The sea in a bottle: mare publisher Nikolaus Gelpke has created a Mediterranean fragrance with perfumer Geza Schön.
What does the sea smell like? Fresh and lemony, salty, like seaweed or more like a combination of sun cream and holiday feeling?
Nikolaus Gelpke and the mare editorial team asked themselves this question when they began researching the April issue ‘The Scent of the Sea’. To get closer to the topic, Nikolaus Gelpke and mare editor Dimitri Ladischensky visited star perfumer Geza Schön in his fragrance workshop in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The idea of developing a mare perfume together, a Mediterranean fragrance, was born on the spot.
‘At mare, we have been focussing on the sea as a cultural space for over 20 years. In this respect, we were not interested in creating a maritime fragrance, but more in the question of what odours we perceive when we stand on an island on the Mediterranean, the sun rises and warms the sea and the coastal landscape. What are these aromas that come together at this moment to form an overwhelming whole?’ asked Nikolaus Gelpke.
One year and 40 trial versions later, the Mediterranean perfume ‘Eau du Levant’ is now available. In French, ‘Levant’ refers to the sunrise and at the same time the Levant, the mythical east of the Mediterranean. It contains notes of mandarin, iris and lemon as well as numerous aromas that belong to the ‘Chypre’ fragrance family.
‘The name ‘chypre’ goes back to the French word for Cyprus, and many of the plants native to Cyprus found their way into this fragrance category, namely basil, bergamot and later also the resin labdanum,’ explains Geza Schön. Eau du Levant is a very light, fresh interpretation of the scent of the Mediterranean, a hint, a hint............
