Blog post by Gwen

M/Mink – heady and inky and quietly sensuous.

 

 

Photo: perfumeniche

I’m always interested in learning about fragrances that are born out of collaborations, like Acne Studios, the fragrance from Frédéric Malle and the Stockholm-based fashion house, or Monocle magazine and Comme des Garçons teaming up to create fragrances like Scent One: Hinoki. Then there’s M/Mink. This fave of mine is the result of a collaboration between graphic design firm M/M and Byredo, the perfume brand founded by Ben Gorham.

M/M is a graphic design firm set in Paris, founded in 1992 and named for Swedish designers and friends Mathias Augustyniak and Michaël Amzalag. Considered rock stars in the design world, Augustyniak and Amzalag have designed everything from books, ads, magazines, and album covers to a café, an opera set and a sculpture in Iceland. Their designs communicate through imagery, like their surreal collages of bold, hand-drawn graphics, made using a Chinese inkstone, combined with pieces of photographs.

In 2009, they reached out to Gorham with their idea for a fragrance built around the smell of ink. According to the Byredo website, “The scent is inspired by a block of solid ink purchased in Asia, a photograph showing a Japanese master practising his daily calligraphy, and a large utopian formula drawn on Korean traditional paper.”

Perfumer Jérôme Epinette was signed to create the fragrance, and M/Mink was launched in 2010.

M/Mink opens with sparkling, tingling aldehydes, leading to a cold blast of a fresh, salty, marine breeze. It’s from Adoxal, a modifier created by Givaudin. I can’t recall ever smelling an opening like this. Synthetic, yes, but so intriguing it calls to me. Adoxal has fresh, green, salty, aquatic, floral, aldehydic, and waxy qualities. I experience them all in that first whiff, and they become the backdrop for what’s to come. The freshness at the start morphs into the heady smell of ink that brings to mind the smell of ink toner that I have always found so enticing. As the Adoxal settles, a note of incense slinks forward. The incense used here is peppery and spicy, adding warmth and depth that counterbalances the cold at the opening. I also get undertones of green, terpenic pine that keep the freshness and headiness humming, while patchouli leaf, dank, camphourous underlines the smell of ink. Amber is here, too, sweet and animalic and gives M/Mink a quiet sensuality. Clover honey bolsters the amber with its gentle sweetness and animalic facet and echoes the subtle floral quality of the Adoxal.

The Adoxal is present throughout the fragrance but fades as it develops, allowing the other notes to shine and enhance it. What I notice most about it is that there’s no sign of dirtiness. It starts out heady, inky, and clean, then dries down warm, gently sweet, and quietly sensuous. 

This is my favourite M/Mink to wear.

Check out M/Mink in our Shop.