Scent and Subversion
Page 6
Angélique Encens’s initial peppery/herbal notes combine with nose-tickling incense, followed by the downy-softest vanilla, with a musky, civet-like animal note hovering in the background. Its florals are very much in the background like the perfume’s silver lining, adding sensuality from behind the scenes. The animal note recedes in the drydown, and you’re left with a whisper of a vanilla skin-scent. (This is a review of Creed’s final stock of Angélique Encens before they—unwisely—discontinued it.)
Top notes: Angelica
Heart notes: Rose, jasmine
Base notes: Vanilla, incense, ambergris
(Notes from Creed’s website before Angélique Encens was discontinued.)
Reflections by Ciro (1933)
Boozy, rich, spicy, and vanillic, Reflections is in the Tabu/Styx Oriental family of perfumes, with an intense amber, patchouli, and powdery base, maybe with orris and sandalwood.
Notes not available.
Scandal by Lanvin (1933)
A toga-clad woman holds Lanvin’s distinctive, round black bottle like an offering from the gods. The bottle features the Lanvin logo—a stylized depiction of designer Jeanne Lanvin and her daughter in gold—designed by illustrator Paul Iribe.
Perfumer: André Fraysse
Scandal may start off too sweet for some tastes, like a Choward’s violet candy. But once the flowers dissipate, what remains is a cozy (if unscandalous) scent of faintly sweet leather and tobacco. Of course, I think we can understand why it must have seemed scandalous to have an elegant, perfumed lady smell like she’d just smoked a pack of cigarettes (at the time, still seen as déclassé) and fallen asleep in the leather interior of a car the night before!
Top notes: Neroli, bergamot, lemon, mandarin, clary sage
Heart notes: Leather, orris, rose, ylang-ylang
Base notes: Olibanum, civet, oakmoss, vanilla, vetiver, benzoin
Secret of Venus by Weil (1933)
Secret of Venus, Weil’s perfume for women (rather than for furs, like Zibeline and Chinchilla Royal), opens with symphonic herbaceousness, moves into a spicy floral heart, and rests on a velvety, honeyed Oriental base. Its drydown is an irresistible mix of sweet balsams, incense/spice, and an almond-oil facet from tonka. A little like Le Numéro Cinq and Coty’s Styx in style and personality, if a bit sweeter.
The first time I took a whiff, Secret of Venus did that animalic/raunchy lurch that tends to mean that civet is prowling around, but it could just be a really animalic musk. It’s ironic that a perfume in a line meant to hide the smell of the animal in fur can’t resist throwing some animal back into the perfume.
Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, lemon, coriander, tarragon
Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang, orris, gardenia
Base notes: Vetiver, civet, sandal, amber, musk, honey, tonka
Sous le Vent by Guerlain (1933)
A sculptural face in profile sets sail in artist Darcy’s 1930s-era illustrated interpretation of Guerlain’s Sous le Vent, which literally means “Under the Wind.”
Perfumer: Jacques Guerlain
A forbiddingly beautiful chypre, Sous le Vent (“Under the Wind”) has the depth and sumptuousness of an ornate Oriental tapestry, with threads of gold and pastel satin panels set against a black velvet backdrop.
Initially, it appears to be a friendly chypre with a lavender-bergamot top shot through with lovely amber-vanilla. But like smoothing down velvet to watch it change color from light to dark, I notice as I reapply and resniff Sous le Vent that its complexity comes through with spicy, powdery carnation and the inimitable Guerlain vanilla touched with amber.
Masks are signature images in Corday perfume ads, but they’re usually depicted as festive or beautiful. This one, from 1936, almost looks like a death mask or something from a horror film. Beautiful, but scary.
I get an almost zesty-green top married to rich florals, with Guerlain’s rich base throwing its magic scrim over all the notes, softening them with its moondust. Sous le Vent is said to have been created for Josephine Baker, the American performer who electrified 1930s Paris in shows at the City of Light’s famed Folies Bergère theater.
Top notes: Basil, bergamot, lavender, tarragon
Heart notes: Carnation
Base notes: Oakmoss, iris, woods, patchouli
(Notes from Victoria Frovola’s perfume blog Bois de Jasmin.)
Vol de Nuit by Guerlain (1933)
An ad (c. 1943) for Guerlain’s Vol de Nuit
Perfumer: Jacques Guerlain
Named after the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry novel about night pilots in the early days of aviation, Vol de Nuit (“Night Flight”), the scent, translates the mystery, danger, and poetry of night flying into perfume notes.
Vol de Nuit’s balance of disparate notes is part of its mystery: It starts off green, citrusy, and dry; moves toward a subtle floral heart; and evolves into an orris/vanilla and amber drydown with a mossy finish.
The perfume’s surprise, and what pulls everything together, is its heart of tentative sweetness, from a facet of the narcissus and a subdued jasmine combined with amber and vanilla. It’s as if the dark night sky (the coldness of galbanum and citrus?) suddenly revealed a twinkling star, and the loneliness and danger of flying turns into an existential adventure, exhilarating instead of treacherous. The moss and resins help to maintain the perfume’s austerity and gravity, but it’s that moment of warmth that creates Vol de Nuit’s emotional center.
Notes not available.
A’Suma by Coty (1934)
Perfumer: Vincent Roubert
Nodding its hat to the exoticism and Orientalism of the time, A’Suma has the familiar bergamot, lavender, vanilla, and civet impression of Jicky, Shalimar, and Emeraude. Like Lucien Lelong’s Sirocco, A’Suma, with its haunting addition of incense, adds a flinty, austere character to this otherwise sumptuous perfume, like the smell of a lit match. In advertisements of the time, A’Suma is described as “opulent,” “as exotic as a moonlit beach in Bali,” and with the “sensuous allure of a siren’s song.” I can’t disagree with that.
Notes not available.
Bambou by Weil (1934)
A woody Oriental perfume with a beautiful lavender opening and rich, balsamic drydown, Bambou is akin to Tabu and Youth Dew, without much sweetness. Perhaps due to the age of my sample, Bambou feels like it’s almost all base notes, with an almost cocoa-coffee facet that gives it an earthy quality. The reformulation is its polar opposite: fruity and light.
Notes from ThePerfumedCourt.com: Lavender, jasmine, rose, carnation, lily of the valley, cedar, tonka, musk, sandal
Blue Grass by Elizabeth Arden (1934)
Perfumer: George Fuchs
Lavender and neroli join hands at the beginning of Blue Grass to do a little dance together, lavender’s herbaceousness balancing out neroli’s sweetness, both of them announcing summer. Its intense, sweet florals may be too much for some, but Blue Grass balances its fresh top notes with its woody and balsamic base, interpreting summer as ripeness rather than as freshness. I read somewhere that Elizabeth Arden used to spray her horses with Blue Grass! I bet the smell of this on stinky horsehair would have been amazing.
Top notes: Aldehydes, lavender, bergamot, neroli, orange
Heart notes: Jasmine, carnation, narcissus, rose, tuberose
Base notes: Sandalwood, benzoin, tonka, tonquin musk
Fleurs de Rocaille by Caron (1934)
Perfumer: Ernest Daltroff
With a prominent powdery and sweet floral opening characteristic of this era, Fleurs de Rocaille is nevertheless greened with narcissus, spiced with carnation, and eroticized with Ernest Daltroff’s je ne sais quoi brand of sexy fairy dust. This happy floral has just enough spice and bite to keep it modern.
Top notes: Palisander (Brazilian rosewood), bergamot, gardenia, violet
Heart notes: Jasmine, narcissus, rose, carnation, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang, lilac, mimosa
Base notes: Amber, sandalwood, musk, ced
ar
Nuit de Longchamp by Lubin (1934)
In Nuit de Longchamp, sweet lilac and moody violet combine with woods, moss, and a nitromusk-rich base to create a perfume that feels paradoxically innocent and erotic. Nitromusks, and perhaps tonka, contribute to a sweet/vanillic/cinnamon heliotrope-like fattiness in the base that provides such a wonderful counterpoint to the delicate lilac note that floats above Nuit de Longchamp’s base of dark woods like an iridescent butterfly in a forest.
Notes from 1982 Dictionnaire des Parfums de France: Lilac, jasmine, oakmoss, violet, musk, chypre base
Rumeur by Lanvin (1934)
Perfumer: André Fraysse
A gourmand leather and tobacco fragrance so beautiful it belongs to a rare scent category for me: perfume so good I want to drink it. Dark vanilla and creamy white florals voluptuously bloom as leather, tobacco, and civet rise up. Peach and plum add some bruised sweetness.
When I visualize Rumeur, I imagine those dark, fleshy, oddly colored orchids that you can hardly believe are flowers. My Sin and Baghari are white and sensual flowers—Rumeur their darker cousin. Its addition of costus, the perfume note that smells a bit like sebum/bed-head, takes Rumeur’s uncanny, singular sexiness to another level. It’s in my top five favorite vintage perfumes of all time.
In this fanciful 1956 ad by artist Al Janvic, who illustrated a whole series of perfume ads for Lanvin featuring street scenes, Lanvin perfumes are individually represented by circus figures.
The 1964 Dictionnaire des Parfums de France describes Rumeur as “a spicy fragrance featuring cyclamen, gardenia, vetiver, patchouli, violet leaves and amber. It evokes a fragrant forest, orchards under the sun, and oriental flowers … It is an evening perfume that will mostly appeal to brunettes.” According to perfume historian Octavian Coifan, Rumeur is a fruity chypre between Mitsouko and Femme.
Notes from Octavian Coifan: Peach, plum, dark vanilla, nutmeg, cardamom, clove, civet, costus, tobacco, and Cuir de Russie (“Russia Leather”) bases prepared by Synarome
Sirocco by Lucien Lelong (1934)
“Here in a serpentine vial is the mystery of the East,” reads the copy on this 1943 advertisement for Lucien Lelong’s Orientalist fantasy in a bottle. Sirocco is the name for the desert wind that blows from North Africa to Europe.
Perfumer: Jean Carles
Named after a Mediterranean wind that comes in from the Sahara, Sirocco, like Emeraude and Shalimar, combines a citrusy top note with rich vanilla and balsams. With a stunning lavender and vanilla heart enriched by benzoin and spiced by patchouli, this gourmand Oriental perfume is a dark, sensual experience, and has a more mysterious aura than the brighter Emeraude and the friendlier Shalimar.
According to the 1964 Dictionnaire des Parfums de France, Sirocco, as befits its name, is “a warm and heady fragrance evoking the immensity of the desert sands … ideal with furs and during elegant society events under starry skies.” Good to know! Its dusty, dry, incensey backdrop adds a wonderful counterpoint to its rich, balsamic base.
Notes from 1964 Dictionnaire des Parfums de France: Citrus, lavender, benzoin, patchouli, vanilla
Indiscret by Lucien Lelong (1935)
A river of clove runs through the kingdom of Indiscret, picking up fresh bergamot, mandarin, jasmine, and rose as it continues to snake its way down. By the time it reaches its incense and amber/vanillic/woody base, it settles into an intensely sensual, rich, spicy, ambery base. Indiscret is said to have been Lauren Bacall’s signature scent, which makes sense, because both of them smolder. Perfumer Yann Vasnier describes Indiscret as a spicy, animalic Oriental perfume, detecting from an intact perfume nip notes of clove, jasmine, carnation, aldehydes, and vanilla.
Notes from 1964 Dictionnaire des Parfums de France: Carnation, rose absolute, jasmine, woodsy notes
Jean Naté by Charles of the Ritz (1935)
If a lemon went to finishing school, it would smell like Jean Naté.
Soft, powdery, complex, and sophisticated, this old gem (the old-school Charles of the Ritz cologne spray, anyway) is sunny without being ditzy. It starts out with an herbal, lemon opening, followed by a smooth, woody finish warmed by tonka.
Notes from Fragrantica.com: Citrus, lavender, jasmine, rose, carnation, lily of the valley, cedar, tonka bean, musk, sandalwood
Voulez-Vous by D’Orsay (1935)
An intensely green/floral chypre with hints of tobacco and civet, Voulez-Vous (or “Would you like to …?”) is about as subtle as its name suggests. Voulez-Vous’s florals, along with its aggressive greenness, can be observed through its tobacco-tinged animalic drydown, which acts like a come-hither veil of smoke. Perfumer Yann Vasnier describes Voulez-Vous as a chypre leather similar to Miss Dior, with galbanum and rose. In a 1960s ad for Voulez-Vous, a woman stares down her unseen prey as she lights a cigarette. Describing her look as “bedroom eyes” would be the understatement of the year.
Notes from 1964 Dictionnaire des Parfums de France: Green, woodsy, and fruity notes with jasmine and lily of the valley
Canoe by Dana (1936)
Perfumer: Jean Carles
Ever the provocateur, Jean Carles not only enjoyed making perfumes for loose women; he also loved gender-bending in fragrances. Even seasoned noses might have a hard time telling the difference between masculine Canoe and Carles’s Ambush, for women. Both are fougères (Canoe more classically, because of its addition of oakmoss), and both differ only by a few notes: Canoe has patchouli, carnation, and oakmoss, and Ambush does not. And the sweetness is more prominent in Ambush, whereas Canoe upped the aromatic quality.
Fougère (for “fern” in French) is a traditionally masculine category of perfume that originated with Fougère Royal (1882). Its base comprises lavender, oakmoss, and coumarin, giving it an herbaceous, mossy, and vanillic-warm character.
Top notes: Lavender, clary sage, lemon
Heart notes: Bourbon geranium, carnation, cedarwood, patchouli
Base notes: Vanilla, tonka, musk, heliotrope, oakmoss
Muguet des Bois by Coty (1936)
Perfumer: Henri Robert
Muguet des Bois (“Lily of the Woods”) smells clean, but unlike some more-abstract clean scents, it’s reminiscent of nature, and therefore impregnated with complexity. From the hint of musty lilac to a bright lemony-rose, there is an artful artlessness to its loveliness.
Edmond Roudnitska, who created his own version of a lily-of-the-valley fragrance with Diorissimo, greatly admired Coty’s Muguet des Bois, and believed that no one had ever created a better lily note. (Unlike most floral notes, lily of the valley’s scent cannot be extracted into a stable essential oil; only reconstructions exist.)
Top notes: Leafy green, bergamot, orange, aldehydes
Heart notes: Lily of the valley, lilac, cyclamen, rose, jasmine
Base notes: Sandalwood, musk
An ad for Muguet des Bois by Coty, c. 1948
Blue Carnation by Roger & Gallet (1937)
When I first dabbed Blue Carnation on, its sharp and herbal opening salvo was so unfamiliar and harsh (with a prominent anise facet) that by the time its predominant, dense clove-cigarette accord arrived, I was truly baffled and put off. This stuff is strong!
But I love acquiring tastes, and it didn’t take long for me to cozy up to Blue Carnation. Or, rather, it cozied up to me. Round, velvety, spicy-sweet clove is a comforting note, not one you encounter very often in modern perfumes, and when you do, as in Serge Lutens’s Vitriol d’oeillet (2011), it seems tame in comparison.
Notes: Carnation, clove, eugenol, iso eugenol, salicylates, vanillin, milky Indian sandalwood
(Notes from Yann Vasnier.)
Ancient Chinese secret, huh? This 1937 ad for Bourjois’ perfume Kobako manages to commit multiple offenses against a progressive person’s idea of ethnic sensitivity. A white woman leans in as a presumably Chinese woman whispers secrets of her “allure and desirability” behind a splayed-out fan. One of those secrets is the “Oriental essence” that can be found i
n Kobako, which means “small box” … in Japanese. Sigh.
Carnet de Bal by Révillon (1937)
Perfumer: Maurice Schaller
Although it’s often categorized as a spicy Oriental perfume, Carnet de Bal (“Dance Card”) is not heavy, dark, or mysterious. It opens with citrus, fruit, and a prominent ylang-ylang note, but its pronounced mossy, woody, and spicy base gives the fragrance its primary character. Although civet and musk rear their naughty heads now and then, Carnet de Bal never veers into dirty-dancing territory. In the drydown, the floral notes peer through the moss and vanilla, creating a gentle yet spicy scent that lingers on the skin.
Top notes: Citrus oils, chamomile, fruit
Heart notes: Cyclamen, rose, lily, jasmine, ylang-ylang
Base notes: Patchouli, civet, amber, musk, moss, vanilla
Old Spice by Shulton (1937)
Perfumer: Albert Hauck
Old Spice, like so many scents, seems arbitrarily gendered as a masculine fragrance when compared to its contemporaries, and to later women’s spicy Oriental scents (such as Cinnabar and Opium). With citrus and herbal top notes and a spicy balsamic base, Old Spice is simply the more-restrained, less-sweet version of New Spices that came down the pike.