Papillon Artisan Perfumes are one of the most innovative and exciting fragrance houses to emerge in recent years. The three fragrances, each unique yet somehow connected, created by Elizabeth Moores have been met with great excitement with those inside the fragrance world.
Elizabeth is not only charming but most extraordinarily talented; a natural and spontaneous ‘Nose’. Self-taught, she has produced 3 divine scents of stupendous imagination and quality: not for a long time have I smelled such richness, depth and volupte. She is also a mother, keen gardener and equestrienne. A Renaissance personality!
I sent Elizabeth a few questions about her experiences, and approach to fragrance.
Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be the creator of these 3 unique beauties?
I have always adored perfume, although it wasn’t until later in my life that I started creating my own fragrances. After realising that many of the traditional routes into perfumery were closed to me, I embarked upon a period of self-study, training and reading with the sources available in order to make perfumes for myself. This often led to friends and family asking what I was wearing and slowly I began to create unique fragrances for others. At the time I was a single mum of four, and upon insistence from friends that I should begin selling my perfumes, I decided to create a business with its heart set in my long love of fragrance.
Your scents have tremendous opulence and dazzling shine, a glow, a polish. How do you achieve this superlative expansion and depth?
I weave accords within accords inside each composition; each one layers across the next, like a Patina, if you will, across the perfume to create olfactory depth. I wanted the perfumes to have strong evaporation curves: perfumes that move and display their various facets at different times. Perpetuating the classical composition of perfume, that adopts a roughly 50/50 ratio of natural and synthetic materials, was important to me as I believe it creates texture and the polished finish that you have mentioned. After I have blended the raw materials, I then allow this compound to macerate for 8 weeks. The compound is then diluted with perfumers alcohol, and the finished bottle then macerates for a further 6 weeks. Through early trial and error I have found that this process is essential in creating the finished perfume.
I love the way your scents have total individuality, and yet seem somehow connected to one another. Maybe this has to do with your source of inspiration: where do you find your ideas?
Inspiration can come from many sources. I have found nature to be particularly influential in the initial emergence of my ideas, but I also find literature, people, places and experiences all play their part in conceptualising the initial sketches for my perfumes. When I first began creating Anubis it was a nameless leather fragrance, a genre I have great love for, which started to take its true form after reading a book on ancient Egypt. Perhaps without even realising it the intense Egyptian imagery began to permeate my imagination and find its way into the perfume. I’m very fortunate that I am not restricted by focus groups and am free to create in my own way. This might go some way towards explaining the connection that people have identified between the collection.
I have never struggled to find my inspiration, in fact quite the opposite. I often find myself overwhelmed with ideas, and have to be selective in choosing which ones will become a fragrance.
Do you have favourite ingredients? Are your creations influenced by your love of certain oils?
I’ve yet to use a material that I have not liked. I go through bursts with my tastes, one week I am in love with vertiver, but the next week it might be Sandalwood. Anubis was very heavily influenced by a rich Egyptian jasmine absolute I was desperate to use in a composition. I adore rose in all its forms, and I’m going through a period where I am in love with Rose de Mai. Maybe it’s because the roses are blooming in my garden that I am feeling a particular affinity to this material at this moment in time. I used Rose de Mai and Bulgarian rose in Tobacco Rose. Angelique allowed me the freedom to use mimosa which always evokes such happy feelings for me. Orris concrete is one of my favourite materials to work with, tiny amounts within a composition can softly blur the edges of a perfume and create a glorious downy finish. I used a huge amount of Orris concrete in Angelique because I simply couldn’t resist! I sometimes smear the concrete on my wrists, and the deep intense smell always reminds me of the backs of my children’s necks when they were babies.
If you were to define yourself in terms of fragrance, which perfume would you be?
I resisted the temptation to come up with something highly amusing, and have instead handed this questions over to my daughters who are probably better qualified to answer it honestly!
There can only ever be one fragrance that can come close to defining my mother. It is one which delicately falls as a backdrop to our childhood memories, and still offers its powdery comfort now we have grown. It is Shalimar by Guerlain. From the hundreds of perfume bottles than adorn our house, it is the feathered neck and royal blue top of the Shalimar bottle that is marked with the finger prints of each of us, sneaking in to spritz some, foolishly hoping we wouldn’t get caught, and secretly wishing that it would bring with it the effortless class and glamour that our mother has always exuded. It is not only the memories that we associate with this perfume, but the essence of the perfume itself that makes it so much like her. It is quiet in its power, but is as determined in its morning vanilla burst, as it is in its soft goodnight kiss. It turns heads not with loud insistence, but with a delicate and timeless sophistication that is warm, encompassing, and never fails to catch you off guard and take your breath away. It will never tire of bringing happiness to those around it, weaving new dreams and memories. It is beautiful, and it is constant.
If we were to ask you for a top tip, one golden nugget of advice, concerning any aspect of perfume?
There are so many things I have learned, but if I were to offer just one piece of advice it would be to step outside your comfort zone. This can evoke new emotions and often our greatest works are constructed in the difficult space outside familiarity. If you dislike rose, wear rose fragrances for a week; try to pinpoint your dislike, and more often than not you may realise that an aversion to a material can be dissected, and trigger new understandings. Be brave, because I promise you, you will amaze yourself!
Aroma Folio 