Synthetic Jungle by Anne Flipo
The most frightening scents usually render the richest scenes.
Synthetic Jungle by Anne Flipo
(Fragrantica, ScentSplit, Frederic Malle)
A practice I’ve implemented as often as possible involves sitting in front of a mirror and spraying the air in front of my face, on the back of my hand, and on a piece of paper placed on the desk in front of me. I then write a list of words, memories, and images. It’s a meditation on scent as image and has been a pretty great catalyst for painting. The most frightening scents usually render the richest scenes. Now that the dead of winter has settled, I wanted to challenge my usual inclination towards coffee, chocolate and patchouli — so how about that spicy vegetal scent I encountered at Neiman Marcus last month?
French master perfumer Anne Flipo’s infamous Synthetic Jungle (now renamed the more forgettable “Synthetic Nature”) tells sweet lies of spring in frost. A forever lasting, nostril-chilling disco chypre of funeral flowers, sharp greens and oakmoss embodying the fearless spirit of those sexy aldehydic piss and potpourri scents of the 80’s. A crack of galbanum and a bouquet of indistinguishable green herbs, a big juicy green pepper and rubber are the star notes here. Then comes Lily of the Valley, that familiar cold floral associated with both fertility and death, the promise of life in winter, and the scent mellows — for a moment, palatably feminine. My instinct is to hang onto the familiar note of grass but before I’m placed on a lawn or field, I’m hit with the latex and all conceived notions of nature and its comforts distort to this bit of inorganic earth Think of a fake plant but only the soul of one. She wants to be held in your hands; she wants to be real. The abject latex-clad woman on the Roxy Music albums come to mind, but there’s something keeping me from holding her: she hisses. A glossy eye through iron thickets? A vegetable garden painted by Soutine?
Synthetic Jungle would be worn by Petra Von Kant or Poison Ivy but also your cool grandmother to whom you don’t give enough credit (see: Ralf Schwieger’s Lipstick Rose for the domesticated version of SJ). The misunderstood androgynous sister of L’Ombre Dans l’eau with the spirit of a wet lizard. One of the most challenging scents I own. At times giving me strength, at times making me ill. (The best things do, I suppose.)
Our power to project on and twist the natural into something hyper-human, infused with memory and object until it becomes uncanny again is the essence of all art — and Synthetic Jungle delivers. Pairs well with CK One during daytime. After midnight, wear it raw.
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Shannon Ryan is a multidisciplinary visual artist and fragrance enthusiast from Philadelphia.
