Yesterday's Perfume

Jungle Gardenia by Tuvaché (1932)

Jungle Gardenia by Tuvaché has been on my radar for some time. I discovered it not on perfume blogs or forums, but rather during a typical nighttime eBay expedition, trawling for vintage perfume. (Hey, we all have our vices, OK?)

How can this nondescript-looking perfume with the silly name that I’ve never heard anyone talk about, I wondered, go for upwards of $250, a typical starting bid for Jungle Gardenia on eBay? I despaired of ever getting my hands on the stuff, but then good ol’ Leslie Ann from the Miniature Perfume Shoppe saved the day. She had the cutest little ½ dram of Jungle Gardenia (half drained), and soon it was mine.

Now I know why ladies are forking over the benjamins for this one. If this was your signature scent in the 50s and 60s, you would be dying to smell it again. $250, in fact, would be a steal.

Jungle Gardenia by Tuvaché was love at first sniff. Some perfumes dilly-dally around, making small talk, trying to get to know you, requiring that you buy them dinner and learn their childhood pets’ names and personalities, etc. etc. 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 bubble-gum 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 flower. Teamed up with tuberose, and you can just kiss free will goodbye. Jungle Gardenia is so beautiful (and satisfying? does that sound too pedestrian?) that you almost want to eat it or consume it somehow faster than your nose can take it in. 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. Put them together and they’re liable to form an olfactory girl gang. They will be up to no good, no matter how sweet they try to convince you they are.

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.) The 50s ads seen here traded on the fact that so many famous and beautiful women loved it , including beauty queens and Elizabeth Taylor around the time she filmed Cleopatra. (Perhaps it became the perfume that Michael Jackson would wear when he performed — I kid you not, check out this 2009 Vanity Fair interview with Michael Jackson! — because of his friendship with the violet-eyed legend.)

Tuvaché’s backstory is pretty charming, too. Apparently, it was a New York-based company that felt it needed to be in French drag in order to compete with the popularity of French scents at the time. (You can see the American inferiority complex in 50s ads for perfumes like Revlon’s Intimate: "[T]he fabulous new American fragrance that even French women are talking about!”) Tuvaché’s owner even went so far as to concoct a pen name, Madame de Tuvaché. I bet she would have thrown a circumflex in there somewhere if she could.

Tuvaché’s Jungle Gardenia is long discontinued (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? 1) Check to see if it’s by Tuvaché 2) See if it’s made in New York and 3) Does it make you swoon?

 

 

 

 

Halston by Halston (1975)

“Halston’s influence on American fashion goes beyond his designs — he took an era, reupholstered it in Ultrasuede, dabbed Halston on its pulse points and made it his own.” - Carina Chocano*

 

At once masculine and feminine, friendly and formal, and chic and sexy, Halston perfume for women embodies the mixed-crowd ethos of the Studio 54 denizens who wore it. Steve Rubell, co-owner of the legendary late 70s/early 80s discotheque, was famous for letting beautiful unknowns past the velvet ropes to hobnob with the celebrities who had debaucherous fun there: Jack, Angelica, Andy, Bianca, Liz, Liza, Calvin, Brooke (Astor and Shields), et al.

 

Like the nightclub its namesake helped make famous, Halston perfume is less interested in who comes to its party than that everyone, because they look like they’re having fun, looks beautiful.

 

Green, fruity, floral, fresh, spiced, mossy and woody (talk about a mixed crowd!), Halston for women typifies late 70s fashion when simplicity — thanks, in part, to Roy Halston — was chic. Its somewhat austere green/mossy/chypre soul has done a bump of coke and decided to put on some lipgloss, a slinky Halston column dress**, and dance the night away.

 

Top notes: Tagetes (marigold), green notes, spearmint, peach, bergamot

Heart notes: Jasmine, cedarwood, rose, carnation, orris, ylang-ylang

Base notes: Moss, patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, olibanum (frankincense), musk, amber

The chypre category, like the ideal 70s woman, is on the verge of androgyny. Flanked by bitter, herbaceous green and mint on one side and woods and oakmoss on the other, the “feminine” fruit-floral peach-rose-jasmine heart of Halston is like a woman’s body in one of those fabulous "Le Smoking" suits YSL made for women in the 70s. Hours into Halston's dry down, I smell an artifact of the past: a whiff of the powdery DoubleMint gum wrapper, sweetly scenting Halston with its mint and refreshing its base of resins, moss, woods and warm amber.

Even the famous Halston bottle has a chic lineage. Designed by Elsa Peretti, model-turned-interior designer-turned-jewelry-designer for Tiffany’s in the 70s, the biomorphic bottle is modern in its stark simplicity and soft with its curves. (Like her famous tear-drop-heart necklace and thumb-print ring.)

There was a time when Halston was the second top-selling perfume in history, next to “le monstre” Chanel No. 5. Sniff out some vintage***, and you’ll know why. Rachel Zoe and Nicole Richie are doing everything they can to bring 70s Halston-esque clothes back, maybe I should try to bring back Halston the perfume, circa 1975. This weekend…

 

 * This Carina Chocano quote is from an interesting Salon.com book review that situates Roy Halston Frowick’s place in history and discusses his influence on Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Tom Ford, and Narciso Rodriguez.

** There are so many cool blogs that have curated images of Halston and his models and designs. Here’s one, here’s another, and here's yet another. And here are some NYTimes articles on Halston's legacy: here and here. Interesting fact: Halston was a milliner before he was a designer, and designed Jackie O’s famous pillbox hat she wore to her husband’s 1961 presidential inauguration.

 ***A while back, I bid on some Halston that had been described as vintage perfume. It was anything but, and immediately smelled cheap and weird to me. Your best bet is to get the glass bottle with the glass stopper (rather than the sprays, which are probably going to be reformulations). Or, you can do as I did and get an adorable mini with a tiny screw top from The Miniature Perfume Shoppe. That little guy is definitely a vintage perfume.

 

 

 

 

 

Satan's Angel by Opus Oils (2007)

Note: The following perfume I'm going to discuss is vintage-inspired. Specifically, perfumer Kedra Hart of Opus Oils was inspired to create a perfume for 60s burlesque dancer Satan's Angel, "The Devil's Own Mistress, Queen of the Fire Tassels." (A whole lotta name for a whole lotta woman.) This burlesque queen didn't just twirl tassles on her ta-tas, she first lit them on fire!

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A few weeks ago my friend Red Tremmel, a professor and documentary filmmaker, screened his film Exotic World and the Burlesque Revival for a small group of friends. Ten years in the making, Exotic World documents a moment in time when there existed a crazy-beautiful oasis in the Mojave Desert: a goat-farm-turned burlesque museum run by "The Marilyn Monroe of Burlesque," the irrepressible Dixie Evans.

Jennie Lee, a former burlesque dancer herself and union organizer for dancers, started Exotic World in the 1980s, wanting it to be both a burlesque museum and a retirement home for dancers. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she asked her friend Dixie to move to Exotic World and take over running the museum. In time, it became a mecca for modern-day burlesque dancers seeking to revive the old-school art.

By turns funny, moving, and inspiring, Exotic World opened my eyes to the subversive possibilities of burlesque. First of all, burlesque is, literally, a performance of a particular kind of femininity (the va-va-va voom variety). It's also a send-up of that femininity, and, you could argue, a commentary on it. In some ways, burlesque dancers are female female-impersonators, exposing the codified dance of normative gender and sexuality. In vintage footage of one of Dixie's burlesque performances, she writhes on a casting couch, managing to incorporate a critique of the ugly side of the Hollywood star-making machine. But burlesque is also just rip-roaring fun, some of the dancers' moves defying the laws of physics. (Queerlesque is a recent version of burlesque, with queer performers using the burlesque idiom to poke fun at gender and have some kitschy fun.)

One of the most fascinating tidbits I discovered from watching Exotic World was that Elvis learned much of his hip-swiveling and thrusting from none other than Hapa goddess and former burlesque dancer Tura Satana (the badass actress of Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! fame who died this year), who incorporated martial arts moves into her erotic dances.

Fascinating that a dance that's supposed to entice men would contain aggressive and self-protective moves, and that it would in turn inspire a male sex symbol who made women swoon. (And it wouldn't be the only act of aggression embedded in these erotic dances. Satan's Angel, the namesake of the perfume I'll be discussing shortly, said that one of the things she loved was to scare her audience by keeping them in suspense about what moves she was going to bust next.) I just love that Elvis went to burlesque shows not just to ogle women — but to learn their moves! (Gotta give the man credit. He knew where to go for inspiration!)

The gender play in Exotic World and the Revival of Burlesque is dizzying and beautiful, and you should definitely go see it when it's released.

Which brings me to Satan's Angel, a perfume inspired by a burlesque dancer who was featured prominently in Exotic World and who got her start dancing in the early 60s in San Francisco. An over-the-top floral created for a woman whose favorite vintage scents were Jungle Gardenia and Miss Balmain, Satan's Angel is a creamy-rich (and I mean rich) confection of white flowers that starts off with the sharp freshness of grapefruit and bergamot followed by a warming, spicy base of labdanum and oakmoss. But its velvety, sensuous florals are the stars of the show: gardenia, narcissus, tuberose, jasmine and Stargazer lily ignite a fire that smolders on the skin. Lovers of minimalist, clean fragrances, stand back. This burlesque beauty is wearing a ton of makeup and her bare, tassled breasts are on fire!

Word on the street is that Dita von Teese's new fragrance is coming out, but Kedra at Opus Oils did it first and paid homage to an original! Check out her post on meeting Satan's Angel and creating her perfume.

Also in Opus Oils' Burlesque series: Tramp, Gypsy, Charm, Kitten, Starlet, and Siren. (Starlet is made of 100% natural oils.) Thanks to Kedra for sending me these samples after I reached out to her!

 

 

 

Vintage Decants for Sale: Sniff Some Perfume History!

Curious what a vintage animalic perfume like Primitif (with civet and musk) smells like? Want to try Coty's classic Emeraude? How about My Sin, an unladylike floral or a gorgeous tobacco/leather like Lanvin's Rumeur?

Well, now that I'm ready to unload some of my vintage perfume, you can find out! I'm going to sell 1 ml. decants of some extra perfume I have, at $6 - $10 a ml, minimum 2 ml. an order. I haven't seen a lot of the perfumes below sold anywhere in decant form, so this would be a cheaper way to try out some classics without paying for a whole bottle. I've written about most of these. The ones I haven't (White Shoulders, Sirocco and Tweed you can read about on Basenotes, etc.) Prétexte is a gorgeous floral/tobacco/leather, sweeter than Rumeur. These are all true vintages:

 

1. Bal à Versailles EDC by Jean Desprez - $6
2. Moon Drops by Revlon - $7
3. Chypre de Coty (40s) - $10
4. Paloma Picasso Mon Parfum (in original white/gold bottle) - $9 (SOLD OUT)
5. Blue Carnation by Roger & Gallet (SOLD OUT)
6. Femme EDT by Rochas EDT - $6
7. Bat Sheba EDT by Judith Muller - $8 SOLD OUT
8. Toujours Moi EDT by Corday EDT - $6
9. Emeraude EDT by Coty EDT - $6
10. Scherrer 1 EDT - $6
11. My Sin Extrait  by Lanvin - $8
12. My Sin EDP by Lanvin EDP - $7
13. Rumeur EDP by Lanvin EDP - $7
14. Prétexte EDP by Lanvin EDP  - $8
15. Arpège Extrait by Lanvin - $8
16. Sirocco by Lucien Lelong - $9
17. Primitif EDP by Max Factor - $7
18. Intimate EDC by Revlon - $7
19. Flambeau EDC by Fabergé - $6
20. Fleeting Moment EDT by Nina Ricci (Germaine Cellier composed) - $8
21. Tigress EDC by Fabergé - $6
22. Woodhue EDC by Fabergé - $6
23. Aphrodesia EDC bt Fabergé - $6
24. Muguet des Bois EDT by Coty - $6
25. Inouï by Shiseido EDP - $8
26. Weil de Weil - $6
27. Jean Nate EDC by Charles of the Ritz - $6
28. White Shoulders by Evyan - $6
29. Ombre Rose by Broussard - $6
30. Aviance by Prince Matchabelli - $6
31. Anne Klein II - $7
32. Youth Dew Parfum and/or Bath Oil - $6  - (SOLD OUT)
33. Tweed by Lenthéric (40s) - $6
34. Ivoire de Balmain - 6
35. Y by Yves Saint Laurent - 6
36. Vent Vert by Pierre Balmain - $10 (Germaine Cellier, composer)
37. Diorella by Dior - $9 
38. L'Origan by Coty (30s or 40s) - $9

 

If there's anything not listed here you know I've written about and are curious to try, please ask me about it. I may have enough to spare.

I'll charge $2.50 per order/US Postal to ship them. $5 per order outside of US. (I had to change it from $4. Sorry!) I'm going to decant with sterile, disposable plastic pipettes, and when I have to decant using my metal funnel, it will be washed and thoroughly dried between use. I will pack carefully in bubble wrap, etc.

Please pay me via PayPal first, and if you're in the States, you'll probably get it within a week. Overseas will take probably two weeks.

Don't hesitate to ask any questions! -- Barbara

yesterdaysperfume@gmail.com

Skin Musk by Bonne Bell (1975)

 

 

 "Wear a little something, and a lot of SKIN. SKIN, the Bonne Bell Fragrance for outdoor girls." - 1975 ad for Skin Musk by Bonne Bell*

"If warmth had a smell, it would be SKIN." - 1979 ad for Skin Musk by Bonne Bell

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The idea that Skin (or Skin Musk) was marketed to teen girls in the 70s just goes to prove that perfume styles are culturally determined, changing with the mores, lifestyles and politics (gender and otherwise) of the times. What are teen girls wearing now? Princess by Vera Wang? The latest shlock from Kim Kardashian?

First off, Skin Musk smells like a masculine scent — a modern, niche masculine scent! It starts off with some kind of bright note, probably bergamot, but its development is what makes it interesting. It is weird, however, that a scent for teen girls would be so animalic, and the ad so provocative. What exactly is an "outdoor girl" doing outdoors besides giving come-hither looks while wearing bikini tops?

Because it's called Skin, you have to get really close to it to smell it. There's an almost indistinguishable floral note (rose?) embedded in a complex mix of wet cardboard, that flinty, sulfurous scent after a match is lit, sandalwood (according to Perfume Shrine) and of course, musk. As it dries down, a wonderful nutty, non-sweet vanilla warms the skin (my favorite part) and stays as a sheer veil of spicy warmth.

I had it on last night and, after a couple hours, asked some friends to smell my wrists. The words they used to describe it were "fresh" and "transparent." Not bad for a little dime-store beauty!

Skin has the rich, multilayered sensuality of CB I Hate Perfume's Musk Reinvention, which is one, modulated low growl in a bottle. And although it has some overly synthetic-smelling moments, Skin reminds me a bit of L'Artisan's Dzing in its "what the hell am I smelling exactly?" effect.

Musk, along with other animalic notes, was a popular key note in perfumes in the '70s. Soliflores Soli-animales, if you will. In my writeup on Alyssa Ashley's Ambergris (part of a trio that included Musk and Civet**), I included this quote  from the Alyssa Ashley website regarding the return to animalic scents:

 "At the end of the '60s. . .music changed, habits changed, fashion changed. The young generation, starting from the USA and England, embraced oriental philosophies looking for a simpler more natural lifestyle. This new style of living also reflected itself in perfume. Young people no longer wanted the sophisticated fragrances worn by their parents, but embraced the simple ones whose roots lay in oriental culture. The hippies and the flower children bought the fashionable essential oils and in 1969 Alyssa Ashley launched their first product, Musk Oil."

Synthetic musk is a mysterious note.*** It can smell clean and fresh (so-called white musks that are in laundry detergent and many perfumes), or it can smell warm and skin-like. Nitromusks (now banned) in vintage perfumes such as Chanel No. 5, Primitif, and Fame by Corday have to be experienced to be believed. They add a caramel-y warmth that crackles and feels like a punch in the gut at the same time. Disquieting, disturbing, unsettling — erotic, in other words. Two of my favorite contemporary musks are Serge Lutens' Muscs Kublai Khan and Frederic Malle's Maurice Roucel-authored Musc Ravageur. (Rrrreow. Love the name, too.)

In Chandler Burr's wonderful book The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York, he reveals the machinations behind two perfume launches, telling parallel stories about the creation of Hermès's Jardins Sur Le Nil by Jean-Claude Ellena and Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely. We find out that one of her favorite perfumes, in addition to an Egyptian musk oil she would buy on the street in New York City and Comme des Garçon's $150-a-bottle Incense Avignon was...Bonne Bell Skin Musk. (Burr describes her bottle as having a green cap, which means it's the later iteration; I have the 70s version, an oil, with the gold cap. I've heard they smell quite similar.) I don't know what Lovely smells like, but I think SJP has marvelous taste.

If I didn't already think the 70s were the best decade ever, Bonne Bell's Skin has sent me over the top.

 

* Any chick who's ever been into makeup has probably tried Bonne Bell's awesome Lip Smackers lip balms at some point. With flavors like Peppermint, Bubble Gum, and (my favorite) Dr. Pepper, those scents helped to define my teen years. (And if you're over 30, the amazing Ten-o-Six lotion has a similarly time-transporting scent.) Bonne Bell was started in 1927 by Jesse Bell, a man in Cleveland who whipped up lotions and potions in his basement and sold them door to door. It became a multi-million dollar company and still exists today. (Bonne was Jesse's daughter.) Skin musk, from what I've heard, has been discontinued but you can still find it online.

**Rarer than the civet animal itself, Alyssa Ashley's Civet perfume is almost impossible to find. In my three years of perfume obsession, I've seen it on eBay (the perfume hunter's version of the wild), only once, just recently. The going rate? Starting bid, $650...we'll see if anyone bites.

*** Chandler Burr on real musk, not the isolated musk molecule that is synthetic musk: "But Tonquin musk is animalic in its most elevated form. It is a perfumery raw material that was extracted from a gland under the lower stomach and before the hind legs of the male of the species Moschus moschiferus L, the Tibetan musk deer. Not muscone, the molecule found at 2 percent inside this stinking cream; Tonquin musk is the real, natural, glandular product. It is one of the most astounding smells you will ever experience. It is, to put it most precisely, the rich, thick scent of the anus of a clean man combined with the smells of his warm skin, his armpits sometime around midday, the head of his ripely scented uncircumcised penis (a trace of ammonia), and the sweetish, nutty, acrid visceral smell of his breath. There's simply no other way to describe it."

 

Pheromone by Marilyn Miglin (1978)

At once bracingly green, indolically floral, and by turns delicate and animalic in its dry down, Pheromone by Marilyn Miglin is one mother of a gorgeous floral. More specifically, I'd put it in the green-floral-animalic chypre category. Yes, it has that much going on, but harmoniously and majestically.

As Pheromone opens, a mouth-watering galbanum-peach-neroli-artemisia combo (I’m absolutely guessing here) slices through the air with sharp, herbaceous angles softened by luscious fruit and floral notes. It's a bit Aliage-like in its tartness.

A mossy, castoreum-rich animalic base vaguely reminiscent of Aramis and Miss Balmain rises up to meet those already complex top notes, butching up the perfume’s femininity like a leather jacket over a sheer floral dress.

As Pheromone dries down, its heartbreakingly beautiful symphony of greens, florals, fruits and animal notes turns down the volume, not falling apart into its composite pieces, but settling themselves into a mossy-warm bed. (An occasional disquieting note wafts in that I can only describe as savory, meaty, even garbagey. It happens so fast, and disappears just as quickly that I almost forgot to mention it here. It must be an indolic facet of one of the floral notes or perhaps and angle from the castoreum. It’s funky, though, and it’s definitely there. Naturally, I love it.) Hours into applying Pheromone, I can smell a veil of complex florals over my skin, sweetened and warmed by its animal notes and earthy spice.

I wonder if Pheromone is not as talked about as I think it deserves to be because of its woefully misleading name. (Shouldn't a perfume called Pheromone be muskier?) Either that, or because it’s in that strange category that I love, that I think will probably never come back into fashion: the green floral-animalic chypre. (I talk a lot here about these 70s masterpieces that I’ve gotten to know quite well.) They’re not really "feminine" perfumes (Joy is a feminine perfume), nor could you call them masculine. No, the floral-animalic chypre perfumes are the Lipstick Lesbians of the feminine perfume categories, enjoying the conventions and trappings of femininity while not quite sticking to the program.

Pheromone is still being produced today, and this is the description on Marilyn Miglin's website: "A blend of 179 rare essences including flower, roots, wild grasses, exotic barks, seeds, rare wine resins and essential oils from France, Italy, Belgium, Madagascar, Portugal and Egypt." Hmm. I’m not sure if the new stuff is the same as the vintage sample I have, graciously given to me by the awesome Leslie Ann (aka my dealer) from the Miniature Perfume Shoppe.

I think Pheromone might still get more attention today if Marilyn Miglin had had a better creative team. The incredibly beautiful juice is there, but the name is so cheesy and obviously dated, from the "Your place or mine?" gold-chain lovin' '70s. The above ad doesn't even trade on the pheromone angle, but rather it uses the Joy by Jean Patou gimmick: "It's the world's most precious perfume." Pheromone, as the ad boasts, was $300 an ounce in 1978. Yowza.

According to a Basenotes commenter who remembers its marketing (I couldn’t find it anywhere), MM had a parallel Egyptology marketing angle as well:

From what I've read Marilyn Miglin traveled to Egypt and with the help of Egyptologists, she learned the names of seven sacred oils (lotus, spikenard, palm, myrrh, juniper, olibanum, fo-ti-tieng) that they translated from heiroglyphics [sic], and then she used them as the base for Pheromone.

Choose your marketing shtick, Marilyn! Which is it: Does Pheromone actually have any pheromones, is it the most precious perfume, or is it a reproduction of an Egyptian perfume whose formula was based on hieroglyphics your team of Egyptologists deciphered?

I think she should have stuck with the Egyptology angle. This perfume smells like something an ancient Egyptian queen would have worn. Amazing.

(Pheromone is a love-it-or-hate it scent. If you want to read both rhapsodic and jeering reviews of the perfume, go to Makeup Alley and amuse yourself for a bit. (Reviews also on Fragrantica.) One of my favorite disses of the perfume is that it stunk to one wearer's husband so much that he ignored the cleavage spilling out of her dress. Hahaha — seduction fail. If you want the vintage, make sure you get the perfume bottle — mini or otherwise — that looks like the one in the ad. The gold-capped ones are recent, and I can't vouch for how they smell.)

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Scentless chemicals secreted by animals, insects and plants, pheromones aid in same-species communication. Ant pheromones, for example, are particularly fascinating.

Some pheromones help ants alert their colony to danger, others to direct their colony to food or to attract mates. There are even pheromones scientists call "paradoxical pheromones" that send enemy colonies false information about where their colony is located. (Pretty smooth, Mr. or Mrs. Ant.)

Yet in spite of the hype surrounding the idea that human sexual pheromones help attract sexual partners (say, via sweat glands or when a woman is ovulating) the jury is still out on whether they even exist in humans. Or, to quote Wikipedia, where, like a freshman in college, I'm getting most of my information, "Few well-controlled scientific studies have ever been published suggesting the possibility of pheromones in humans."

This did not stop perfumers in the 70s from seeing the concept of human sex pheromones as a marketing bonanza, dreaming the dream that they could bottle a substance that makes men and/or women hot for each other. And perhaps they had good reason — science be damned.

In a recent Jezebel post daintily titled Pheromones Are Bullshit, the writer cited a study that debunked the idea that human pheromones help to lure in the opposite sex. Yet almost every comment offered pro sex pheromone anecdotes. Here's Cait98's claim:

I only believe in pheromones because, the week before my period, I totally get hit on more. And not because I look good, I'm bloated and I break out, but... there's something. I think people can smell it. Other girlfriends have reported the same phenomenon. Also, the phenomenon disappears when on birth control.

So whether or not you want to believe Avery Gilbert, an olfactory scientist who thinks the idea that human pheromones acts as sexual attractants is bunk, or Cait98...I have no horses in this race — ovulating or otherwise.

 

Do You Wear Perfume for Yourself — or Others?

I have a feeling that the answers perfumistas give me are going to differ from your average perfume-wearer, and will probably fall somewhere between the self/other extreme I've offered up here. I was inspired to ask the question because I realized that my perfume-wearing habits have changed since I began to collect and think about perfume as a connoisseur a few years ago.

First of all, I don't often wear perfume. Strange to say it, but it's become an almost private experience for me. Before I began collecting vintage perfume, my perfume tastes were pretty conventional. I wore Gucci Rush, Angel, Poison, Black Orchid, Bulgari Au Parfumée Au Thé Vert and the odd and little talked about Bulagari Au Parfumée Au Thé Rouge.

I chose a new perfume every few years or so. (Really hard to imagine now, when a day hardly goes by when I don't get something aromatic in the mail.) And like most people, perfumista or not, I wore perfume so that I would smell good to others. Of course I enjoyed them immensely, too...

But now, I wear perfume to experience it, to attempt to figure out what I think about it, to express what it makes me feel. Perfume as solipsism, in a way.

And because I don't have to love a scent to wear it, admire it, take it seriously, and give it consideration, this means that I may sit for a while redolent of a scent I wouldn't be caught dead wearing in public, mostly because it's not my style, but sometimes, because it would annoy the people around me.

Usually, I'll put something on and sit with it for a long time. That could be hours, as I experience it develop and dry down, making its journey from top notes to base notes and every snaking, nonlinear, shape-shifting form in between. Sometimes, I put it away and it might take days — or years —  to figure out what I think/feel about it.

This kind of perfume navel-gazing looks odd in public, too, which certainly hasn't stopped me from doing it. I prefer, however, to loll about like an addict in an opium den, supine on my couch or bed, inhaling, huffing, holding in the scent the way your average stoner holds in smoke, staring up at the ceiling in a reverie.

Perfume's a wonderful, legal intoxicant.

Should I have these two levels of perfume-wearing, though, one public, one private? Is it outdated to wear only perfumes that you think will please others? Should I start wearing more of the stinkier, easily misunderstood fragrances that smell like armpits, oft-worn undergarments and rutting animals, taking the risk more often that someone will tell me that I smell like a hamster cage or an old lady? (Both things I've heard.)

We're past that in fashion. Take the fashion blog The Man Repeller. Its writer takes seriously the idea that some women dress for themselves and other women — and not necessarily to reel in the dudes. (In fact, as her name humorously proclaims, she's into fashion that is proudly dude-unfriendly.) A lot of us who love perfume are already kind of doing that, wearing perfume like Muscs Kublai Khan, ouds, or "old lady" vintage perfumes nonconnoisseurs may not appreciate. (And please, dudes who are reading this, pardon the female-centricity of the question. This applies to you, too!)

I'm sure you all have a lot to say. I want to hear it! (Please note — I'm so happy that this post has gotten lots of comments. To read all of them, be sure to click on "Next" when you get to the bottom of the page.)

 

 

 

 

Parfum d'Été by Kenzo (1992)

When Kenzo's Parfum d'Été, or Summer Perfume, opens, a candied violet-like accord blasts out, edged with a very sharp greenness that keeps it from being cloying. That almost screeching green note becomes more herbaceous, less aritificial-smelling, giving Parfum d'Été's sweetness a touch of dried coriander or what Haarmann & Reimer call "leafy green."

Top notes: Leafy green, peach, hyacinth, rosewood

Heart notes: Lily of the valley, cyclamen, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, orris

Base notes: Sandalwood, musk, cedar, amber

Its fruity, violet-tinged top notes smell synthetic, but not in a bad way; it just has the kind of forwardness and intensity that means some synthetic olfactory steroid is giving it some oomph.(It almost packs the punch of Poison's tuberose-grape bubble gum accord. Almost.)

I emphatically don't like sweet scents, but although Parfum d'Été is quite sweet at the beginning, it's also pitched toward green, and floating in the direction of light, transparent florals — lily of the valley, cyclamen, rose. (Those flowers bloom as the perfume progresses, warmed up by amber.)

I use the word "float" because I'm looking at the beautiful ad to your left, with a melancholy fairy — or perhaps she's just hot from summer's heat? — sitting atop what looks like an origami version of Parfum d'Été's cute little leaf bottle. (Its bottle, as I've said before, is suspiciously similar to Fille d'Eve's Lalique bottle from the 50s.) You can't see the print to the right, but it says in French, "January, February, July, July, July, July...") meaning, I guess, that summer seems never-ending.

Is Parfum d'Été a good scent for l'été? Yes, if you want more than just "clean" and "fresh" from your summer perfume. Created in the early 90s, Parfum d'Été is on the cusp between the big fruit-bombs of the 80s and the minimalism and Cult of Clean to come, represented by CKOne, Bulgari Eau Parfumée Au Thé Vert, et al. (I'm spraining my wrist with the accents aigu today!)

I like the way that you can still distinguish the predominant notes even in the dry down — the fruit, the florals sweetened by hyacinth, and the leafiness which keeps it fresh and true to its intended season. It's a charming little green fruity-floral with a quirky personality and enough subtlety to work in the summer heat.

And you can't beat the cute little bottle and box. Even the color scheme tells you everything you need to know...

(Why not get yourself some from the Miniature Perfume Shoppe before summer's gone?)

 

 

 

Fete de Molyneux (1962)

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. That’s my one word review. Forthwith is my full review. (And yes, I just used the word "forthwith." I have no idea where it came from...)

Aptly named, Fete is indeed a party — in your nose! Brought to you by the same folks who gave 20s Flappers and other such minxes the spicy and dangerous Le Numéro Cinq, you’d almost think that Molyneux was to spice as Jicky was to civet…

Speaking of civet, it’s definitely prowling around the edges of Fete, not officially invited to the party but crashing its velvet ropes anyway, adding its inimitable louche brand of chic. But as you initially approach Fete, luscious and tart iterations of peach, plum and bergamot (maybe galbanum?) hit you like the bubbles from a freshly cracked open bottle of champagne, lifting your senses. But wait, what’s that eyebrow-raising funky “off” scent that’s lowering your inhibitions? Riff-raff Cumin and Leather must have distracted the doorman.

Once Fete starts drying down, there’s the wonderful effect of smelling its multiple layers at once — a brightness from the top notes, the spiced fruit and florals in the middle, and the stunningly chic and sexy base, at once creamy, woody, and animalic. When I first sniffed Fete, it recalled Rochas’ 70s Femme — with its added cumin — to me. (Although Fragrantica doesn't list cumin, I smell its spicy body odor magnificence in Fete. Femme doesn't list it either.) Fete also reminds me a bit of Miss Balmain, Sikkim, and Aramis in its well-rounded leather personality.

Top notes: Caraway, plum, peach, bergamot and Brazilian rosewood

Heart notes: Lilac, orris root, jasmine and ylang-ylang

Base notes: Sandalwood, benzoin, vanilla, oakmoss, civet, and leather

Fete is one of the one of few perfumes I've smelled in the odd but wonderful perfume category known as the fruit-animalic chypre. You get a little bit of everything with this: the happy sport-scent opening, the immediate funk from the base notes snaking their way through the lightly sweet florals, and the creaminess of benzoin and vanilla married with moss, sandalwood, leather and…civet. There’s even a saltiness I forgot to mention, coming from what I couldn’t tell you. The effect is like eating savory and sweet together.

In an interesting article about scent, scientists claim that a good nose is more than genetics — it's training. The more you smell and categorize what you're smelling, comparing one scent with the next, etc., the better you get at recognizing aspects of perfume, even being able to conjure it up in your memory. (In a fascinating anecdote, the article discusses how certain parts of the brain that pertain to olfaction will light up in the MRI scans of seasoned perfume specialists even in the absence of a scent. The brain's olfaction centers register activity as if a scent were being sniffed!) I think that's really true, because after years of sniffin' perfume and writing about it, I've developed the ability to remember what something smells like, to be able to even recall it as if it were a line of poetry. Take this morning. I actually had a full-on memory of Fete, and recreated it in my mind; I could actually smell it.

If you could watch me inhale Huff this stuff for the umpteenth time, you’d see that the reaction it gets resembles my reaction to eating something particularly tasty. Eyes get wide, then they close, then they roll to the back of my head, and finally (this is when you know this is some REAL good stuff), I begin to shake my head and mutter under my breath, “Wow…” Fete de Molyneux is not for everyone, but for those who like this style (you know who you are!), you, too, will shake your head and say, “Wow.”

Nocturnes de Caron (1981)

Nocturnes has all the hallmarks of a femme fatale perfume, but its restraint and subtlety mark it as a charming ingénue rather than a dangerous lady. A restrained, balanced, and yet multifaceted floral with a lot going on, Nocturnes de Caron could change the minds of all but the most stubborn haters of the floral category.

A combination of green notes, the freshest facets from florals such as lily of the valley and rose, with a touch of ripe fruit and mandarin, Nocturnes gets a little curvier and more erotic with the introduction of rounder, fatter notes of vanilla, Benzoin, and amber in the dry down, with a veil of powdery orris to blur and soften all angles and curves.

Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, mandarin, leafy green, fruity note

Heart notes: Lily of the valley, rose, jasmine, cyclamen, lily, orris

Base notes: Vanilla, sandalwood, vetiver, Benzoin, musk, amber

Nocturnes starts off with an intense and gorgeous contrast between sharp green/fruity notes and the undertow of a voluptuous vanilla/amber base. The richer notes actually seem to rise up to meet the green beginning, only to disappear and rejoin them later after the florals have had their say.  (There is a radiant chorus of singing florals for a moment as the perfume develops, each flower fresher than the next.) It’s like a green/fruit – floral – sexy do-si-do, with every note’s move perfectly rehearsed and harmonious.

Nocturnes’ spirit reminds me a bit of Ysatis, a lovely floral with a touch of coconut to fatten things up, or YSL’s Y. For me, Nocturnes’ balance is my favorite part. It manages to still project “fresh and joyful,” but in addition to fruit, florals and powdery orris, there’s some scratch from sandalwood and vetiver, plumpness from vanilla, Benzoin, and amber, and warmth from musk.

Although Nocturnes takes you in so many directions, it still remains a perfume with a solid personality. Why, I wonder, is it called Nocturnes (a short musical composition inspired by or evocative of nighttime)? I mean, I understand that the nighttime-inspired base notes rise up to contrast with the Morning top notes, but if I had to choose, the top notes win over. Nocturnes is more L'apres Midi d'un Faune…

As I’m sniffing my slightly sweet, slightly spicy/woody, gorgeously floraled hand, I gotta wonder where all those well-behaved and yet still interesting florals are now?

There are a few contemporary florals that interest me (Frederic Malle’s Carnal Flower, Mona di Orio’s Carnation), but they’re few and far between. What with all the ouds and exotic notes out there in perfume — it would almost be more subversive to make a truly interesting floral.

Or, you could just buy some vintage Nocturnes de Caron.

(This review is dedicated to Brigitte, perfumaniac extraordinaire who gave me an expertly-wrapped package of perfume vials with detailed notes. She looooves Nocturnes, and now I see why. Thanks, Brigitte!)