Black Walnut: Limited Edition Perfume with American Perfumer

When Dave Kern of American Perfumer and I tossed around ideas about a fragrance that we would work on together, there was no shortage of mental paths we could wander along. What surfaced repeatedly was the idea of the black walnut (Juglans nigra) - a species of walnut tree that grows in the eastern United States - and one that produces the most curious, ubiquitous, fragrant, nourishing and confounding fruits imaginable.

Harvested Black Walnuts

As they grow and mature, they fall from the tree looking like tennis balls, making a resounding thud as they hit the grass, emitting a citrus-like fragrance in fleshy capsules. Once you break through the outer skin (which contains a powerful golden brown dye) you eventually find the hard, woody nut. The smell of black walnuts is beguiling: like traditional English walnuts but amplified, stronger, much less refined. They are prized for their pronounced, wild flavor, but because of how hard they are to open, they've never been commercially viable, so they remain rare, odd, fascinating.

You can submit your name and address to be drawn for a chance to purchase a bottle of this limited edition of 50 here. Black Walnut comes in a 30 ml bottle at retail cost of $125.00. Winners will be contacted by email. You can submit your information for the lottery up until Friday, October 25th, 2022. Winners have until Sunday, October 30th to complete their purchase. One submission per person.

Black Walnut by American Perfumer by perfumer John Biebel of January Scent Project

I hope you enjoy the creation. There are much more things happening at January Scent Project before the close of the year, and I’ll be sharing a lot of that info as the next few weeks pass. Thanks - J

Summer, the beach, Miami, and Perfumes...

There is much to relate of the passing months, and I want to begin by thanking you all for your support for the projects that were brought out in 2021, such as the last perfume release, Gong, and its accompanying music project. That was followed by a limited edition perfume, Attaupe, which was similarly successful and I appreciate the thought and attention that you all delivered in terms of feedback, thoughts, and impressions. I've been very excited to present yearly limited edition fragrances as a means of exploring ingredient profiles that I might not usually be able to use for larger releases.

As you might expect, things are brewing once again at January Scent Project, some of which I can describe for you now, and some which are in the works and so are not quite fully developed. There will be a number of projects released before the end of the year, first of which will be a new fragrance for the line, the 10th so far. This has been in progress for a number of months, and details will emerge as the profile has taken shape more firmly. Also I'm glad to announce that my project with Dave Kern of American Perfumer will be released this coming October. More information will be released as I move forward, but I will leave you with the following photo to puzzle on in the meantime.

Mysterious vegetation

Dave and I found a subject of equal interest and fascination as the focus of our idea (after a few different starts in other directions) and are so keen on this specific direction that once there, we knew this was the right place to be. I'm excited for you to join us in this limited release through American Perfumer later this year.

Miami retains an amazing “old world” feel to it, akin to what I think Cuba may have seemed like in the 50s

I was fortunate to attend the World Perfumery Congress (WPC) earlier this summer in Miami, Florida. This was somewhat double duty as both a representative for Fragrantica to do reporting and writing for the site, and as a judge for this year's Art and Olfaction Awards. I was very glad to be able to present this year's G W Septimus Piesse Award to Mandy Aftel - a new award for overall contribution to the field of scent. She was not able to attend but prepared a video message for us to enjoy. The awards were exciting, full of surprises, and a lot of joy to see colleagues and friends that I haven't met in person in a long while. Another great moment was spending an afternoon in the Miami Botanical Garden, which was very near the conference center. Although the heat and humidity was off the charts, there's something miraculous to see palms, banana trees, ylang-ylang and frangipani growing in nature and partaking in their sensuous smells.

Fascinating silvery round palm leaf seen in the Miami Botanical Gardens, South Beach.

I will also be releasing a follow up music project to the Gong album, a reimagining of a few of the songs, in roughly a month - more info will be forthcoming as this evolves. Adding in other media to the work I've been doing in perfume has been a particularly great joy in creative pursuits, as it expands the ways in which fragrance can be seen, felt, appreciated, and understood, without prescribing any particular way that it "should" be experienced.

Near a sand bluff / dune at East Beach / Quonochontaug Neck, Westerly RI.

So much more will be forthcoming in the next few months - and this year I've decided to take a bit of a break from the hectic pace of multiple jobs and actually enjoy going to the beach once in a while, which has been an incredibly good idea. Just having time to listen to the waves, sit in the sun, swim, and read while under an umbrella is a lot like a 19th century spa cure. I had the very, very strange experience of making some visits to a particularly rough surf beach near the point where Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island meets the corner with Long Island Sound in the Atlantic. It's difficult for me to describe exactly how rough the waves can get at this spot - the highest and most violent waves I've seen in my life. Not quite knowing what I was getting into, I was blissfully walking in the sand and sea only to be pulled dramatically into the ocean... and then repeatedly tossed back on shore by another wave, then pulled under again. It was all laughable for about the first SIX times it happened, then it wasn't so fun (especially after I'd literally swallowed a mouthful of sand and salt water.) Finally, after I'd been tossed about like driftwood more than a dozen times, a lifeguard came to help me up and out of this vicious cycle and reminded me that the waves were particularly bad that day. Moments like these, though they can be scary, are also instructive about the brut force of nature and its eerie beauty / awesome power. I feel like there's a lot of import in what happened but I'm strangely glad for that experience. My connection to the ocean is a strong one, and I love being there, but also feel like I've come to know that it can be an angry body of water too, and that's totally normal - and something we should have respect for.

Fast moving current in Westerly, RI.

But I've been reminded how wonderful summer is, what a small and fascinating pleasure it is to be on the sand with a book between your hands while the sun radiates over you. I hope that you too are taking some time to let the sun warm your skin and give you that sense of intense comfort that only comes from that natural blanket of light.

Gong, Gongs & Shipping-VAT Updates

August means the release of Gong, the ninth fragrance from January Scent Project. This has been a particularly wandering path that suddenly met with great clarity in the process. I’d been working for some time on a “green musk” perfume, as I’d never before made a musk-centered fragrance. Musk is its own very peculiar material, something that’s often not discernible to some noses, so it has to be mixed in just a certain way to ensure that most noses can detect it. As it was evolving, certain other notes came and went, but the most prominent ones that stuck with me were blueberry, green pepper, and daikon radish. I developed separate accords for each of these smells, and they were like creating separate sub-perfumes in the process.

Gong also marks the first deliberately “warm weather” fragrance I’ve made, although I’m sure it could be enjoyed in any weather. I say warm weather with the idea that it’d be put on to be refreshing, somewhat sweet, uplifting, but also tenacious and lingering for a long while in bits and pieces over the day. I more or less knew it was in the right place when I’d tried on one of the last trials, went to bed with it on, and woke up very early morning the next morning and could detect this lingering, sweet berry-musk. It was precisely what I’d hoped would happen at the end of the process.

Gong 100 ml EDP, in a grouping with its inspired raw materials.

While creating this fragrance, I’d been struck by a kind of waking dream in the middle of the night. I was picturing a tall pyramid of objects, and atop it all was a large brass gong. From it emerged a loud, resonant boom. The name “Gong” was more or less set in that moment, but I also knew that I needed to find out a lot more about gongs in general. Soon I was listening to gong recordings online and then purchasing a few. Before long, the simple idea of “making a few MP3 files of gong sounds to send out along with the perfume” turned into a full album of music inspired by the fragrance. I talk quite a bit about the experience in a podcast that I recorded for American Perfumer a little while ago - in conversation with perfumer Charna Ethier of Providence Perfume Co.

It’s hard to describe just how liberating this experience was - it’s been a few years since I’ve done much music making, recording or engineering, so ideas were just boiling over in my brain. I was fortunate to find an excellent engineer, Murad Agha, who worked on the eight tracks to bring them a collective texture and resonance as a group. I’m happy to announce that the album, Gong, will be available for presale on iTunes on August 30, 2021, with release date on September 17, 2021. Later this year, a vinyl edition will also be available - this is in approximately 2-3 months from now.

Album cover for “Gong” by January Sound Project, digital pre-sale August 30 2021, sale September 17, 2021, vinyl album later in the year.

An important note to add about some changes in taxes, shipping, VAT, the EU and UK: As some know, JSP had to temporarily suspend shipping to the EU and UK in July and August as we unraveled the changes to shipping and tax collection laws in Europe. There are 3 specific points to discuss. First, shipping to the UK and EU has been reinstated. Second, it’s important for buyers in EU countries in particular to be aware that shipping to their countries has changed. The previous rule that allowed for VAT-free shipping for goods under a certain monetary amount is no longer in place. ALL goods shipped into the country, of ANY value, are now subject to VAT and, in the case of more expensive goods, VAT + duty. Processing time for oversees packages is said to be taking longer, and packages have to be marked more carefully than before, so be aware that shipping may be (generally) less timely than before.

Third, for EU-based customers, please be aware that you will need to pay duty on packages as they arrive in your country of residence. I’m sure that you are getting used to this already as it has now been in place since July 1st. There is an option that allows US businesses to charge for VAT on this side, and for them to forward those funds to a third party, but this is a cumbersome process and we have not yet decided if we will undergo it at this time. Future updates will be made available. The good news, however, is that EU and UK shipping has resumed.

Please return to the blog for more details about more interesting news as the year progresses - including more releases and a limited edition due out in November. I’m so grateful to have you along for this ride, as 2021 is proving to be a wellspring of creative ventures.