Nishane‘s newest Time Capsule Perfume Collection might be their best so far. And Tempfluo is its star fragrance, created by perfumer Anne Flipo. Read all about why you need to try it in the review below!
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Time Capsule Collection
How often does a perfume brand owner start telling you about their newest fragrance collection with the words “The world is definitely going to end”? From my many years of experience, I can tell you – never! Anything hinting at the transience of life in general and of human existence in particular is too dark and gloomy to burden the imagination of your customers with, so the common thinking. Perfume houses unanimously prefer to spin stories of eternal happiness and never-ending youth. It would take balls to tackle the shortness and volatility of life as an overarching theme if the goal is to create a fragrance collection that sells.
Nishane have never shied away from difficult topics, and made many of them into hugely successful scents (just think of the fan favorite Ani and its link to the Turkish-Armenian history, or B-612 and Vain & Naive that remind of individual’s struggle for acceptance). So if anyone could make a collection dedicated to showing how insignificant humanity actually is in the grand scheme of things, it’s them. And they did!
When I first saw and smelled Time Capsule fragrances at 2022 Esxence in Milan, Murat Katran, Nishane’s co-founder, introduced the concept with the remarkable sentence: “With so many things hitting the world, it is definitely going to end, maybe in one thousand years, or maybe in one million years” (still have that video on my phone).
Of course, the story didn’t end with just this true, yet not entirely comfortable statement. The idea of fragrances as a time capsule represents the understanding that humans do not control everything and are not the most important part of the universe, but are capable of great achievements and works of beauty that are worth being preserved over time and space. The answer to the question of what will remain after we are long gone. After all, even mountains move and the mighty dinosaurs went extinct, so why should the mankind have a different fate?
What conclusions will future archeologists (or even aliens?) draw about our civilization when excavating its relics? According to Nishane and four of the greatest perfumers of our time that worked on Time Capsule Collection, we will be remembered as creatures of timeless stylistic elegance and kind awareness of things that go beyond our selfish little interests – time, space, interconnectedness of everything and our earth-bound heritage. And this is a very optimistic outlook indeed!
On a practical note – all perfumes from Time Capsule Collection are smart and carry themselves with a classic upscale elegance that knows the difference between true beauty and mere embellishment and chooses to forego the latter. They are complex, generally not sweet (however, the devil here is in the detail) and somewhat stern (as would be expected from the storytelling), all this lends them even more authority. They came out after Perfumestry (the niche fragrance discovery service I’ve founded) had released the “Scents of power” box, but would have been the perfect candidates for it. In terms of seasons, I see them shine particularly bright in the colder parts of the year. Especially in fall, when the beautiful woody, mossy, earthy, leathery base notes sync with golden leaves on the ground and the continental autumn vibes in the air.
Tempfluo
The name Tempfluo means Time Flow. All fragrances from Time Capsule Collection are named in Esperanto, the artificial language created to unite and bring the mankind closer through universal linguistic structures that are easy to learn and understand.
The fragrance was created by the Master perfumer Anne Flipo. It’s her first work for Nishane. I’m sure you’ve already smelled many of her other scents, her portfolio boasts mega-hits like L’Homme and Libre for YSL; Invictus, Lady Million and Olympea for Paco Rabanne; and wonderfully dreamy 2016 Herb Garden collection for Jo Malone London. The list is too long to publish here, but you get the idea – Anne Flipo is the nose behind some of the most successful modern fragrances and has proven her mastery of capturing the Zeitgeist in perfume formulas.
With Tempfluo, Nishane are reminding us that the passage of time is a highly subjective affair. We cannot hold the past, touch the future or capture the present, it flows away between our fingers without staying. And so, it’s best to seize the day, making the most of here and now – the only time entity we get to briefly experience.
The most famous visual representation of the time-flow concept is probably Salvador Dalí’s painting The Persistence of Memory from 1931, with pocket watches literally flowing off different objects as if they were liquid stains. This visual metaphor has been copied and used so often that it’s now one of the basic tropes of Western culture.
With time being such an abstract idea, how would one represent it in an olfactive medium? According to Nishane and Anne Flipo, time is an interplay between the fresh, the sweet, and the bitter metallic notes, wrapping around each other in a never-ending dance.
For me, Tempfluo does not have the pyramid structure casually assumed when describing fragrances – there are no opening notes that make way to the middle ones, which melt into a base accord. In Tempfluo, everything is happening at once, and while the perfume transforms over time, its building blocks do not fade away in an orderly transition, but hide and reemerge, creating beautiful twists along the way.
The first sensation that hits the nose is the clear, crisp white freshness of orange blossom and dewy jasmine mixed with a hint of citrus energy. However, there is no time to marvel at it as a stand-alone accord, as the next player enters the stage almost simultaneously – saffron, with its sharp, bitter, metallic precision that cuts through the light floral-fruity niceness.
The millisecond it took you to focus on saffron is also used by its unlikely companion to appear – the sweet gourmand accord of caramel-and-milk-chocolate praline.
The two have a yin-yang relationship: inseparable, yet gently pulling the composition in different directions. The result is sometimes dominated by the powerful and serious bitterness of saffron supported by the woody base, sometimes by the playful pleasantness of sweet milky delights emphasized by strategically placed vanilla. Sometimes, when the saffron tide is rolling over you, you’ll even get hints of black leather. This is not surprising, as saffron note is often used to create leather accords.
What to make of it all? This perfume is really flowing – with waves of different shades and varying intensity appearing and disappearing along the way. As the day progresses, you’ll get many delightful snapshots of this process, one unlike the other. And it’s precisely what Nishane’s Mert Güzel and Murat Katran want you to do – to enjoy every moment. Tempfluo is a carpe diem fragrance expressing the idea like no other!
Curious and want to smell Tempfluo? You can buy a bottle or order a discovery set containing all four perfumes from Time Capsule Collection from Nishane’s official web shop.
Have you smelled it already? And what are your Nishane favorites?
Perfume expert and founder of Niche Fragrance Discovery Agency Perfumestry, Yana, is an industry expert with years of experience in discovering and analyzing trends in the high-end fragrance market segment. She supports new brands in expanding their market presence and PR work. Yana shares her passion for olfactory culture at the weekly meetings of the Berlin Perfume Club, which she co-founded.
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