Jo’s Scent Notes: Olfactive O New Earth
This morning, I wore New Earth while gardening in my nightie. It felt perfect. The first rain for months, literally, and the air was filled with the scent of petrichor, a molecule released when water hits dry earth. I could sense the plants dancing in the rain. I actually explained to some of them, seedlings who’d never experienced it, what rain was.
Yup, I’ve turned into one of those women.
New Earth, with its leafy, almost minty green freshness, was the perfect scent for my 6 a.m. planting session. But I’ve been wearing it so much since Olfactive O founder Olivia da Costa gave me a bottle at Barnes Fragrance Fair. I loved it from first sniff, but (appropriately) it has grown on me, even more.
Now, this scent has been hotly anticipated in scent circles; we’d known about it for months before the launch, not least because Olivia invited quite a few people from the fragrance community to contribute to a little book that she produced to mark the launch of the latest fragrance to join the line-up of her perfectly-formed indie fragrance line: New Earth – A Shared Table. As I’ll come onto, I shared a recipe that’s very important to me, for the book, which she illustrated so beautifully. (If you can, check out her @olfactiveo Instagram of 15th May, in which you can see a timelapse of her doing the drawings. It’s pretty spellbinding.)
Olivia, who had a background in retail (White Company, John Lewis) and studied at Chelsea College of Art, albeit briefly, works with a top-secret perfumer to create her Olfactive O ‘personality-led’ fragrances (NB it is a matter of immense conjecture among us to try to figure out this nose’s identity), all of which are genderless and inspired by her own life and worldview. The labels feature a simple statement and if it resonates with you (or who you’d like to be), chances are you will love the scent inside. This one says, ‘I AM LUMINOUS, ROOTED AND PRESENT.’ (Something we probably all aspire to, especially in this bonkers world. For the full personality description, scroll down*.)
New Earth starts fresh and super-dewy, very slowly becoming earthier and tethering. First up, there’s spearmint, pink peppercorn, a resin called elemi and shiso, which is that leaf used in Japanese cooking to turn food pink. The heart features something called a ‘deep-leaf immersion’ – and honestly, that just sums this up. It’s a deep leaf immersion. It’s like sitting, as I did this morning, in the shelter of a tree, with the No-Mow May grass up to knee level, watching the rain drip off the heart-shaped mulberry leaves, and hearing the earth almost sing with joy.
That freshness hangs about for ages, but the base is worth the wait. There’s oakmoss in there: damp, mysterious, a favourite ingredient of mine (and used all too rarely these days, as it’s become restricted). Also hay, which smells a bit tobacco-y and meadow-like, swaying in the base like a vista of wild flowers, alongside more resins: fir balsam and myrrh. I love resins, as ingredients, for their soft, often sweet warmth, the way they work to polish the edges of a fragrance, like buffing your shoes with a soft duster (and thinking how proud your mother would be).
Ah, mothers. I’ve got to mention mothers, here, because the caption to the ‘Vegetables à la Tansy’ recipe that I shared for Olivia’s cookbook reads: ‘My mother would be proud.’ As I explained in my intro to that recipe, ‘I grew up in a house with a keen cook – my wonderful, red-headed, hot-tempered mother, who really didn’t like anyone being in the kitchen with her. So, sadly, I never acquired the art of being able to cook from scratch.’ The versatile dish of roast vegetables that I shared for Olivia’s little book was the first thing I ever cooked without a recipe, and proved a little bit life-changing, giving me the confidence to go rogue. I’ve never looked back.
We also have to mention mothers (and I know Olivia will cry if she reads this) because a couple of years ago, to launch her zingily gorgeous Citrus fragrance, she hosted a dinner for fragrance journalists in her own North London kitchen, just a few days after her own mother had died. (She did it again for New Earth, but regrettably I couldn’t go, and the FOMO was off the scale.) The Citrus launch was hugely emotional for Olivia and all of us, not a dry eye in the house; fragrance is, of course, bottled emotion, and it was overflowing, in that room – but we understood why she’d gone ahead. I’m sure her mum would have been proud that she found that courage.
Olivia’s mother would be immensely proud of her for this beautiful creation, too, I’m sure. As mine would be, for ultimately learning to cook properly. And most definitely for being outside, gardening in my nightie, like she used to.
Breathing fresh, cool, damp air, and the fresh, cool dampness of divine New Earth. (I wonder if she ever did that in her Chanel No5? It wouldn’t surprise me – but how sad that I’ll never know.)
£65 for 30ml eau de parfum – buy here (NB Each fragrance comes with a copy of New Earth – A Shared Table, featuring my recipe alongside other scented folks’ deliciousness)
* The full personality description for New Earth, which completely resonates with me, reads: ‘I am the host who cooks to the rhythm of the seasons, the one who pulls up an extra chair before you’ve even asked. I believe in the beauty of things made by hand - the thumbprint in the clay, the worn-in softness of a family heirloom. There is quiet joy in walking the same path every day and noticing the first green shoots of change. For me, luxury resides in the weight of a heavy linen shirt and the simple, rhythmic task of chopping herbs from the windowsill pot. I am a life lived in the present tense.’
