Category Archives: Perfume Reviews

April 21, 2013 · 3:13 pm

TWO NEW PERFUMES BY CARON: PIU BELLODGIA + MY YLANG (2013)

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You cannot envy Richard Fraysse, head perfumer at Caron. Much maligned by perfume lovers for his reformulations of the Caron classics (whether in an attempt to bring them into line with modern sensibilities, to match IFRA regulations, or to bring the price of the formulas down for the pleasure of his accountants I couldn’t say), but in any case his strikes me as something of a lose-lose situation. Caron is in a funny position: revered, adored, yet with little consistency. The new perfumes are rightfully scorned (Yuzu Man? Miss Caron? I think not…), and when the perfumes you think you are buying are not what you hoped they would be, you know that with Caron, every perfume is something of a precarious risk.

Though I often think the rumours of total and disastrous reformulation are exaggerated, I have myself owned and been highly disappointed by certain contemporary versions of classic ‘Carons’  (Poivre, Nocturnes), then, conversely,  found myself ogling at the urn perfumes in Fortnum & Mason,  finding many of them strange,  glorious and in perfectly good condition. That name, ‘Caron’, still has so much cachet and appeal for me, and I can’t help hoping against hope that Mr Fraysse will, one day, somehow again deliver the goods.

 

Bellodgia, the legendary perfume Caron originally released in 1927, was/is a spicy, musky, creamy and very emotional oeillet soliflore that enfolded clove and cinnamon-embalmed carnation petals in a quilt of roses, jasmine and musks, and it is yet another well-loved classic from the house that I have in the original perfume extract. She is, to me, the Grand Duchess of carnations, this Bellodgia:  vulnerably bosomed, sensitive, and hopelessly, almost embarrassingly, romantic. But she is also rather old-fashioned, and Più Bellodgia ( a play on the Italian words più bello, meaning ‘more beautiful’), is a decent attempt to bring the carnationy rose template back to the modern palate.

 

Like Serge Lutens’ unpopular Vitriol D’Oeillet, which it resembles in some ways,  Più Bellodgia is boldly enlivened and refreshed with the rosey, pink-peppered top notes we have come to anticipate in many contemporary feminines, and this stage of the fragrance, I have to say, is my least favourite. However, the more sprightly headrush of the top notes lead the perfume into more zested territory that does, basically, work: Più Bellodgia has more spine than its osteoporotic predecessor (the original Bellodgia was always so cushioned I thought), so this is not, necessarily, a bad thing.

The good news for Bellodgia lovers is that the original formula has not been eviscerated: the essential structure of carnation, clove, cinnamon, rose/jasmine and cedarwood/musk is intact, the spices just that little bit spicier, the aura brighter but essentially unchanged. She may not be more beautiful, but the Grand Duchess’ great niece is still vivacious and alive, inclined towards the classically Parisian, and she has certainly not disgraced her family.

 

 

 

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Ylang Ylang is one of my very favourite essential oils, and I get through bottles and bottles of it each year. It arouses me, lifts me, tropicalizes my senses, and in our sadly aborted mission to Madagascar, originally set for August, part of the itinerary was to have been a trip to ylang ylang distillery on the famed perfumed isle of Nosy Bé. To have seen those flowers: picked, distilled and bottled, would have been as exciting to me as encountering the vanilla we were specifically going to Madagascar to see……I love it: more than jasmine, gardenia, even possibly tuberose…for me, though it is cheaper and more readily available, ylang ylang is intoxicating.

Call me crazy but I have even drunk ylang ylang essence. I had read somewhere that one drop in a bottle of champagne was a dizzying experience, and, when I tried it one summer evening, it was. The giddiness was doubled, my nerve endings delighted. Hiccuppy ylang ylang kisses…..

Sadly, Caron’s My Ylang has none of this. In fact, perhaps unbelievably, I can’t really think of anything to say about it. I have tried the perfume four or five times, but it makes almost no impression. Supposedly a ‘luminous, powdery floral’, with top notes of cassis and mandarin layered over a green muguet/jasmine accord and (practically undetectable) ylang ylang with a light base of green vanilla and woods, it is pleasant enough in a nineties sort of way: a light, greenish floriental, a bit going-outish, not entirely unsexy, but without any real draw to actually make you want to re-smell it. The only perfumes I can think of that it vaguely reminds me of are two obscure scents whose own characters were never very clearly defined either: Jean Claude Ellena’s mix-everything-in-blender leaf-floral Miss Arpels, and Guerlain’s weird, tea-ish floriental Secret Intention. It smells nice enough, and My Ylang is certainly not bad exactly, but it certainly is a slightly baffling release (I am not really sure who is going to buy it.) If you try it and it does make sense to you, do please enlighten me on how to approach it.

In the meantime, Your Ylang should, if do you like this flower, come in the form of Parfumerie Generale’s lovely tropical sundressYlang Ivohibe; Calice Becker’s new perfume for Oscar De La Renta Mi Corazon (similar to By Kilian’s Beyond Love, but with a shirtier, ylang ylang twist), or, my personal favourite, the blasé, vogue-reading-girl-on-a-summer-beach, sun kissed caress of Guerlain’s Aqua Allegoria Ylang Vanille, a perfume I use by the bucketload when the season is right.  I have also heard amazing things about Micallef’s exotic Ylang In Gold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS

There is also, apparently, a remake of Caron’s classic Nocturnes (1981) which has just been released.

The original, an aldehydic mandarin/stephanotis/vetiver/vanilla, is by far my favourite Caron to wear on myself (you should smell the base notes on a winter’s morning, glinting and magical as crystalline sunlight on snow), though (un)fortunately this wasn’t included in the package of samples I received. I wonder what they have done with that one; perhaps it is better I don’t smell it……

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March 21, 2013 · 4:22 pm

PACO RABANNE METAL (1979) : CHAMPAGNE JACUZZIS, BIANCA; BUBBLE-FOAMed ECSTACY, AND THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO

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This week I find myself deeply drawn to Paco Rabanne’s Métal. It is spring outside, bright; something between warm and cold, and the flowers are blossoming slowly, tulips pushing through, peach blossoms already blown away by the wind. With the sunlight, the new air, and all the freshness I feel in the atmosphere, as well as the freedom of being off work for almost three weeks (sheer heaven), I want optimism: zest, but with emotional intelligence.

Métal, a sly, delicious concoction, fits the bill perfectly, a scent that is not often written about but which I find very beautiful, and strangely not really dated considering it is already 34 years old.

No, Métal is ageless. A dirty angel of the disco set who constantly has one eye on the next: a laughing, exuberant, parfum savonneux: always soaped down and lightly fresh from the shower, washing away her sins from the night before with dismissive swishes of the hand ………a bain moussant;  foaming, aldehydic sparkle of fresh greens; ylang ylang, white iris, rosewood and peach, all gently laminated with the subtley metallic sheen of rose à la Calandre, Paco Rabanne’s other, more philosophical, masterpiece from 1969.

Upon contact with the skin, this scent bursts with life: quills forth from the bottle clean and energized, elegant, green and sweet, the protectant veil of aldehydes preserving the joyous flowers and fruit within in a bubble of about-to-step-out-the-house ecstacy that never fades; a white pant-suit (white, white, most definitely white – the white of Bianca Jagger and her Studio 54 stallioned entrance, the white of the Scarface mansion:  that seventies, flared Travolta white; the white of the lights; cocaine, and the mindless, careless, flamboyant last days of disco……)

Under the glorious sheen of this scent, that effervescent, pampered smell of expensive designer bubble baths that was taken up again later in the eighties in such scents as Courrèges In Blue (1983) and Byblos (1989), beneath all that luminosity, if you look at her closely, Métal is smiling, of course, but wide-eyed ; with shark-white teeth. Though she never betrays it, there is something depraved lying beneath this epidermis, and herein lies the real beauty of the perfume: unlike other disco era perfumes of the period – Ivoire, Scherrer, Rive Gauche, Michelle – which all have some internal self-awareness of their in-built shelf lives, an inner knowledge of their decadence, Métal conceals this side of herself to mad perfection – even to herself - we see just a glimpse of it, occasionally, under her future thinking façade, in her eyes: and, as with other such perfumes such as Chanel’s Cristalle, to which this perfume bears a slight resemblance (though fruitier, younger, less haughty), this is what seals the scent in forever-fresh immortality.

 

 

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Unlike the ‘clean’ fragrances of current climes though, which are so chemically preened you immediately smell a rat, Métal is evincibly human ( if perfectly put together: it is very difficult to pick out individual notes – all is sheened and shined together effortlessly in a manner very much of the time); it is a scent that must have smelled stunningly beautiful emanating from the shoulders of the disco creatures of that era;  or the valiumed wives moving about their bay area lidos and mansions, as sunlight spliced their vodka martinis and their long, floating sleeves trailed the secretive jungles of their houseplants. As they, like Nina Van Pallant in Robert Altman’s exquisite The Long Goodbye, concealed the potential numbness within the cold veneer of the current, of the fashionable, the momentary; the flesh that would decay, but which, at this moment in time, laminated in Métal, felt preserved. To me, there is definitely something of all this in this scent, like the liana females who inhabit Harry’s House, one of my favourite songs by Joni Mitchell…

 

 

 

 

Caught up at the light of the fishnet windows

Of Bloomingdale’s

Washing those high fashion girls

Skinny black models with raveen curls

 

 

Beauty parlor blondes with credit card eyes

Looking for the chic and the fancy

To buy

 

 

 

He opens up his suitcase

In the continental suite

And people twenty stories down

Colored current in the street

 

 

A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof

Like a dragonfly on a tomb

And businessmen in button-downs

Press into conference rooms

 

Battalions of paper-minded males

Talking commodities and sales

While at home their paper wives

And paper kids

Paper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid

 

Yellow checkers for the kitchen

Climbing ivy for the bath

She is lost in House and Gardens

He’s caught up in Chief Of Staff

 

 

He drifts off into the memory

Of the way she looked in school

With her body oiled and shining

 

At the public swimming pool….

 

 

 

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Yes: these slender, maquillaged, loose-limbed, pant-suited women who, in the movies at least, exist to rest on the arms of the rich men who own them…

 

 

 

I have referenced De Palma’s Scarface before in relation to Léonard’s lovely, if simple, Tamango (1977), which always reminds me of the character Elvira and her almost gauche, ‘bored’ moves on the dancefloor early on in the film as Tony lusts to possess her, materialistically, as his trophy wife. Métal, which is far more complex, expensive smelling, and downright gorgeous in many ways, could be the same character a couple of years later, when, married to Pacino, we see her, still beautiful, but pining away in their gilded mansion, their giant, ivory jacuzzi filled with foam, champagne bottles and excess. This perfume could almost be what holds her together: it never loses its ever-recurring sparkle, its delirious lustre.

 

 

 

 

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For this review I have been discussing two bottles of vintage Eau De Metal, and also the parfum (pictured), a bit ropey and old now, but still lovely. There is not a great deal of difference between the two perfumes; one is just lighter and fresher, the other more long-lasting, as you might expect. This Paco Rabanne is still easily found at discounters online, though,  if you like the sound of it. Get vintage if you can.

 

 

 

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March 17, 2013 · 1:10 pm

EQUILIBRIUM : SPICED CITRUS VETIVER by SONOMA SCENT STUDIO (2013)

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I had a brazen woody on one hand – Wazamba (Parfums d’Empire), and Spiced Citrus Vetiver on the other. And passing from the simplistic ebonic rudeness of the former, to the latter, far superior perfume, it seemed as if I were suddenly staring right down through my own hand, down through to the glassy surface of a forest pool, a three-dimensionality and sylvan aliveness that was quite startling in comparison.

 

 

 

 

 

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A shimmering vista, like curtains opening on a intricate, pastoral scene at the opera, the eye taking in a thousand details at once as the prelude of the orchestra starts up; each ingredient shifting into its place with a well-grounded twinkle in its eye.

Soon, there blooms a big, beautiful orange, surprising us when we might have expected more tart citruses such as lemon, or lime – the usual suspects in vetiver/citrus blends – but this vivid, delicious blood orange immediately casts a warm, solar glow over the proceedings; an interlude for viola and orchestra in a definitively major key, as soft, floral absolutes of osmanthus and jasmine sambac emerge and shield us from all harshness.

The cited ingredients of clove, ginger and cinnamon are only subtly perceptible to my nose, adding complexity and a certain nose-tingling aspect perhaps (particularly in that delectable opening), but nothing in this blend can detract from the key players of the perfume, who, when Orange gracefully leaves the stage, sing their contrabasso mellowness in balanced unison for hours: a measured duet of Sri Lanka vetiver and Mysore sandalwood (believe it: I can smell it), while a sly touch of vanilla absolute adds an extra suffusion of delicate heat.

The simplicity of this final stage of the perfume may disappoint some who are more enamoured with the elaborateness of the opening, but the overall effect of the scent is so optimistic and uplifting, with such a sense of inner equilibrium that, as with the studio’s Cocoa Sandalwood, you can feel your shoulders unstiffening, loosening; a scent perfect for a day alone at home when you feel that you need to compose and regain yourself.

 

For those looking for an exciting, virile, off-kilter vetiver, you might want to try a more earthy take on the note such as Route Du Vetiver, or a stricter interpretation such as Artillery No 4. This perfume is a more rounded, feminine take on a overly-trodden path, and the perfumer, Laurie Erickson, has, with this creation, cannily filled a vetiver void in the market – this could be the one that converts the vetiver haters.

Gone are the soil-sodden, earthen smokiness; the resinous, lingering, almost astringent aspects of the root (all of which incidentally I love about such vetivers and the reason I wear them…) Instead, in their place we find a scent of balance, solidity and natural well-being; an elixir of grasses, woods, spices, flowers and citrus fruits that for many, I imagine, will become a dependable, well-loved balm for the soul.

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March 16, 2013 · 1:50 pm

MY PRISTINE BEAU: VETIVER BABYLONE by ARMANI PRIVE (2008)

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Continuing on our theme of blameless young men and their faultless, light colognes (see Signoricci and Original Vetiver), we find ourselves today revisiting Vétiver Babylone, a perfume that forms part of the Armani Privé Collection, one of the most overtly superbist lines in the world of perfume: at least four times as expensive as his regular scents, immaculately blended and housed in stylishly low key flacons of African Kotibe wood; scents that always smell rich, soigné, but never stray beyond the faultlines of taste; never take that extra risk that would make them smell truly exciting. Like a made-to-measure suit, his clients can swan into the Armani boutique, have their scent chosen from one of the muted, glorious blends in the selection; put their trust in his wise, been-there done-that, jet-setting hands.

 

 

 

 

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One can easily imagine Signore Giorgio some afternoon in June, with a young, exquisitely dressed and handsome companion, getting ready for their day ahead, and, before clothing himself and at the behest of the maestro, several spritzes of the immaculate Vétiver Babylone sprayed in all the right places as they descend from the balcony and head out into the streets of Milan  – the celebrated, experienced master designer and his bright-eyed willing consort.

The scent of his giovane on this day is a sharp, refined and masculine tea citrus, crisp and new, with echoes of woods, patchouli, and a purified, vetiver delicately poised somewhere in the distance. The contemporary, metallically preserved top notes (bergamot, cardamom, mandarin, pink pepper, coriander), stay pure and crystalline as a Dolomiti stalactite;  the stately, more suggestively sexual undertones taking hours to appear, finally later at dusk, when this beautiful man is  back at the villa being undressed.

 

 

 

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March 14, 2013 · 8:23 am

O The Virtues: ORIGINAL VETIVER by CREED (2004) + SIGNORICCI by NINA RICCI (1976)

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A bright winter’s morning. The bathroom of a stately home.

On the washbasin lies a pristine bar of soap. It is the most perfect soap imaginable; a hard, impenetrable, triple-milled yellow soap; the clean, heart-clearing brightness of bergamot, and the finest essences of neroli married to a light, fresh note of cool, purified vetiver grass planted down, somewhere beneath the surfaces, in its fragrant, pounded centre.

A vetiver, then, of spanking immaculateness and spruceness; a perfect accoutrement to the face-splashing morning ritual: a scent that very reeks, almost, of trust.

 

Until you smell Signoricci that is, when the artificial, clammed together, and somewhat hysterical brightness of Creed’s Original Vetiver is exposed……

 

 

Signoricci, one of the few key masculines from a house that, in its heyday, produced some of the most delicate and exquisite feminine florals ever created, predates Creed’s scent by thirty years and is of a similar soap-cleansed theme; citrus (lemon, verbena, lime), over delicate cologne-steeped vetiver, but in this long regretted perfume the effect is incredibly refined.

I first smelled it at my friend Federico’s apartment in Rome one October afternoon, standing there alone as it was on his wooden bookshelf in his room, and I remember how immediately blown away I was by its deceptively simple beauty; a beautiful conception of masculinity that is almost impossible to imagine now in today’s world of hard-hitting woods, spices and designer-bearded synthetics.

Beginning with perhaps the most piercing, yet simultaneously gentle and perfect citrus top note I know of, the vetiver, cedar and sandalwood heart of this composition is then revealed gently and gradually;  an accord of almost heartbreaking cleanliness: a perfection and purity of soul.

Its perfection notwithstanding, if there can be any criticism of Signoricci it is just that: this perfume is possibly too perfect; a saintly, flawlessly scrupled man who seems too good, almost, to be true.

 

 

 

 

 

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March 6, 2013 · 11:44 am

Mon serpent, mon cygne…………… D’HUMEUR JALOUSE by L’ARTISAN PARFUMEUR (1994) + L’OMBRE DANS L’EAU by DIPTYQUE (1983) + EAU DE CAMPAGNE by SISLEY (1974)

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I find myself in green temperament;  in a mood, aggressive almost, for fresh, sharp, verdant scents that match the shooting growth outside; that push away the coddling winter, the comforting sloth of my recent smothering orientals and let me feel like a snake shedding its skins on brand new blades of long, budding grass.

And D’Humeur Jalouse is the snake: possibly the greenest scent ever made, almost painfully so at first – the serpent in the grass, the vivid eyes of jealousy; strident tones of stinging nettles and grasses, softened, only barely, with a sinuous touch of almond milk to temper an olfactory sketch that is bitter, unusual, and solitary: green to the point of catharsis.

 

 

 

 

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L’Ombre Dans L’Eau

A movement from the river bank under the shades of weeping willows; a swan glides slowly by…..

Evoking a green riverside garden, the shadows of plants rippling the waters, L’Ombre Dans L’Eau is at first intensely green  – a sharp, rush of galbanum entwined with the lush tartness of blackcurrant leaves.  From this compacted flourish then emerges, unhurriedly, the quiet dignity of the Bulgarian rose: calm, romantic, yet austere,  rather supercilious and snobbish even, and the main theme of L’Ombre Dans L’Eau (‘the shadow in the water’) is thus set. As light fades and the murmurs of evening approach, a soft base note of pot pourri-like rose, with the slightest hint of something like peachstone, finishes off a singular, enduring composition that breathes a certain air of timelessness.

 

 

 

 

Eau De Campagne

 

 

The perfect green? This scent is summer; the exhilaration of meadows; of stalks crushed underfoot, swords of sunlight infiltrating blades of grass. Chlorophyll at dusk; ladybirds….

 

 

 

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Wild grass oils, vetiver, bergamot, hyacinth, and a beautifully verdant, piercingly green basil/tomato leaf introductory accord begin a fragrance (Jean Claude Ellena’s first, from the time when he still went for the orchestral) that is exhilarating and refreshing, uncompromisingly strident, yet balanced and wearable at the same time, with a gentle, elegant, almost savon-like finish.

 

 

 

 

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February 14, 2013 · 10:57 am

N’AIMEZ QUE MOI / CARON (1916)

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A tender affirmation of love, this quaint, melodious perfume was created for women in the First World War to give to their wartime sweethearts as a symbol of fidelity and the reciprocal yearning for the same:  roses ( candied, almost chocolate); lilacs,  and violets over the classic chypric, darker, mousse de saxe Caron base; a sweet, ardent love letter, heartfelt and true, yet with darker, perhaps foreboding, elements beneath its upbeat, sanguine exterior.

 

N’Aimez Que Moi (‘love no-one but me…..’) feels very old fashioned now, almost musty and cloying, especially in extrait, but its romantic heart, its trembling directness, make it somehow heartfelt, unprofane; and the thought of some poor soldier clutching a bottle of this scent, or a shared keepsake drenched in its lilac-rosed earnestness, as he swallowed the horrors of the trenches and the stench of death all around, is moving: a ray of hope; the charm of his girl somewhere; life, lying hopefully beyond.

 

 

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This last picture is a detail from the first Valentine’s Day card Duncan gave me, almost twenty years ago xx

A Happy Valentine’s Day to you all.

N x

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February 12, 2013 · 12:00 pm

BLOOMS A ROSE IN THE DEEPS OF MY HEART…… Rose Volupté by Sonoma Scent Studio (2012)

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I like a big rose. A rose that is generous and of itself; a lovely rose: not a mean, thin-lipped rose; nor a methane-dipped rose, a high street rose or a sneering, clipped, high-octane rose; a fashion rose or a bridal rose; a cheap, leering acid rose, nor some dusty old, crabby rose, no: I like a full, joyous pronouncement of a rose, a rose that knows who she is.

 

The world, though, it seems, loves scents like L’Eau Chloé, a mingily pertinent fragrance formed of rose water and green things and reduced-fat patchouli, but I most certainly don’t: we smell far too many of these perfumes around us in cities, especially in Japan, where immaculately turned-out young women walk the streets of Tokyo, untouchably beautiful, a red-blooded, heterosexual male’s idea of paradise; girls with the flawless patina of a Shiseido commercial but in the flesh, slender young things in the all latest fashions and just a touch of rose to finish: nothing too thick, now, and a touch acidulous if you please – I maintain you, sir, at arm’s length with my thorns, my scent a barrier not a come-on, my artificial rose with its just-so projection perfected in the laboratory for this very purpose to offer that strange, iced chasteness, that modern-girl impenetrable whim of here-and-now Ginza sexy: this, this hideous perfectionism we smell in all the roses of the day such as Stella, Paul Smith Rose, and, especially, here, the vile Eau Des Quatres Reines by L’Occitane, which from personal exposure I would say is by far the most popular female scent in the country: you smell it all the time, as though, like everything else in Japan, it were accepted by the group and thus sanctioned, even by young mothers!

 

Young mothers, yes, those saintly, desexualized mama-san as they are called, poor creatures in my view, who, unless they rebel and refuse to conform, will often be co-erced into fascistic, nasty, Lord Of The Flies groups they cannot escape from even as they smile and present their iron-haired, A-line skirted, guilt-racked personas to the playground. The Occitane perfume, with its hints of salted, musks under penetratingly sharp, artificial rosey top notes, fixed, unchanging as it hangs in the air around train stations and department stores is the rose du jour, accepted, sucked into the mainstream, worn constantly, and I can tell you quite passionately that I loathe it.

 

No: give me an unfettered, uninhibited rose any day, a rose of love, not of conformity, a rose which springs directly from the heart: give me Nahéma, Montale Aoud Rose Petals with its blackness of the desert and Turkish Delight, give me Caron Rose, with its cherished poetical heart of Damask, or, if we need pearlescent dew drop roses, Fleurs de Thé Bulgare by Creed: just don’t dilute it with ‘market trends’ , fear of trying, or with ‘what women want‘: give it to me straight and liberated and heartfelt. Or don’t give it to me at all.

 

 

Rose Volupté, a huge, blowsy thing, belongs in this latter category of mine; roses with heart and soul, a big Valentine’s Day rose that is as rounded, enveloping as imaginable; powdery, effusive, diffusive: a tampy, musky pink rose of thick material: balanced – an undeceiving, happily direct perfume.

An oriental rose, with ambered base notes of labdanum absolute, vetiver and sandalwood, and a heart of heliotrope and cinnamony plum, all leading the perfume somewhat into the ‘old fashioned’ category, but neverly over so in my view, more pleasingly, just slightly, retro: top notes fruity and full, flowered like sugared raspberries on a summer trifle, and as multitiered, the geographical strata of the perfume leading down to pillowy, benzoiny, classic oriental skin scents, generous and feminine, soft:  Teint De Neige’s rosier, more bosomy country cousin.

 

While the perfume might lack a certain psychological complexity ( I find it rather ‘straight’ and ‘thick’ in some ways) this is simultaneously very much part of its appeal. Rose Volupté is simple, lovely, and it wears like an honest statement of love for the flower, and for perfume come to think of it, not some anorexic urban cipher and her puny, half-hearted, haughtily prettily ‘rosy’ emanations.

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February 9, 2013 · 9:02 am

SCREAMING JELLY BABIES: TUSCAN BLOOD ORANGE by PACIFICA

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When the package came, the first thing I tried was Tuscan Blood Orange.

I love orange: I love it in chocolate, in cakes, in perfumes, and am a huge consumer of the fruit, especially Japanese mikan, iyokan, and ponkan: I think my colleagues find me slightly bizarre. While I ultimately think I prefer lemon, there is nothing more uplifting and easy than a good orange, though it is not often successfully carried off in perfume for some reason (see my other post on oranges for some exceptions to this rule).

This perfumed version of the fruit, ‘Tuscan Blood Orange’, is not an orange, per se as much as a jelly baby, or rather a fistful of jelly babies, those classic British gummis that kids of my generation grew up with, and which my grandparents always brought round to the house on a Sunday night, along with Twixes, Bounties, and Mars Bars. And I loved them. Boxes of Bassetts jelly babies in their bright friendly colours of green, red, black, orange……mild, delicious, as you bit of their heads with a tinge of guilt and kept dipping your hands in for more.

The marketing teams at Bassetts also decided, a few years ago,  to name each flavour (making the dental decapitation all the more savage, don’t you think?) and this cute little perfume by American brand Pacifica seems to feature almost the entire posse (though Bigheart, blackcurrant is conspicuously absent)…

 

 

 

 

 

 

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While an appley melon top note makes you question whether the perfume has been labelled incorrectly for a few seconds, soon Baby Bonny (raspberry); Brilliant (strawberry), and even brief flashes of Boofuls and Bubbles (lime and lemon respectively) make appearances before Bumper, that lovely, sweet orange jelly baby, smiles, winks, and immediately tap dances its way into your affections.

Wearing this perfume, then, is a total confectionery blast from the past for me and puts me in an excellent mood – it is so cheap as well that I might have to order myself a bottle from Amazon. Sometimes I like such pleasing uncomplication.

 

 

 

 

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NB The title of this post comes from a science experiment that I wish my school had done, in which jelly babies are thrown in  tubes of potassium chlorate and fizz away instantaneously in fits of oxidisation, squealing, apparently, as they do so, and leaving the science labs reeking of  candy floss. I think that if chemistry lessons at my school had involved such olfactory pleasures, perhaps I might now have been making perfume, rather than merely writing about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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February 8, 2013 · 10:10 am

Everyone, meet Ms Cabochard’s younger sister……………QUIPROQUO by Grès (1975)

 

 

Cabochard, Bernard Chant’s classic patchouli chypre from 1959, looms large and elegantly in the Parisian canon as an archetype,  and it is not surprising therefore that the house of Madame Grès should have wanted to capitalize on its success with a perfume that was the same, essentially, but different: a Cabochard re-made for a new generation.

Quiproquo, one of the rarest of my vintage finds in Tokyo antique shops, is a reworking of the powdery patchouli of its exquisitely tailored predecessor, in the sportier, eau fraîche style of Ô de Lancome (an in-house restitching in those more seventies, tennis-white contours), and a quick internet search has  confirmed my instincts: both were created by the same perfumer, Robert Gonnon (who was obviously something of a genius – he also made Métal, Anaïs Anaïs, and Empreinte among others; all delicate, yet shadowed, creatures that I adore…)

Less floral and vetivered than Ô, which pre-reformulation was one of the greatest, cold-creamy citruses ever made, Quiproquo has the imprint of her older sister but with smoother brow, a more relaxed, upbeat scent overlaid with the brightest, most perfect lemon-leaf head-notes: like pinching the leaves from the trees, ripping them apart and letting their essence ravish your hands as you raise them up to smell on a cool, summer’s day. This gorgeous opening then subdues to a more refined, citrus-powdery chypre note as QPQ, having made her point on this dramatic family reunion, settles down for a game of scrabble with flinty Cabochard, French windows open, siblings easing into familiarity (their strikingly similar younger brother, Monsieur Grès (1982) has also made it up to the house for the weekend), mineral water sparkling in glasses, breeze from the gardens and tennis lawns, this Saturday late in May, drifting in gently.

 

 

 

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Filed under Citrus, Lemon, Patchouli, Perfume Reviews

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