Age of Innocence

A quick look at Amphora Parfum's latest and most triumphant collection.

As the burgeoning niche perfume market has very visibly swelled to a financial and influential zenith, as evident in nearly every editorial magazine covering youth culture, I find the oversaturated market of self-taught perfumers difficult to make a lasting impression within. One new label that has decisively caught my attention, however, is the work of Noah Virgile under the moniker AMPHORA PARFUM. Having studied, like many of the best pandemic self-starters did, at the LA-based Institute of Art and Olfaction, the Amphora line is an exercise in fine-lined gothic illustration evoking the likes of Aubrey Beardsley, and nuanced saccharine perfumes to match. There is a clear sense that Virgile’s queer identity heavily influences the concepts behind these “gay-hearted” fragrances, but they are not inherently autobiographical in the same way as the work of Swedish-African perfumer Maya Njie. When I think Amphora, I think moreso of a tender sort of intimacy between anonymous bodies, of skin against skin, of identities blending and memories coming to light. Organized into succinct collections, my favorite, and the clear epitome of such a visceral type of independent perfumery is the collection labeled innocence.

Launched late last year with a cinematic set of photos and a chic reception at Stele, this diptych of two perfumes seemingly harbors a dense conceptual background, but is revealed only by fragments of poetic stanzas and remembered vistas. “How do you balance the need for touch with the fear of being known?” - “why can’t we stay innocent forever?” Virgile beckons. I am weirdly reminded of similar concerns in apocalyptic Japanese bildungsromans like Oyasumi Punpun or Neon Genesis Evangelion. There’s a similar sense here that these perfumes carry an inherent sadness to them, of lost innocence sure, but also a childish sort of bratty refusal to process an at times gritty reality. I reach for my little decants when I’m feeling like shutting out the world and retreating into myself. As is clearly evident to my sensibilities, they only harbor such meaningful interior worlds, because Virgile as a creative has laced so much of himself into their compositions.

Baby Boy was the first thing I smelled from AMPHORA, and it remains my silent favorite. It is at once childishly powdery, salaciously animalic, and nostalgically sweet. Colored a deep purple, as if made of mixed up molasses, broken hearts and Pixy Stix, it sprays on like photorealistic baby powder and grape juice. Into the drydown, I get the full body of a more classical civet, married to rich, gummy-like peach. This is maybe what I wish cough syrup smelled like when I was a child, and feels uniquely easy and comforting to wear. The common denominator of almost all of Amphora’s fragrances, mentioned and unmentioned, is a sort of tactile sweatiness. Here, it serves to remove the audience strictly from childhood. Yes, I am overwhelmed by nostalgia, but I also feel the presence of a very adult kind of age-regression, almost an erotic play. While they don’t exactly smell similar, it reminds me incredibly in spirit of Universal Flowering’s Heliotrope Milkbath: a delightful little minx that straddles its wide-open legs in a skirt halfway between a night out at the symphony and a chlorinated pool tainted by urine. My own pretentious musings aside, this is an extremely versatile and rewarding perfume to wear, and has accompanied me to bed, to art openings, to work, to hookups, and everywhere in between. In many ways I think Baby Boy epitomizes the best of what independent perfumers have to offer the current hypertrophied and often bloated niche fragrance market: genuinely arresting and evocative perfumes that rest on simple combinations of deftly executed and inventive accords. There is a lot here that’s fun and inventive, but there’s also a clear sense that Virgile understands the history and bounds of perfume-making as a tradition. It may not always be by the books, but it is also at least aware of the books. It's here that perfume feels alchemical, like the casting of protective spells or the communing with memories that belong to someone else entirely. Ten out of ten no notes, one of the best fragrance releases of the last year.

Virginal is another perfume that, even just by name, clearly exists at the intersection of wistful nostalgia and salacious sexuality. Much more aqueous and transparent than Baby Boy, I had to experience this composition on skin to truly understand how complex and beautiful it was. Inspired in part by childhood trips to sleepy seaside towns in Maine, this is barely even an aquatic perfume, much less a ‘coastal vibe.’ The opening is juniper and saline strawberry, halfway between my beloved Fraaagola Saalaaata and the sharper opening of Diptyque’s Orpheon. I was delighted to see tuberose in the notes of this perfume. It wasn’t immediately intelligible to my nose, but there is a sort of creaminess held between heart notes of salt water, ejaculate, and vanilla. The drydown is my favorite part: a melted candle accord I can only find mirrored in Clue’s wonderful With the Candlestick. Something that smells waxy, balmy, and faintly like chalk. This is a perfume so musk-based, it really does need to be tried out on your skin. I get a bit of the intimate saline of Antoine Lie creations Post Tenebras Lux or even Secretions Magnifiques. It wears lightly, but with an enduring tenacity. This is lovely worn to bed, but I very vividly remember wearing it to church on Easter Day. Think slurred strawberries sauntering sleepily towards something like intimacy. Lover’s spit left on repeat, awkward first kisses, drinks with enigmatic older men, et cetera. Watery, but in an embryotic fluid way, not at all like going to the beach. This is pink flavored LCL, wear it to embarrass yourself at summer camp, or to learn about the birds and bees from your cool older cousin with an infected nose ring.

Smelled in tandem, this diptych is a provocative jaunt through olfactory creations that carry a notable degree of sophistication, but never give up their dollish gaity. The name Amphora clearly harkens back to antiquated modes of Hellenistic scent storage, but with this collection seemingly just beginning Virgile’s career as an independent perfumer, I am eagerly looking towards the future.

A sample set of these two perfumes, plus two others from the debut line is available here. There are also currently stockists in Chicago, New York City, and Charlotte. If you’re looking for a sign to take the plunge, this is it.

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‘Eat your Lipstick’ is a perfume blog by Audrey Robinovitz, @foldyrhands

Audrey Robinovitz is a multidisciplinary artist, altar girl, and self-professed perfume critic. Her work intersects with the continued traditions of fiber and olfactory arts, post-structural feminism, and radical orthodox theology. At this very moment, she is most likely either smelling perfume or taking pictures of flowers.