Flame & Fortune extrait de parfum, one of the house’s newest additions to the flagship collection, has captured the imagination of the fragrance press.
One of the first fragrances Sarah Baker published as a nose, Flame & Fortune was first released as an eau de parfum to an enthusiastic reception by both customers and the fragrance critics. Straight off from its earliest days, many fans of the fragrance were asking when it would be available as an extrait.
But, because not all fragrances work as well in a higher concentration, Sarah was careful to test and adjust the fragrance, making sure that the extrait experience was even better than the EDP before considering releasing it. And that time is now: Flame & Fortune has moved into the flagship collection as part of the house’s broader reconfiguration of its collections.
It seems to have been a good move: the extrait has been very well received by established perfume writers and influencers and recent weeks have seen a number of articles on the fragrance—or largely about it—published. Here's a roundup of Flame & Fortune in the media.
Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor at ÇaFleureBon takes a very creative approach, written as an homage to the hardboiled prose of American pulp fiction novels from the 1930s to 1950s, one of the key inspirations for Flame & Fortune. Lauryn’s article inhabits rather than explains the house’s love of storytelling. Imagine Dashiel Hammett or Raymond Chandler writing perfume reviews.
“It was making me feel kinda dreamy and stupid, like I swallowed a mickey. She smelled a little more like flowers than I remembered – I got some lily of the valley and iris in the mix. She was spicier, too, with that fruity pink pepper chefs like to use, and there was more ripe fruit – apricots, both like the tree’s blossoms I grew up with and the jam my grandma made. Oh yeah, she was quite a dish and I wanted to eat her right up.”
- Lauryn Beer, from her article in ÇaFleureBon
Patric Rhys is another writer tapping into Flame & Fortune in the context of the house telling scented tales through the medium of fragrance. In his recently published feature article for Fragrantica, ‘Flame, Fortune, Fiction, and Fragrance: Sarah Baker, Revising Our Scented Stories’, based partly on an informal chat with Sarah, he explores how our house deploys scent as a form of storytelling more generally. When he gets to writing about Flame & Fortune…
“There’s an opulent white floral bouquet, honey sweet, under the heated yellow glow of the desert sun. At the same time, there’s scorching car exhaust in the near distance, lending its burning sweetness to sumptuous tuberoses and orange blossom, two complex plumes warming under the same desert sun – one ethereal, one billowing and visible. The sweetness drifts to a boozy sweetness, there’s no actual sugar here to be found. 'Gunpowder gourmand', as the official description titles it.
“The fire and metallic smokiness of the drydown rise up slowly, are the stars before you realize, and once you do, the sun-honey bouquet is not gone, but sunsetting on the dusty, golden desert horizon. It is stunning, complex beyond your imagination, and gorgeous.”
- Patric Rhys, from his article for Fragrantica
And then there’s L.C. James, a photographer who also writes about fragrance and beauty under the moniker nearlynoseblind who has built up a loyal following on TikTok, an important channel for those who prefer to experience storytelling visually. Though a photographer, she is also a pretty dab hand with words. As an artist-run house that is first and foremost about storytelling, we can get behind that. She had this to say about Flame & Fortune…
“Flame & Fortune is the newest release from Sarah Baker which is already a perfume lovers perfume collection. It is like you have taken tuberose and put it through a V8 (engine). There is this roaring sharpness, almost oiliness but the tuberose is doing what tuberose does really well. It’s fleshy, and rich and dense and seductive. And there’s also a bratty narcotic powderiness. I cannot wait to get this on skin.”
- nearlynoseblind on TikTok
Thank you all so much for thinking about us and your beautifully honed words.