Rive Gauche by Yves Saint Laurent (1971)

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.

Comments

[Rita Long]

"Reading a perfume's aura": Tee-hee!! May have to quote that!! (With proper citation, of course...)

[rk]

i love vintage Rive Gauche, it's a recent discovery for me. I have the vintage EDT and a full mini of the parfum that i found in an antique shop for only $3...Score! With the EDT, I love the initial aldehydic blast of leathery birchtar...then it goes through a blah phase for few hours that I'm not really a fan of...but then after several hours the most beautiful sophisticated rose starts to shine through and this lasts and lasts well into another day. I find the parfum cuts to the chase much better than the EDT so that I don't have to wait for hours before the glorious rose starts to emerge. Love it!

[Perfumaniac]

Hi rk, you describe the progression of RG's notes beautifully, and kudos to you for the thrift store score. It's like the reformulations edit out times and dimensions from the originals. No wonder I (and I suspect many vintage fiends — have a fetish!). Hope you feel moved to comment again. :)

[RiveGauche 4ever]

Please kindly reply as I'm unable to find this info ANYWHERE: what do you mean, Rive Gauche has been reformulated?! Is this true? How can this be? It was the quintessential French perfume! The true essence of Paris that I smelled countless times from elegant business women on the quais of the metro in Paris in the very early 80's. One day, to my sheer delight, I smelled Rive Gauche & instantly knew it was the fragrance I had always loved but had been unable to identify until then. I immediately acquired my own bottle, I was a teen. It became and it truly was MY fragrance.

I grew up to develop severe MCS and can no longer be around synthetic man-made perfumes made with cheap (& toxic to us MCS patients) fragrance oils. One day in the 90's I walked into a USA perfume shop & smelled Rive Gauche: it made me ill! And it smelled nauseous but my doctor had said that perfume smells bad to PWMCS. Now I'm thinking I must have smelled the reformulation! It was almost as nocious as the most offensive perfume I've ever had the displeasure of smelling (Angel by VS)

Why was Rive Gauche reformulated? Why not make a new fragrance and name it something else? Why tamper with perfection? Please answer: when did this change occur and how or where can you get the original vitnage Rive Gauche? Please include any links you might have on this sacrilege! Thank you!

[Perfumaniac]

Hi Rive Gauche lover. I'm sorry to tell you, but it has been reformulated. It just doesn't have the complexity it once did. That's the bad news — the good news is that the real stuff is floating around on eBay and elsewhere. Just type in vintage Rive Gauche on eBay and there's a live auction now. Or Google it. As for why brands reformulate — sometimes because certain ingredients become too expensive to use or they may be banned. As of August, many ingredients that make up 20th century classics will no longer be allowed in perfumes, thanks to IFRA (the International Fragrance Association). Reformulation is sadly a reality for most classics.

[Le Nez]

Perfumer - Andre Fromentin (Polge only part of team).

[Perfumaniac]

Thanks for your comment, Le Nez. I double-checked (I can't remember the original source from which I came up with Polge), but both Fragrantica and Now Smell This list Michel Hy either as primary or co-creator, so I added him. I looked up André Fromentin, and I can only see him as the creator of Grey Flannel. Could you tell me where you found this information? Thanks!

[Lauren C. Tyson]

This was one of my mother's favorites. BTW, what is an "EDT" mentioned above?

[Perfumaniac]

Hi Lauren: EDT = Eau de toilette, a lesser concentration (of perfume oils) than EDP = Eau de Parfum. Extrait is the highest concentration, EDC = Eau de Cologne the lightest.

[breathe31]

Having been to the Left Bank of Paris twice in my lifetime I can honestly say that "Rive Gauche" is a quintessential Parisian perfume! I too loved it as a child. My mom received an EDT spray as a gift when it came out in 71 and passed it on to her fragrance obsessed young daughter because she thought it smelled "too metallic" (Is that what Turin refers to as "tarry"?). As a kid I really did not care whether or not I could pull this one off and I wore it sparingly out in public because to me it's dry down was, as you so beautifully put it, "sheer pink" and pure springtime. To my nose Grey Flannel has a similar opening (probably why I LOVE that one too!) so maybe it was Fromentin who created it. I remember that Rive Gauche was resurrected not too long ago as Rive Gauche Intense (or something like that). Has anyone tried it? I am sure it is not anything like the vintage I remember.

[Barbara Clemons]

Please, can anyone tell me where or from whom to purchase this find fragrance?

[Perfumaniac]

Hi Barbara: miniatureperfumeshoppe.com and eBay. Look for vintage.

[Mary Blumreich]

Tom Ford reformulated the perfume. Why can't people just leave well enough alone? Sometimes you can find these originals on E-Bay.I just found a vintage Tweed that I have been hankering after for years. They buy up partially used bottles in estate sales and other venues. Worth a try.

[Linda Davis-Zamalin]

I have a very old spray of the EDP and have used it for years. I think I have one spray left of it in the bottle. I too would love to find the vintage formula and I do the the EDT but don't care for it much.

I so wish they would bring back the orginal formula...do you think they would the vintage perfume in Paris??

Please e-mail me at HBCpnqueen@aol.com

Many thanks...I found this site by mistake and am so happy I am not the only one who loves the old style.