Scent and Subversion

by Barbara Herman

  Lore has it that Jacques Guerlain was so taken with the newly available synthetic vanillin that he poured some into Jicky and their beautiful child was Shalimar. The “Guerlinade” found in Shalimar dries down to smell like skin—well, skin that is graced with orris and a hint of heavenly vanilla! As Chanel perfumer Ernest Beaux joked, there’s “crème anglaise” vanilla, and then there’s Guerlain vanilla. (Guerlinade is the name of the secret-formula accord of iris and tonka bean, give or take a few notes, which formed the base that constitutes Guerlain’s early, confectionary signature.) If Jicky is the jolie laide (“ugly beautiful”) of Guerlain scents, Shalimar is her easier-on-the-nose sister.

  Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, mandarin, rosewood

  Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, orris, vetiver, patchouli

  Base notes: Opopanax, vanilla, civet, Peru balsam, benzoin, coumarin (tonka bean), leather

  Bois des Îles by Chanel (1926)

  Perfumer: Ernest Beaux

  Floral notes of jasmine and rose peek out of the thick scent of sandalwood that dominates Bois des Îles’ balsamic forest, with the the not-so-subtle spice of cinnamon from fallen tonka beans blanketing its forest floor, spreading a vanilla-ambery sweetness in its wake. The reformulated and denuded forest that is called Bois des Îles is a lovely light floral with almost no relation to its predecessor.

  Notes: Jasmine, damask rose, ylang-ylang, bitter almond, gingerbread, vanilla, tonka bean, sandalwood, vetiver

  Djedi by Guerlain (1926)

  Djedi was an ancient Egyptian soothsayer and magician famed for being able to make the dead come back to life. Quite a name for a perfume, but then again, Djedi isn’t just any perfume. Described as “the driest perfume of all time” (Roja Dove) and a “tremendous animalic vetiver” (Luca Turin), Djedi, like Chanel No. 19, creates a disquieting atmosphere as soon as you put it on. Vetiver is attended by a hint of clove and vanilla (not in the official list of notes), after which the comforting rank of civet darts around in the back like the actual animal. The rest of the Djedi rests on a chypre leather base.

  The magic in Djedi is its ability to be both dramatic and quiet about it, like a secret pagan ritual going on under cover of darkness, with little fanfare. We don’t see Djedi performing his magic rituals, but we note the curling smoke, the burning incense, the fragrant oils, the portent of something heavy and dark. We sense this as if we were intruders on an unseen and unseeable act of alchemy, something happening behind a curtain, just outside our purview.

  If Djedi were on a color wheel, there would be nothing bright, but everything rich and deep: chartreuse, saffron, sable brown, inky black. I think of the forest in Guillermo del Toro’s film, Pan’s Labyrinth, filled with creatures that are beautiful, terrifying, and remote, in a fairy-tale land we can only fantasize about.

  Notes from Fragrantica.com: Rose, vetiver, musk, oakmoss, leather, civet, patchouli

  Arpège by Lanvin (1927)

  Perfumers: André Fraysse and Paul Vacher

  Arpège is sensual beauty, slightly corrupted, at the end of a night of dining and dancing in stilettos, silk, and furs. The flowers are wilting on the table, sitting next to the fur coat that has absorbed the post-dinner cigarette smoke. This peach-led floral is enriched and fattened and rounded by ambrein, the primary molecule in ambergris, and its contrast of fresh peach with an erotic base make Arpège a classic vintage fragrance that nods both to the good girl and the bad.

  Top notes: Bergamot, neroli, aldehydes, peach

  Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang

  Base notes: Sandalwood, ambrein, vetiver, musk

  L’Aimant by Coty (1927)

  A 1943 advertisement for Coty’s L’Aimant

  Perfumers: Vincent Roubert and François Coty

  Inspired by Chanel No. 5, L’Aimant (“Loving Her,” or “The Magnet”) is warm and sweet, like cut plums sautéed in butter and brandy and sprinkled with candied violets.

  The powderiness in L’Aimant is saved from being too old-fashioned by the round, buttery, and sensual dark fruit and balsamic notes that underly the perfume, like bright oil colors on a dark velvet canvas. Jacques Guerlain’s wife loved L’Aimant so much, it is said that she even preferred it to her husband’s perfumes.

  Notes not available.

  Bellodgia by Caron (1927)

  Caron Perfumes, 1956

  Perfumer: Ernest Daltroff

  I first approached Bellodgia before I could recognize the “color” of carnation, like a color-blind person looking at one of those visual tests and not being able to distinguish one colored dot in a sea of other colored dots. Now it seems so clear to me, having tried the more-intense carnation scents like Caron’s Poivre, Floris’s Malmaison, and the super-intense Roger & Gallet Blue Carnation. I no longer just smell a stew of cloying florals, and can appreciate, even if I could never wear, the lovely, and well-balanced Bellodgia.

  With a bright bergamot/lemon opening, almost immediately warmed and rounded from nutmeg and vanilla, Bellodgia launches into a bouquet of sweet florals spiced with clove-faceted carnation. Musk, sandalwood, and vetiver give the base some carnal heft, but it’s the spicy floral heart that truly makes Bellodgia, the balance between sweetness with spice.

  I like to think of perfumes going to the Ernest Daltroff finishing school, but instead of coming out ready to be debutantes and society ladies, they are ready to be ladies of the night or femme fatales. Bellodgia could have just been a well-behaved floral, but Daltroff’s addition of clovey-carnation spice becomes a mark, like an olfactory Scarlet Letter.

  Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, nutmeg, pimento berries

  Heart notes: Carnation, ylang-ylang, rose, jasmine, orris

  Base notes: Vetiver, vanilla, sandalwood, nitromusks

  Evening in Paris by Bourjois (1928)

  Perfumer: Ernest Beaux

  With its luscious bergamot, apricot, and peach opening, a rich rose/jasmine heart greened and lightened by lily of the valley, and a spicy balsamic base, it’s easy to see why Evening in Paris was a hit, described as “The Most Popular Fragrance in the World.” Its opening soars with glamour and joy, like taking a ride down the Champs-Élysées for the first time and seeing the bright lights of Paris, illuminated water fountains, and the feeling of budding romance. In the drydown, an almost coconut sweetness bursts in. (This description is for vintage; the notes below are most likely for the 1991 reformulation.)

  Top notes: Bergamot, apricot and peach, green notes and violet

  Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, heliotrope, ylang-ylang, lily of the valley, and orris

  Base notes: Amber, musk, sandalwood, vanilla

  Zibeline by Weil (1928)

  This 1928 French advertisement showcases two Weil fragrances created specifically to harmonize with fur.

  Seeing as we’re living in an age in which furs are frowned upon and perfume is being regulated out of existence, it’s hard to imagine anything more decadent or anachronistic than “parfum des fourrures” (fur perfumes), but Zibeline was in fact such a perfume. Named after the sable Martes zibellina, Zibeline was once advertised as “strictly an odor for furs,” made to keep furs from smelling musty without damaging them. (The Weil brothers were furriers before they became perfumers.) Spicy, sweet, and balsamic-powdery, Zibeline has a pronounced heliotrope-like almond-cherry note from tonka that recalls Serge Lutens’s ode to Turkish Delight candy, Rahat Lakhoum, which shares Zibeline’s hawthorn, rose, and tonka notes. While it initially smells overwhelmingly of the cherry-almond heliotrope note at the beginning, its drydown brings out its multifaceted glory, with that accord radiating from the center of spice, powder, and balsamic warmth.

  Notes from 1964 Dictionnaires de Parfums de France: Neroli, hawthorn, linden, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, incense, opopanax, oakmoss, vetiver, tonka bean, and civet

  Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, lemon, coriander, tarragon

  Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang, orris, gardenia

&
nbsp; Base notes: Vetiver, civet, sandal, amber, musk, honey, tonka

  Liù by Guerlain (1929)

  Are you Liù’s type? Maybe if you’re a redhead, implies this 1938 advertisement.

  Perfumer: Jacques Guerlain

  If Chanel No. 5 and Shalimar had a baby, Liù would be their love child: An aldehydic floral based around jasmine and rose, Liù is powdery, sumptuous, and comforting, with a deep amber-vanilla base. Often described as Chanel No. 5 without the musk, Liù’s subtly fresh neroli note keeps the entire perfume from sinking into a decadent stupor, but not by much.

  Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, neroli

  Heart notes: Jasmine, rose, orris

  Base notes: Woody notes, vanilla, amber

  This 1938 ad for Caron’s French Cancan features a sultry close-up of a woman who looks like a movie star.

  The Dirty ’30s

  Tabu, Scandal, Shocking (1930–1939)

  The 1930s was the decade of the Oriental fragrance—not only as a category with sumptuous notes, but because of the decade’s preoccupation with exotic fantasies of distant lands: the hot Moroccan desert winds that blow through Lucien Lelong’s Sirocco; the French colonies of Jean Patou’s Colony, with its tropical plantation accords of pineapple and rubber; and Tuvaché’s campy Jungle Gardenia, invoking an island paradise. Even the decade’s most famous floral, Joy, although not in the Oriental category, is loaded down with that category’s decadence and richness.

  Joy by Jean Patou (1930)

  This 1937 ad marketed Joy as “the costliest perfume in the world” during the Great Depression.

  Perfumer: Henri Alméras

  Released during the Great Depression and provocatively described as “the world’s most expensive perfume,” Joy, conceived by Jean Patou as a decadent gift to his American consumers, is considered to be one of the greatest floral perfumes ever created.

  Joy is a velvety profusion of florals, with rose, jasmine, and ylang-ylang in their most decadent, gilded glory. Perfumer Jean Kerléo, Alméras’s successor, claimed that Joy’s richness comes from its jasmine and Bulgarian rose—not its base notes. Its voluptuous drydown has an almost tropical flower/coconut feel.

  In spite of Joy’s luxe reputation, my favorite anecdote about the perfume is on the louche side, and comes from GQ writer Glenn O’Brien: It’s rumored that the Rolling Stones’s grizzled bassist Keith Richards has worn Joy under his armpits for years. Rather than diminishing Joy, this makes me give even more props to Keith for his excellent taste.

  Top notes: Leafy green, aldehydes, peach, blossom-calyx notes

  Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, orris, orchid, lily of the valley

  Base notes: Sandal, musk, civet

  Je Reviens by Worth (1932)

  Perfumer: Maurice Blanchet

  With three floral notes that can be read as irredeemably old-fashioned to modern noses—lilac, hyacinth, and violet—Je Reviens nevertheless balances them with sensuous balsamic notes against smooth sandalwood, moss, and vetiver. The reformulations have been roundly panned (“Like bug spray” was a common refrain), so stick to bottles that are labeled paris, france. What’s missing in later reformulations is the rich, woody base.

  Top notes: Aldehydes, orange blossom, violet, bergamot

  Heart notes: Clove, hyacinth, jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang, orris, lilac

  Base notes: Vetiver, tonka, tolu, amber, musk, sandalwood, moss

  Jungle Gardenia by Tuvaché (1932)

  Jungle Gardenia by Tuvaché was love at first sniff. Some perfumes dillydally around, making small talk, trying to get to know you, requiring that you buy them dinner and learn their childhood pets’ names and personalities, and so on. You may not be sure how you feel about them at first, but in time, love—true love—can happen. Jungle Gardenia was no such demure date. It bypassed all of my brain’s rational vetting systems and said, “Kiss me, you fool!” And kiss it I did.

  With tropical wet gardenia and bubblegum-sweet tuberose bursting from its center, flanked by fresh green top notes and an erotic base of balsams and musk, Jungle Gardenia goes straight to the perfume brain’s pleasure center. Subtlety, thy name is not Jungle Gardenia.

  But then again, gardenias are not the most subtle of flowers. Team gardenia up with tuberose, and you can just kiss free will good-bye. I’m convinced now that gardenia and tuberose, two of the girliest perfume notes often disparaged as “too grandma,” are in fact two of the most badass perfume notes in the perfume lexicon.

  Billing itself as “The world’s most exotic perfume,” Jungle Gardenia is exotic in the way Hollywood movies set in the South Seas starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were exotic, with all the signifiers of exotic exaggerated and staged just so (big flowers, vines, a pile of sand, one coconut tree, tanned women sporting leis). And yet, I could see how this perfume—like an actual white gardenia affixed to an ordinary ’50s hairdo—could have made your average American housewife feel like Dorothy Lamour.

  Although it came out in the 1930s, I wonder if Jungle Gardenia didn’t have its heyday in the 1950s. It seems like a very 1950s perfume, sunny and fun yet carnal in that healthy, smiling American-woman way. (It certainly helps that the tuberose in Jungle Gardenia really does smell like pink bubble gum, and it’s reputed to have been a favorite of Elizabeth Taylor.)

  Apparently, Tuvaché was a New York–based company that felt it needed to be in French drag to compete with the popularity of French scents at the time. Its owner even went so far as to concoct a pen name, Madame de Tuvaché, and I bet she would have thrown a circumflex in there somewhere if she could have!

  Tuvaché’s Jungle Gardenia has been discontinued for a while (in its original form, anyway). I have not tried the Germaine Monteil, Yardley, Jovan/Coty, Irma Shorell, or Evyan versions, which are said to have taken over. A few ways to figure out if you have the original formula?

  Check to see if it’s by Tuvaché.

  See if it’s made in New York.

  Does it make you swoon?

  (Heeley’s Bubblegum Chic wouldn’t be a bad substitute if you wanted a modern version.)

  Notes not available.

  Surrender by Ciro (1932)

  From 1923 to 1961, the American perfume brand Ciro created daring perfumes with gorgeous Baccarat-designed bottles and colorful, often surreal perfume ads. With Surrender, violet and white flowers rest on a balsamic base of amber-vanilla with a lovely, spicy incense bite. Powdery orris, like a silk charmeuse gown flowing over the perfume’s body, softens its edges.

  Notes not available.

  Prior to the 1970s, perfume ads often targeted men as purchasers of perfume for women. In this 1940s-era ad for Ciro’s line of perfumes, the silhouette of a puzzled man simply asks, “Which?” To the left is Ciro’s entire range of perfumes, meant for different types of women. Danger is for the woman who likes “very dry martinis and fast cars,” and New Horizons, for the woman who “looks ahead—moves ahead—and has a head!”

  Tabu by Dana (1932)

  Perfumer: Jean Carles

  In the same way that people want to drink a full-bodied red wine or drink a peaty scotch on winter days rather than, say, a vodka grapefruit, perfume lovers often veer toward fragrances in the Oriental category when it’s cold outside. A classic perfume in this category, Tabu provides the winter warmth you’re looking for and offers heat in other ways: It was created to project overt sexuality.

  Created by perfumer Jean Carles of Ma Griffe, Shocking, and Miss Dior fame (which he created with Paul Vacher), it’s said that Dana’s brief to Carles was along the lines of, “Make a perfume a prostitute would wear.” Perhaps this was a signature; fans of Carles’s other fragrance, Ma Griffe, have said that their grandmothers called that perfume “the prostitute’s perfume,” and both Shocking and Miss Dior have a whiff of ladies’ undergarments about them.

  This 1950s-era French ad for Tabu, “The Forbidden Perfume,” had a decidedly S&M bent. (Artist: Camilla)

  Sweet, ambery, spicy, and com
plex, Tabu’s sweetness comes from heady florals, clove, benzoin, and amber rather than the expected vanilla, which doesn’t appear, surprisingly, as a note. (Benzoin resin from the styrax tree’s bark has a pronounced vanilla facet embedded in heavy-cream richness, which accounts for the vanillic impression in Tabu.)

  Go for demure perfumes if you must, but for me, if loving perfume that was made for prostitutes is wrong—I don’t wanna be right.

  Top notes: Bergamot, orange, neroli, coraner, spice notes

  Heart notes: Clove bud, ylang-ylang, rose, jasmine, narcissus, clover

  Base notes: Patchouli, civet, cedar, vetiver, sandalwood, benzoin, amber, musk, oakmoss

  Angélique Encens by Creed (1933)

  Angélique Encens (Angelica or angelic incense) is heavenly, an animalic as light as a cloud, but with darkness and bite. Angélique Encens’s angelica, vanilla, and ambergris echo Shalimar’s holy trinity of bergamot, vanilla, and animal base. More ethereal and less carnal than Shalimar, Angélique Encens’s head is in the clouds, befitting its name.

  Angélique or angelica is a genus of about sixty kinds of herbs in the family Apiacea that have a peppery, herbal, earthy, woody, and musky odor. Angélique is also a pun on the word angelic, with its connotations of heavenly, sweet, and divine.