Seduction Theory launch
I am so late with this post, my sincerest apologies! It has now been a full month since the launch of Seduction Theory and by the time you are reading this chances are it has been freshly restocked. I was asked to make a jelly sculpture to celebrate the release of this wonderful fragrance, which is a brainchild of Universal Flowering and designer extraordinaire Spaboy.
Courtney reached out to me while I was still in Poland and asked if it was possible to make a jelly sculpture for the launch (five days away). I said sure, why not, threw a silicone mold kit into my Amazon cart and didn’t think about it again until I got home. The jellies were supposed to look like perfect little perfume bottles, dummies to the real thing. My brain was definitely scrambled from jetlag because as soon as I started working on my mold I realized that there was a number of serious obstacles standing between me and jelly sculpture glory.
Jelly is soft. Pushing it out of a rubbery mold would squish the jelly. I could do a two-part mold but there’s no guarantee that the two halves would stick together. We talked about cutting the mold in half but after a quick mock-up I realized the shape would be really, really suggestive, and too suggestive even for a fragrance called Seduction Theory.
I needed to serve 70-100 people with this jelly. I did not have enough silicone or perfume bottles to make a megamold. I didn’t even have enough silicone to make a new mold. I threw another kit in my cart and paid for rush shipping.
I did not know what I was doing and panic was beginning to set in. I discussed with a sculptor friend who told me that what I was doing would probably not work. I discussed a plan B with Amy, who gave me some alternative shapes to strive for. We settled on a book. Easy enough, right?
I looked at my stack of books and found that the only one big and thick enough for the job was my vintage Escoffier cookbook. I sighed and drowned it in silicone.
At 10 pm the night before the launch I came home from work to find that the book mold was thin, flimsy and full of holes, and therefore could not retain liquid. I did not cry but I really wanted to. I decided to try to carve the jelly book instead. I had less than 24 hours to figure it out.
I made three jelly mixes, using agar agar (mistake one, really - agar is more crunchy and less stretchy and much, much harder to work with.) The first was a cassis layer, a dark purple clear jelly; then a clear lychee layer; and lastly I used a little bit of coconut agar to create the white “pages” of the book. I poured on super thin layers and chilled each one enough to pour the next. This took me a few hours. After pouring the final layer, all I could do was wait. I hand-cut a stencil of the logo. I also started thinking about skipping town if I couldn’t figure this out last minute.
The jelly came out. Not enough that I was happy with it, but it was passable, except for the fact that it was hot as hell and the agar was sweating and leaking all over the place. Also, the purple looked more pink layered over the white and it really started to resemble a piece of pork belly. Its redeeming quality was that it was actually quite tasty and refreshing. I had to steel myself and get on my way to the launch. Upon getting to the launch I realized that nobody cared; nobody was looking at me. Once the jelly book was out of my hands I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. Even more so, I was happy to be at the sample table discussing notes and letting guests sample the new scent.
Without further ado, Seduction Theory:
Notes not actually arranged in a pyramid; just someone’s bold assertion that the currant is the dominant scent in this (I think they’re wrong, by the way)
And out of all the reviews, I think this is the only accurate one!
There is something sweaty about the scent. I find that the lychee is the first thing you smell, and after a moment you get a blended cassis-tobacco moment, something muskier and deeper, which then quickly moves into jasmine - not a clean white floral but with some sort of light nastiness (not derogatory). And this isn’t a long drydown - all of these transformations will take place in the first few minutes after spraying. In the end, it smells like an oiled, massaged body, with the droplets of sweat freshly forming on the shiny skin.
This is definitely a fuller-bodied, more assertive summer fragrance. It’s not suffocatingly thick but it does not have any effervescence or lightness to it. Seduction Theory means business and does not apologize for anything.
the cake… please don’t laugh!
Gorgeous table setting which Amy and Courtney made. Magic!
That’s it that’s all. Thanks for being so patient with me!
xoxo