Our sense of smell holds the most ancient memory we have. Our nose, the gatekeeper of emotion.
It’s the invisible thread that ties us to our identities, past and present. Before we were able to speak, we had our sense of smell. Before we were able to think or see clearly, our noses were already shaping who we were. It’s the most intimate of senses. It leaves a longing we’ll forget about until one lonely day, a scent enters us without permission, collapsing years in a memory we buried long ago.
TOCCA’s newest scent, Laila, screams indulgence
It tells us how to feel. It’s wired directly to the limbic system, entangling instinct with memory, sometimes reshaping our mood and even time itself. Yes, to smell is to remember, without even trying, to feel the emotions we have without our natural defenses.
I’m not saying TOCCA’s new scent, Laila, does all of the above, but I am saying it’s a refreshing change of pace from many scents in the perfume world that either underdeliver their ingredients or overwhelm the palette. It’s neither the disappointment you feel when opening a poorly stored champagne bottle gone flat, nor is it the punch in the face you receive when walking through a department store’s bottom floor.
A citrus-forward scent that comes from the reliable combination of bergamot blended with green mandarin, Laila carries notes of jasmine and lily of the valley for that decadent yet subtle, lush feeling. Add in cardamom blossom and desert rain for the earthiness, and top it off with toasted vanilla and golden amber, and you’ve got yourself a scent that will all but surely leave people swiveling to get a better whiff.
“It isn’t whispering– it’s indulging,” reads TOCCA’s tagline for Laila, and I couldn’t agree more. It’s elegant, it’s fun, it’s tasteful. And what better way to showcase what a slice of heaven can smell like than with cake?
We attended a cake decorating class with Lucie of From Lucie fame. | Photo Catherina Gioino
TOCCA thought the same thing. The company unveiled their new scent in one of the better crossover ways possible, teaming up with Lucie Franc de Ferriere, the renaissance woman behind the wait-outside-on-line-but-it’s-worth-it bakery From Lucie, for an exclusive cake-decorating class featuring the same ingredients you’d find in Laila.
At the TOCCA showroom in midtown, Lucie showed off her skills to a class of entrapped students in awe of every addition she made to her make. The cardamom cake, filled with a not-too-sweet bergamot buttercream, would be decorated with flowers, she explained, the aromas of which reminded her of the same ones found in her mother’s garden. A dahlia as the centerpiece, Persian buttercups for a metallic petal effect, pink peonies for the femininity, and topped with pink chrysanthemum to add levels of depth. Add in some dried mandarin slices and crisp dried raspberries, and you’ve got yourself a cake.
Now it was our turn. I’m a baker, but not a decorator. I go for the taste– I’m making my mother’s recipes from Naples, my nonna’s, with ingredients from the farm we have. None of these recipes account for the end look of the product (save maybe for this olive oil-orange cake, which does call for the most subtle dusting of confectioner’s sugar at the end, and of course, tiramisu, but that’s a given). Baking is easy and fun: if you’re American and love following rules, it’s science with simple mathematical measurements. If you’re the child of immigrants who lack structure and possibly regret asking your relatives to show you a recipe because instead of measuring cups, they eyeball everything and purposely avoid any quantifiable metric, you’re also in luck.
The cake was made with the same ingredients that make up Laila. | Photo Catherina Gioino
Decorating, on the other hand, involves skill, talent, attention to detail, and probably most importantly, patience. Now on most days, I can confidently (a native New Yorker, so re: braggadocious) say I have three out of those four. However, it’s only on the best of days that I can proclaim to have patience (re: native New Yorker), so this proved a fun task in a setting where I was required to summon the courage of patience.
Sitting at a table with some of the most encouraging people around, we made our cakes and ate them too. We learned from the lived experience of Lucie: put too much buttercream too close to the cake’s surface, you’ll have the two tiers of cake sliding about. Too much custard in between the layers will surely cause some spillage. Forget to use tape to wrap the bottom of flower stems, and you’re almost certain to have some soggy sponge cake.
In the end, we all made our cakes, and dare I say, they came out as elegant as Laila.
I think they came out great
