When we are faced with troubles it’s almost second nature to try and remember happier times. This recollection can come in the form of music, a scent, or even the immediacy that you get with food. However it is summoned up, a familiarity that is entwined with positive memories is always the best antidote to the blues. With the current need to limit travel and even see our families, many people’s rituals have been thrown up in the air. However, Sven Pritzkoleit has come to the rescue with his emotionally evocative Sea Salt Tar and Poudre de Riz, which both come laden with smiles and sunshine.
Sven Pritzkoleit launched SP Parfums back in 2016 and he quickly became a familiar name with niche fragrance lovers around the world. Based in Germany, his exceptional style and imagination gained him reviews that experienced perfumers would have killed for. It was the sheer variety of his output, but still managing to maintain a DNA that made it recognisably Sven, that allowed his reputation to go far beyond his original pharmacy roots. Using only the finest ingredients that are available, and still hand blending everything that leaves his lab, Sven’s attention to detail is second to none, as are his perfumes.
Sven had first starting creating fragrances back in 2006 but, ever the perfectionist, it would be ten years before he allowed them to escape the lab. From a green touched Rose Polaroid to the nineteenth century library-esque Lignum Vitae Forte, Sven has had my attention from day one. His ability to translate the physicality of a place or time into his scents has recently meant that two of his latest creations have taken on a whole new lease of life in these uncertain times. Both offer the combined effect of comfort and travel, so grab your bucket and spade because it’s time to go on holiday.
Sea Salt Tar is most definitely the smell of my holidays in Cornwall as a child, and specifically the scent as we used to return to the car from the beach at the end of the day. It opens with a wonderfully exciting marine accord but very quickly that sun-baked tar of the carpark starts to come through. You do have some beautiful florals in here as well in the form of rose, jasmine, and tuberose, but they are subservient to the dry herbaceousness of the artemisia and juniper. This keeps the fragrance perfectly energised throughout. A final pairing of cardamom and musk adds a sun-warmed skin quality that is childhood perfection.
In a completely different direction, Poudre de Riz promises to give the “impressions of make-up and powdery musks,” and it absolutely succeeds. Think rose and jasmine scented face powder and that is the level of decadence that we have here. There’s a hint of heliotrope as well, which gives the impression of those luxuriously creamy Guerlain lipsticks, and the pull of pink pepper against the tonka bean helps to give an expansiveness that is embracing. The skin musks that Sven mentions in this one give an almost fur coat softness to the scent that hints at bygone Saturday nights.
Sea Salt Tar and Poudre de Riz are available from the SP Parfums website at sp-parfums.de priced at €38 for 7.5ml or €129 for 30ml. You can also click on the image below to read my interview with Sven Pritzkoleit from May 2018. [Samples provided by SP Parfums]
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