Nanas

2022
Eau de Parfum
Carter Weeks Maddox - Chronotope

Citationals Series No. 3: A Perfume Thanks to Alyssa Harad

Carter: Before I knew Alyssa, I knew her words via her memoir Coming to My Senses, about how perfume helped her feel more rooted in the world and more connected to and compassionate toward others. Eventually, she became someone I playfully call my “benefactress” when she handed me decants of vintage perfume from her own collection—including one containing the artist Niki de Saint Phalle’s eponymous perfume. Nanas takes its name from Mde. Saint Phalle’s oversized, buoyant sculptures celebrating the everywoman, about which the artist said “I used to think that there was a need to provoke, to attack religion, and the generals […] then I understood that there is nothing more shocking than joy.” With Nanas, the most playful perfume in either of Chronotope’s collections, and which I completed on the same day the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, I thank Alyssa for giving me language with which to speak and write about perfume as well as for enabling the medium to teach me about its ability to promulgate joy within a world order that so often seems to lack and attack it.

Dave: Creamy, musky ylang ylang and warm champaca gently spiced by cool angelica and cardamom. Playful, defiant joy.

Nanas Notes: Skin musk, banana candy (isoamyl acetate), ylang-ylang, white champa leaf, red champaca flower, angelica root, shiso leaf, cardamom, amber, yogurt, baked goods, valerian root, civet.