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How cute and utterly decadent is this vintage perfume travel kit I spied on eBay? (It is going, going, gone by now, I'm sure.)
There's a hunter green leather traveling case, two mini perfume bottles, and a mini funnel for all your urgent perfume decanting needs on vacation! Picture the glam gal who traveled with this adorable thing. What a different world it was. (Below is an example of another travel case — but with spots for pins and lipstick.)
As cheesy as this 80s ad for Rive Gauche is, the perfume is indeed for an unpredictable woman, the kind who's capable of, oh, I don't know...matching her office phone to her perfume bottle! (You know those Left Bank Parisian types.)
Like the metallic bottle with its contrast between cold silver and electric cobalt blue, Rive Gauche, the scent, projects a formal, classical elegance (aldehydic floral) underneath whose frozen veneer flows a heartbreakingly beautiful rose ready to melt the perfume's reserve, declare the work day over — and invite everyone out for cocktails and dancing. (Rive Gauche creates that same feeling Gucci Rush does for me — that the night is young and I want to go out, have fun, and do some damage.)
There's a strange dissonance between the blue/silver of the bottle and the "color" one gets when the perfume is on your skin; for me, the scent's aura is a sheer magenta or pink. (And yes, I just read this perfume's aura.)
Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, leafy green, peach
Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, geranium, lily of the valley, orris, ylang-ylang
Base notes: Vetiver, tonka, sandalwood, moss, musk, amber
I smelled Rive Gauche as a child and just loved it — hoping one day I could become the sophisticated and fun woman who could pull this off. I was so happy a few years ago to buy what I thought was the same Rive Gauche, but having since scored the vintage I'm reviewing now, I can say that there's no comparison between the reformulation and the Jacques Polge-Michel Hy* constructed original.
The odd "tarry" beginning and resiny background of the vintage, as Luca Turin says in Perfumes: The Guide, are simply not there. Those notes create a strange kind of drama, like a drum roll, or the parting of dark velvet curtains on a stage, that the tinny and one-dimensional reformulation doesn't provide.
Without this preamble, there also isn't the same shock at how beautiful the rose is once it arrives. And it is truly radiant, like a movie star in her prime on the red carpet when you know you'll never see her looking as beautiful as you saw her that night. The subtle fruit from the peach, the sparkle from the bergamot and aldehydes and the sheerness of lily of the valley — all of these notes lift the rose up on their shoulders, elevating it and helping it shine. Truly gifted perfumers combine facets of notes in ways that bring out the best in perfume ingredients, and Rive Gauche, thanks to Jacques Polge, reminds us why rose is such an exemplary note in perfumery.
Drama, contrast, dissonance, surprises, multidimensionality, temporality — this is what has been cut out of the reformulated Rive Gauche. It's like watching Hitchcock's Vertigo without the technicolor or Bernard Hermann's score. An interesting movie — but 50 percent (if such a thing can be quantified) — of what it could be.
* Recently added Michel Hy after reading that Fragrantica lists him as the primary perfumer, and Now Smell This lists him as Polge's co-creator.
Created by Ernest Daltroff of Narcisse Noir fame, Nuit de Noel is dismissed and beloved, it seems, in equal measure. For a scent that is meant to commemorate Christmas Eve and the simple pleasures of time off from work, a good meal, hanging out with family and friends and preparing for the new year, its simplicity is a virtue, in my book.
Nuit de Noel starts out with a sharp and intense ylang-ylang note. For a while you might wonder, "Is that all there is?" But if you give it some time, it dries down into a spicy and comforting scent that evokes mulling spices and the warmth of a room indoors on a wintry day. (Even better, since I'm in LA and it's about 45 degrees outside — at night!)
As I smelled it on my skin about fifteen minutes into it, there was still a whiff of a spiced (almost cinammony) rose and jasmine. Now, about thirty minutes into it, the spice is still faintly there but it has softened and melted onto my skin.
Notes: Rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, sandalwood, saxon moss, musk
This vintage sample was sent to me by the first commenter on Yesterday's Perfume, an art student named Heather. Perhaps it will be my ritual every Christmas Eve to wear Nuit de Noel — in vintage form, of course.
Happy Holidays to everyone!
Unprecedented, indescribable, stunning. These are all synonyms for the French word "inoui," and I would agree that Inoui, if not unprecedented or indescribable — is most definitely stunning.
Like Chanel No. 19, there's an uncanniness to its evocation of the forest. But where Chanel No. 19 was muted, vegetal and ethereal, Inoui is hardy and brisk — its aggressive opening of galbanum and lemon (lightly softened and sweetened by peach) is backed up by a forest whose trees, herbs and berries are almost medicinal in their aromatics (pine, juniper, cedar).
You almost forget there are florals in this perfume at all, although the quiet jasmine does act as a bridge to the soft, comforting drydown of myrrh, musk and the subtle-but-present civet, acting, as it always does, to provide a bit of disquiet and moodiness. Inoui is a symphony in the key of Fresh.
Top notes: Galbanum, peach, juniper, lemon, green accord
Heart notes: Pine needles, freesia, thyme, jasmine
Base notes: Cedarwood, myrrh, musk, civet, oakmoss (notes from Basenotes)
Inoui hits all the spots I'm fond of. I've smelled enough perfume to know that if anything has peach and galbanum in it, I'm a goner. (Y,Aliage, Givenchy III). These are two great notes that smell great together; they whet the olfactory appetite the way a Negroni aperitif gets your taste buds excited for a big meal.
Like Balenciaga's Fleeting Moment/La Fuite des Heures (with either thyme and tarragon herb notes), Inoui has moments of expressing what the blogger at Mossy Loomings describes as a "radiant herbal jasmine." These gentle notes float through Inoui's green forest like a soft breeze, though; its primary beauty is austere rather than delicate. Once its piquancy dies down, it still manages, even in the warmth of the base notes, to convey freshness through a kind of powdery, clean skin scent.
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Nothing can terrify and motivate a perfume lover more than the word, "discontinued." The engine of true desire is loss or impossibility, and, being a stubborn romantic, this is partly why I love vintage perfume. Yes, I love the history, I love the artistry, I love sniffing out ingredients that cannot be used now, and I want to understand modern fragrances by becoming acquainted with their antecedents — but I would be lying if I said that getting my hands/nose on something rare isn't a huge part of the thrill. (Inoui is available at the Perfumed Court, and you see it occasionally on eBay.)
I don't even know where I first heard about the discontinued perfume Inoui. Maybe, after hearing so much about Nombre Noir, I wanted to hunt down another rare Shiseido. Maybe I read about someone singing its praises. (Par-Fum's blogger, a perfume maker, is definitely a fan.)
I couldn't find any vintage Inoui ads, but stumbled upon this gorgeous Serge Lutens-styled Japanese commercial for Inoui cosmetics, which I suppose is the incarnation the Inoui name has now. Wow. It's like an Alain Resnais film refracted through the 80s.
Last week I wrote about an intriguing perfume vending machine that was up for auction on eBay. With "nips" or samples of the perfumes Evening in Paris, Silhouette, and Silent Night — all for the price of a quarter — the perfume vending machine was a tantalizing artifact telling us about perfume's status on the American market in the 30s.
In a Twitter conversation I had with Michelle Krell Kydd of GlassPetalSmoke, I told her I found the idea of a perfume vending machine so charming because it combined luxury with a dimestore aesthetic. I was interested, I said, in the history of perfume vials and samples, and she said it sounded like a "future blog post brewing." Well, you were right, MKK! I did a little online research, and the following is what I found. I will update it as I find out more.
First off, eBay auctions can be vast repositories of information. Two items up for auction now, in particular, told me a lot about perfume and marketing via nips.
Both auctions, for hard plastic cases housing nips of various perfumes, were actually promotional gifts given out by companies that had nothing to do with beauty or luxury.
In one case, the company name printed on the back of the perfume gift reads "Flint Telephone Employees Credit Union"(!) How, er, uh...glamorous! I guess if you worked for Flint Telephone back in the day, you might need a little Shocking by Schiaparelli or Indiscret by Lucien Lelong to throw a some fantasy into your life!
One commenter who calls herself Digger had this to say to a reader with a question about nips on Bottle Books, a website devoted to information on old bottles:
"What the person has is called 'Nips' which was a patented name for a method of perfume sampling from the 1930-1950s. The tubes were made of something called plastene or sometimes glass. The ends were broken off and the perfume inside was then one use per tube. Many perfumers used them just for their own scents and they were also put up in cardboard tubes in thousands of different applications from Chevy dealers to motels to airlines, all who used this form of perfume sample. They came color-coded on the tips so if you used one that was pink it was Shocking by Schiaparelli...I have a set of Nips as suit card indicators in bakelite for playing bridge that are just quite unusual."
Say what?! "A set of Nips as suit card indicators in bakelite for playing bridge"?! Unusual indeed. I need to see a picture of this!
A lot is written by marketers about the so-called "democratization of luxury," but to me these perfume samples in unusual settings (like tiny representations of poet Wallace Stevens' "a jar in Tennessee") exemplify it. Instead of Alexander McQueen selling poorly-made skirts for Target, how about Serge Lutens' latest fragrance sold in nips at Walmart (or Walgreen's or CVS) for a dollar a pop? That is the "democratisation de luxe" to me!
They hardly even give out sample vials anymore. I receive them when the salesperson does a cold assessment of me based on what I am wearing (or what purse I am carrying) and then deigns to find me worthy of a sample. This happened recently at the fancy perfume section at Nordstrom's in San Francisco; I got a sample of Fracas. And just a few weeks ago, a generous Kilian rep at Saks in Costa Mesa gifted me with samples from his entire line — perhaps because I knew what oud was? I guess it's not affordable to hand out samples anymore, but how many nascent perfume-lovers may never be born because they don't actually have the juice with them to try on at home?
In any case, I'm not sure when the Nips transitioned into those glass vials, but I'll let you know when I find out!
(Image: Etsy)
Powdery, sweet, sumptuous, perfumey, and most definitely vintage — Bal à Versailles is like the wallpaper in the palace at Versailles, with so much imagery, color and ornate finery in the details, it's hard to immediately discern what's going on.
Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, mandarin, neroli
Heart notes: Rose de Mai, lily of the valley, lilac, orris, jasmine, ylang-ylang
Base notes: Cedarwood, sandalwood, vanilla, benzoin, melilot (sweet clover), tolu balsam
I have to admit that I didn't get it at first, and wondered if there was something off about my eau de cologne win on eBay (for an obscenely cheap sum, I might add). But I gave it a few days, tried it and retried it, and I can say I finally get it; Bal à Versailles is a whole lotta perfume.
It starts off brightly (bergamot, mandarin) and moves quickly into sweetness, powderiness and duskiness (from the indolic jasmine, and neroli with a hint, already at the beginning, of the subtly spicy and creamy base of sandalwood, cedarwood and Tolu balsam)..
Although honey isn't listed in the notes anywhere, and maybe I'm smelling it from one facet of the orange blossom, I could've sworn its animalic sweetness was a part of this perfume, in character if nothing else.
A lot of reviewers describe Bal à Versailles as being dirty, of smelling, even, of ladies' underpants. I just don't get that. It's sensuous, but in its dark richness rather than in stinkiness.
BàV starts off as a brighter, higher pitched Narcisse Noir, the latter perfume refusing to turn on any lights or speak in anything but a growl, while BàV agrees, at the very least, to light some candles so you can see what the heck is going on or to enunciate in a normal voice.
The perfume is supposed to recall decadent ballroom soirees past at Versailles, with powdered ladies exuding aristocratic perspiration — a little tinniness combined with flowers and musk. You can almost smell the smoke from dying out beeswax candles, what one reviewer described as chalky or incensey. An hour or two into it, and Bal à Versailles is a mellow, powdery-gentle and comforting skin scent.
Bal à Versailles is the perfume version of a rock star's retro suit: an interpretation of the past through the tripped-out psychedelic fantasies of the sixties.
I interrupt my regularly scheduled program of vintage perfume reviews to share with you the most tantalizing email I've gotten in a while.
I woke up this morning with a message from an eBay seller: "misscellanies thought you might like this item on eBay." I click over, and it is a freaking VINTAGE PERFUME VENDING MACHINE. Yes, I would indeed like this item on eBay! A little too much in fact.
It dispenses 20s-era perfumes like Arpege and Evening in Paris via "nips" (thin plastene tubes filled with perfume) that you break open to apply. It's crazy to think that perfume was sold the way they now sell Doritos or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!
It's not the first time I've seen a vintage beauty product vending machine, though. A long time ago when I was a kid, my family and I took a road trip and stopped off at an Oklahoma Stucky's (diner, purveyor of tchotkes and gew-gaws). On my way to the bathroom I noticed an odd vending machine that sold lipstick. I put a quarter in, and out came a gold-plated, salmon-colored lipstick that smelled perfumey. This time-machine was just sitting there dispensing 40-year-old lipstick. Well, now I see that memory was not a figment of my imagination.
Although I've read about modern perfume vending machines, I've yet to run across one. (This company is hawking the idea and Zoom Systems, the folks that brought you the iPod vending machines, have collaborated with Coty.) I would love to see this catch on! Who couldn't use a little Carnal Flower or Muscs Kublai Khan pickup in the middle of the day?
As extravagant as this perfume vending machine is, I sat there for a long time after I clicked over on eBay, eyes wide as saucers, trying to tell myself that $395 to hit the "Buy It Now" button would be money well spent that I would never regret. Alas — it would also be money I don't have! But, I can revel in what an incredibly fun and glamorous relic this is.
I'm trying to picture an American woman in the 1930s in her tailored suit getting coffee somewhere and realizing, "Gosh darn it, I forgot to put on perfume!" But no worries, Evening in Paris is right over there for 25 cents!
Whoever wins this is going to have a hard time not breaking open those "bottlettes" of Silhouette, Arpege, Evening in Paris and Silent Night. Lucky devil. (You can bid here.)
If this catches your fancy, check out my post on the history of vintage perfume nips.
Calandre by Paco Rabanne is a fresh floral with a spicy leafiness that recalls the coriander note in Jean Couturier's much bolder and heavier chypre Coriandre. Its sheer florals — rose, lily of the valley, geranium and jasmine — are so transparent they're like watercolors painted with flower petals. Top notes: Leafy green, aldehydes, bergamot Heart notes: Rose, lily of the valley, geranium, jasmine, orris Base notes: Sandalwood, vetiver, musk, amber, oakmoss
There's character in Calandre's notes, but they're in their lightest, still adolescent dilution. The perfume is, nevertheless, sensual. Rose and jasmine have their indolic training wheels on, not yet making bedroom eyes or inviting you closer but telegraphing sexuality from a distance. Musk, amber and sandalwood give Calandre's innocent character an inchoate and unknowing sensuality, the kind that is tossed off by beautiful teenage girls between adolescence and womanhood when they're not yet fully aware of their effect on others.
At the risk of sounding lecherous, I'll say that Calandre smells like the lovely sweat of a teenage girl. There may be musky notes in her perspiration, but they smell like their own kind of spicy perfume. I think of Lolita smelling like Calandre, or the scent of virgins Patrick Suskind's sad predator in Perfume wanted to bottle.
Like a Debussy piano piece that fully absorbs you when you're listening to it, but floats away just as quickly, Calandre is ever-so-slightly melancholy and heartbreaking in its fragile beauty.
From its goth name, to its Satanic bottle design suggestive of blood-red setting suns during harvest time (you know — the harvesting-of-young-virgins time), to its predatory, animalic rose scent — Magie Noire is a perfume to fall in love with.
I write about it as if it's the first time I've smelled it, but in fact this was my mother's perfume when I was growing up. I wonder sometimes if I'm so drawn to the chypre category* because that's what my mother wore and it signifies what perfume is for me, or if, as with food tastes, part of it is genetic and I share her tastes. Whatever the reason, revisiting it in vintage form after becoming a serious perfume collector and developing a better sense of what makes a good fragrance has created a whole other set of associations beyond "mom." And thank heavens for that — who wants to think of her mother as a High Priestess of the Dark Side?
I may be overplaying the perfume's malignant connotations, but they're obviously there in the name and in the juice itself:
Top notes: Cassis, bergamot, hyacinth, raspberry, green note
Heart notes: Honey, jasmine, lily of the valley, tuberose, narcissus, orris, rose oriental
Base notes: Patchouli, castoreum, civet, vetiver, musk, oakmoss, benzoin
Is there really much more that I need to say here? There are the narcotic elements of honey, tuberose, narcissus and rose (a dark, forbidding rose rather than a come-hither one), intensified by top notes that don't sparkle or sweeten or even introduce the perfume so much as stand behind the heart notes and back up their message of dark beauty. (Berries and currants, sweet in a heavy, uncandied way, recall magical fairytale forests.)
By the time you're hooked by the perfume's confusing sensuality (the way a bug might be attracted to a carnivorous plant), you're happy to be dissolving in its poison if that means lolling about in patchouli, civet and castoreum. (Did I mention this perfume might appeal to you if you have a dark side?)
This stuff leaves me bewitched, bothered and bewildered.
*Technically, Magie Noire is categorized as a floral Oriental, but its personality to me is chypre.
Top notes: Green note, aldehydes, fruit note, rosewood, coconut
Heart notes: Tuberose, jasmine, narcissus, carnation, rose, ylang-ylang
Base notes: Patchouli, sandalwood, castoreum, civet, oakmoss, amber, honey, cistus
Until I get a better trained nose or, more likely, my Haarman & Reimer fragrance guide in the mail (update: I got it, and the notes here are from it), the notes I list are partial and possibly off. Everywhere I looked for notes for Ysatis, they were different. One blogger I respect said there's oakmoss in it, which would make it a chypre. Other sources claim there's vanilla, which would suggest it's in the Oriental category. Yet another source didn't mention vanilla or oakmoss at all and threw in castoreum!
To make matters worse, I bet there's an Ysatis reformulation, which means that everything that makes this perfume heady, rich and interesting has been eliminated. Sigh.
How much more confusing can it get to figure out perfume? Imagine a film buff looking for information about "Vertigo" and finding out that it may have starred either Kim Novak or Grace Kelly, taken place either in San Francisco or Paris, and may have been directed by either Alfred Hitchcock or Billy Wilder. (Absurd example, but you get my drift.) I mean — seriously. It's scandalous.
Here's an article about perfumer Christophe Ludamiel regarding the perfume industry and how he thinks it needs to let go of its "secrecy and mysticism." Ludamiel wants the public to have the opportunity to be educated about fragrance and olfaction in the same way wine lovers are educated about wine. Um, yes please.
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