Yesterday's Perfume

Roma by Laura Biagiotti (1988)

Take Shalimar, with its bergamot, vanilla, and civet base; add a big dose of amber, a smidgen of black currant and the scent from DoubleMint gum's powdery foil — and you have the sparkling, warm, sweet-spicy Floriental perfume Roma by Italian fashion designer Laura Biagiotti.

Top notes: bergamot, pink grapefruit, black currant, mint

Heart notes: Jasmine, rose, lily of the valley

Base notes: Sandalwood, vanilla, amber, musk, patchouli, oakmoss, civet (from Haarman & Reimer. For slightly different notes, try Fragrantica.)

Like some perfumes in the oriental category, Roma gets a lift from hesperidic top notes. They seem to linger throughout Roma's development, lightening the perfume's mood so that we don't take it too seriously.

The uplift from bergamot and pink grapefruit plus that quirky touch of powdery mint keeps Roma's character from falling into the brooding or overly decadent. It seems fresh and carefree for a perfume in this category. (Notice that the frosted bottle is fluted to resemble a Roman column.)

Mint is said to be a difficult note to use in fragrance without evoking Scope mouthwash or toothpaste, so it's surprising it works so well in a Floriental with such prominent vanilla and amber. You'd think it would clash or seem unappetizing, like the galbanum in Must de Cartier that invoked Luca Turin's scorn. (Incidentally, I love the contrast. Somehow the clash works, for me, in both scents.)

With a fresh, sparkling opening with extra zip from mint; a floral heart that gives it a soft femininity; and a vanillic/ambery/civet base with creamy/spicy sandalwood for depth and warmth, Roma is an approachable beauty like its fellow Italian, the unpretentious beauty Isabella Rossellini. (OK, maybe this was just an excuse to post a picture of the person I think is the most beautiful woman in the world!)

Note: Roma still seems to be in production, but I can't speak to the current formulation. I have the vintage, and as you know, vintage almost always smells better!

 

 

 

 

 

What Scent Means to Me...

My perfume pal Michelle Krell Kydd over at Glass Petal Smoke sent me an interesting link to a set of questions about taste and smell.

Here are my answers to these provocative questions, most answered off the top of my head (with the exception of a couple literary quotes, which took me forever to track down). If you have a blog, why not post your answers, with a link back to GPS? Or, if you like, leave your thoughts in the comments section if you feel like sharing. Have fun with these! I did...

Q: What does your sense of smell mean to you?

A: Although everything we apprehend is subjective, my sense of smell seems most peculiar and irreducible to me. Yes, what I like or rebel against may be culturally constructed, but my sense of smell (along with taste) seems most subjective and real. No one can talk me out of what I like…

 

Scent is the invisible veil over the world. There's something both ghostly and tangible about it. But Proust laid out its paradoxes  better than anyone:

 

"When from a long-distant past nothing subsists after people are dead, after things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."

 

Sigh.

 

Q: What are some of your strongest scent memories?

A: The intense tropical scents of pikake and other Hawaiian flowers from souvenir perfumes my father gave me when I was three. A lemon-scented perfume I associate with a girl who kissed me in the 5^th grade. The smell of the Datura flower that reminds me of San Francisco and whose heady, narcotic scent seems strongest at night. (That's a Datura up there to your right.)

 

Q: What are some of your favorite smells (things in nature, cooking &/or your environment?)

A: The smell from the fur of cats I’m fond of who’ve been lying in the sun.The smell of burning leaves that seems to accompany New Orleans streetcars on the move. Fresh guava and grapefruit. The scent of someone’s shirt with whom I’m in love/lust.The smell of lipstick. The smell of Bonne Bell Dr. Pepper-flavored Lip Smackers. (The taste isn’t bad, either.) The smell of dirty hair (again, from someone I’m into!). Clean laundry. (See — not everything I like is dirty!)

 

Q: Do you have any favorite smells that are considered strange?

A: Body odor. Jack fruit. Flowers on the verge of going bad. Dirt. Some sweat. The inside of my purse. The smell of suede, leather, tobacco, civet, castoreum, Costus root. Etat Libre d'Orange's Secretions Magnifique and CB I Hate Perfume's Old Fur Coat.

 

Q: Describe one or more of your favorite cooking smells.

A: I love the scent of a cheese/potato gratin baking in the oven. Chocolate cake. Vanilla bean boiling in milk. Steak. Smoke from a barbeque.

 

Q: What smells do you most dislike?

A: I dislike extremely chemical-smelling perfumes (i.e. most of the ones you can buy at drugstores). Bad breath. That sour smell from feet that have been in shoes without socks. Hospital smells. The smell of baby aspirin (and the taste, ugh!) or Robitussin.

 

Q: What smell did you first dislike, but learned to love?

A: Civet. Patchouli. Body odor. 

 

Q: What mundane smells inspire you?

A: Coffee. Baking bread and pastries. Shampoo and soap. Eucalyptus trees. Mojitos — love the lime and mint combo. I also love the smell of Meyer lemons.

 

Q: What scent never fails to take you back in time and why?

A: Any perfume I associate with youth, with someone I love, and/or love affairs: Lauren, Poison, Musc Ravageur, Angel, Jean Naté, Charlie, Aveda Perfume Brilliant hair pomade, Love’s Baby Soft, Charlie, Magie Noire, Paloma Picasso, Rive Gauche (on the perfume side). Prell, Finesse, Herbal Essences (the old school stuff), Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific (on the shampoo side). Mr. Bubble bubble bath! Also, the scent of these lip glosses I used to practically eat (I’m not kidding). On the side of the bottles, there were scratch and sniff stickers with an image (an ice cream sundae, a strawberry) or whatever the gloss was supposed to smell/taste like. And last but not least: the bubblegum-scented eraser that used to be on Hello Kitty pencils. Yum.

 

Q: What scents do you associate with memories of loved ones?

A: Magie Noire, Femme, Aveda Perfume Brilliant hair pomade, CK One, men’s deodorant mixed with B.O.

 

Q: What fragrances remind you of growing up?

A: Love’s Baby Soft, Noxema, Herbal Essences, Mr. Bubble bubble bath, the smell of Cover Girl blush.

 

Q: What fragrances remind you of the places you visited on vacation?

A: Spices in Morocco. The smell of burning leaves when the New Orleans streetcar moves. Market smells (raw meat and fish, spices, food, etc.) in Vietnam.

 

Q: Describe a piece of sensory literature that is very magical for you.

A: It’s not often that women’s bodies are described in both explicit and yet still respectful terms. The following is pornographic, erotic, poetic, tender — and rhapsodically beautiful. From Jeannette Winterson’s Written on the Body:

 

“She smells of the sea. She smells of rockpools when I was a child. She keeps a starfish in there. I crouch down to taste the salt, to run my fingers around the rim. She opens and shuts like a sea anemone. She’s refilled each day with fresh tides of longing.”

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Want to know what scent means to other perfume-lovers? I'll add links to folks who answered the same questions as they send 'em to me:

Scent Less Sensibilities

Scentsate

Scent You Say?

Redolent of Spices

Shimmu

 

Secret of Venus by Weil (1933)

A spicy floral Oriental with incredible tenacity and projection, Secret of Venus strikes me as unmistakably vintage in style, complexity and forthrightness. It might as well come with its own mink stole, cigarette holder and silk charmeuse evening gown, it's so bold and in-your-face. (See smoldering wild child Tallulah Bankhead to your left.)

There's a lot of conflicting information about Secret of Venus, in part because there are perfume and bath oil iterations (I have the oil), as well as Secret of Venus-branded Antilope (1935) and Zibeline (1927) perfumes, just to name a couple.

Why it would be "branded" Secret of Venus is confusing to me, considering the umbrella-brand is, in fact, Weil, a company that started out as furriers in 1898 and introduced perfumes in 1927 made to perfume furs. Zibeline, for example, was marketed as "strictly an odor for furs" and boasted its ability to get rid of a fur's stale smell without damaging it. (I have some vintage Zibeline and recall not liking it, but for the sake of being comprehensive and to contrast it with Secret of Venus which it's often confused/conflated with, I'll compare notes in my next post.)

But onto the perfume. Secret of Venus bath oil (dark and viscous as cough syrup) opens with symphonic herbaceousness, moves into a lush, spicy floral heart, and rests on a velvety, sumptuous Oriental base of sandalwood, amber, musk, honey and tonka. Its drydown is an irresistible mix of sweet, balsam-powdery softness, vanilla-amber creaminess, and incensy-spice. SofV is a little like Le Numéro Cinq (1925) and Coty's Styx (1911) in style and personality, if a bit sweeter. There was even a kind of vegetal-vetiver-salt note in the drydown, as if Secret of Venus needed any more complexity. In other words, this perfume doesn't let up!

Top notes: aldehydes, bergamot, lemon, coriander, tarragon (maybe lavender?)

Heart notes: rose, jasmine, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang, orris, gardenia

Base notes: vetiver, civet, sandal, amber, musk, honey, Tonka (maybe patchouli?) Notes from The Scented Salamander

The first time I took a whiff, SofV did that animalic/raunchy lurch that tends to mean that civet is prowling around, but it could just be a really animalic musk. Ironic that a perfume in a line meant to hide the smell of the animal in fur can't resist throwing some animal back into the perfume. (No word in my searches that Secret of Venus was meant for anything but a woman's skin.) 

In notes I took when I was "reading" the perfume, I wrote, "Is the secret of Secret of Venus...almond oil?" It has that nougaty/nutty center that's redolent of toasted almonds, but perhaps this is the marriage of facets from the florals and ambery base.

Warm and sexy in a retro way, Secret of Venus is a must-smell vintage. Be prepared to have people in other rooms ask what it is you have on (it projects that far!) and to be able to smell its spicy shadow on your skin a good twenty hours later...

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My vintage sample of Secret of Venus courtesy of The Miniature Perfume Shoppe.

Historical info on Weil thanks to Cleopatra's Boudoir. You can read specifically about Secret of Venus here.

If you can afford it, a pristine 1 oz. bottle (the image above) of Secret of Venus is on eBay for five days, with a starting bid (gulp) of $195. Yikes.