of Eden.
Imagine being French-kissed with a mouth full of exotic juice, in a naked sauna held within a greenhouse – a spritz of this will take you there.”
📸: @luminary_creatives
styling: @softsilverscent
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#erisparfums #deltaofvenus #anaisnin #guava #guavaperfume
It’s been hard to take stock of Mother’s Milk’s reception because so much has happened since the March 12 launch, and I’m still catching my breath. Speaking of stock: sold out! But it’s being replenished on Monday. Here’s what people are saying so far…
📸: @selenaserena
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#erisparfums #mothersmilk #antoinelie #antoinlieolfactiveexperience #milk
Last week, London-based friends of ERIS celebrated the launch of Mother’s Milk with a premiere screening of “Mommy Issues” a film compilation created to accompany the new scent, in the beautiful Art Deco Garden Cinema.
Film is a key source of inspiration for ERIS, a presence felt in scents from Belle de Jour to Scorpio Rising. To explore the narrative of Mother’s Milk, I worked with Catherine Zimmer, Professor of Film and Screen Studies at Pace University in New York, to compile iconic scenes from films dealing with the theme of motherhood (Carter Haskins: editor). “Mommy Issues” is divided into three parts: The Good Mother, The Bad Mother, and “It’s Complicated.”
Fabulous fragrance expert, journalist and podcaster Suzy Nightingale hosted a Q&A panel with perfumer Antoine Lie and me afterward, giving our guests an insight into the creative process behind the ninth ERIS fragrance.
Thank you to everyone who came along to toast Mother’s Milk!
MOTHER’S MILK: the 9th fragrance by ERIS.
The dissonant, slightly dark note in MOTHER’S MILK disrupts the simplistic comfort that can be found in most gourmand fragrances, reminding us that perfume is an adult pleasure.
The darkness also hints at the “Bad Mother,” who (in our fantasies) withholds and punishes instead of being a never-ending source of giving and comfort.
MOTHER’S MILK holds space — perhaps most subversively — for the woman (who happens to be a mother) who is her own person, separate from this culturally loaded role.
COMPOSITION: Damascena Rose Oil (Bulgaria), Milk accord, Suede accord, Orris butter (Bavaria), Vanilla, Cacao (Colombia; US extract), Musk accord, Sandalwood
Perfumer Antoine Lie @antoinelieolfactiveexperience
Available now – check Erisparfums.com to find your nearest stockist.
🎥 Film by Luigi Benvisto @luigibenvisto_AIC
Music: Brahms, Wiegenlied, Op. 49, No. 4
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#erisparfums #antoinelie #mothersmilkperfume #newfragrance #mothersmilk
MOTHER’S MILK: the 9th fragrance by ERIS.
The word “Mother” evokes primal ideas: need, comfort, protection, nourishment, desire, love, and fear. Fantasies, in short. It could be argued that the entire “gourmand” category in perfumery, starting with vanilla as the essence, derives from a primordial inspiration: mother’s milk.
MOTHER’S MILK extrait de parfum by ERIS explores fantasies of the “Good” and “Bad” mother through scent. It’s an olfactory montage of milky vanilla, a whisper of rose, the soft-focus blur of buttery Orris (from the precious dried roots of Iris flowers), and a hint of darkness.
COMPOSITION: Damascena Rose Oil (Bulgaria), Milk accord, Suede accord, Orris butter (Bavaria), Vanilla, Cacao (Colombia; US extract), Musk accord, Sandalwood
Perfumer: Antoine Lie @antoinelieolfactiveexperience
Available now at Erisparfums.com and at an ERIS stockist near you
📸 Milk Photo: Satoshi @Satoshi_NYC
📸 Hand photo: @luminary_creatives
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#erisparfums #antoinelie #mothersmilkperfume #newfragrance #mothersmilk
There’s only one day left before the new ERIS perfume is unveiled! And what better way to celebrate than with the fragrance’s final inspirational icon: Faye Dunaway and her demented high camp performance as Joan Crawford in the 1981 cult classic, “Mommie Dearest.” Excited? Confused? A little of both? Let me know what you’re thinking in the comments!
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#erisparfums #antoinelie #antoinelieolfactiveexperience #newfragrance