Yesterday's Perfume

What Perfume Would the Women of Mad Men Wear?

Last Sunday, fans of AMC’s Mad Men were treated to a return of the addictive drama about the golden age of advertising on Madison Avenue during the tumultuous 1960s. Mad Men gives us a glimpse into what it might have felt like to witness that era's politico-cultural changes from the viewpoint of workers in the office of the Sterling Cooper advertising agency, an agency whose job it is to read the zeitgeist for the venal purpose of manipulating people consumers into buying stuff.

As devoted viewers already know, through characters so well-drawn we feel like we know them, we get to see the collision of sexism, racism, and capitalism, and the results aren’t pretty — but they sure are fascinating!

Not only are Mad Men’s characters drawn realistically, the show’s style is also impeccably curated, from the bullet bras we see underneath the female characters’ tight dresses to the opening credit’s "falling man" homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. And style here is also substance. The style details are right not only for fetishistic accuracy, but also to reinforce the characters’ inner lives.

Don Draper’s brand of toxic misogyny is depicted as complex (insofar as Mad Men is smart enough to show us that he is also its victim). In a parallel fashion, his perfect suits and cool and in-control Mid-Century modern office serve as objective correlatives for a kind of surface polish with no interior. Who is Don, really? Or Peggy, with her oddly asexual Mod dresses? Or Joan, with figure-enhancing outfits that serve both as weapons (they didn’t call them bullet-bras for nothing!) and armour? Or Betty, with her flowery ladies-who-lunch style at odds with her icy stares and melancholy brooding?

Which leads me to the point of this post. With all of Mad Men’s stylistic details spot-on, one detail that would interest perfumistas is undepictable via the medium of television: Perfume. What perfume would Peggy, or Joanie, or Betty wear? Or Don, Pete, or Roger for that matter?

Seeing as we don’t always wear perfumes that came out the precise year we’re living in — it’s usually give or take a decade or two, no? — in my answer, I took into account the year this season’s Mad Men takes place (1966) along with the personality of the character and her possible aspirational yearnings.

Betty Draper, a graduate of Bryn Mawr and former model turned “mad” housewife, has since remarried after her marriage to cheating Don Draper fell apart. Betty, mother of three, is the quintessential unfulfilled 50s-type housewife now living in an era on the cusp of the 70s women’s movement. She wants to break free, so I think her perfume choice should reflect a yearning (not yet fully conscious) to express herself, while at the same time remaining “classy.” I could see her wearing Fracas (1948), My Sin (1924), or Femme (1944), perfumes that either through name or notes, suggest a (conventional) rebellion against her good-girl status.

 

Peggy Olson started out at Sterling Cooper as Don Draper’s secretary, living in the outer boroughs of Manhattan. But through ambition, a knack for copywriting, and Don’s surprising mentorship, she became a Manhattan-based copywriter there. (A copywriter at the same agency, Pete Campbell , got her pregnant in what can only be described as a rape. She terminated the pregnancy had the baby, but turned Pete down later when he told her he loved her.) She’s one tough cookie, in other words. If she’s wearing perfume at all (she wants to blend in with the boys, after all), it’s probably something she just picked up at the drugstore that's not too intrusive: maybe Fabergé's Woodhue (1944).

The office manager at Sterling Cooper, Joan Holloway uses her beauty and sex appeal to wield what power she can in the office. She’s had affairs with coworkers (notably with the then-powerful Roger Sterling), and she teaches newbies how to work the system using their feminine wiles. In an interesting subplot, Joan seemed jealous that Peggy began to rise in the ranks at Sterling Cooper not as a secretary, but with the male copywriters. Joan, like Betty, is caught between two eras, and it will be interesting to see how she develops as a character. Joan probably wants to smell feminine but elegant, downplaying va-va-va voom sexuality since her clothes certainly aren’t doing that. I imagine her wearing classics such as Arpège (1927) or Chanel No. 5 (1921).

French-Canadian beauty Megan Draper: Former front desk receptionist turned wife of Don Draper, Megan is young, vibrant, smart and sensitive. Her looks have helped her get by in life, but she’s also headstrong and intelligent. The most hip fashionable figure of this group, Megan’s perfume is going to be fresh and of-the-moment: I imagine her in Fidji (1966) or Vivara (1965).

As a bonus, one of my favorite cameo characters: Joyce Ramsay, an assistant photo editor at Life Magazine. Joyce’s job, sexual orientation (she’s a lesbian) and contacts in the bohemian world give Peggy a window into different worlds flourishing outside of her Madison Avenue bubble. Joyce lets it all hang loose, so I doubt she’s wearing perfume. Her scent of choice? B.O., baby! or possibly patchouli oil. My guess, though? The natural scent of the cannabis smoke that seemed to surround her in all of the episodes she was in.

What do you think the women of Mad Men would have worn? And what about the (M)ad Men themselves?

 

A St. Patrick's Day Tribute to My Favorite Green Perfumes

Last year, I listed my favorite "green" perfumes in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

Green perfumes contain notes and accords that are reminiscent of the freshness and bracing quality of leaves, grass, and herbs. They can lift your spirits and revitalize your senses, but they're not for everyone.

If you're looking to get your green on, check out my favorite green perfumes. And Happy St. Patrick's Day!

What Would Your Life Look Like Measured Out in Perfume?

Perfume, by nature, lurks in the background, often exerting unconscious effects on mood, attraction, and even cognitive function. So it makes sense that perfume may hover over people's memories of their lives like pale spirits, largely ignored or unacknowledged. Some may feel as if perfume had no effect on them at all — until prompted to remember. And then suddenly, there's the memory of what Mother or Father wore. Or their first fragrance. Or what someone's hair or skin smelled like the first time they kissed them.

I've always loved perfume, but I seem to have been more of a kid perfumista than an adult one. (Until recently, of course.) My mother was a wearer of grand fragrances, so I had a head-start there (Femme, Scherrer, Magie Noire, etc.) And I associated perfume with freedom and exploration, because it was at the mall where I was dropped off as a kid/tween that I sprayed perfume with abandon, trying everything I could get my little paws on. Between the Sanrio store, Waldenbooks, and whatever department store with a perfume counter there was in the early 80s in Fayetteville, Arkansas — it was there that my constellation of desires was borne.

There was a long period of my adult life when I wore whatever came my way, without particular gusto. My renewed interest in perfume came through reading Perfumes: The Guide, and needing to smell everything Tania and Luca wrote about. (I imagine this was many a perfume lover's gateway book.) My gateway drug perfumes? Vintage Diorella and Lutens' Muscs Koublai Khan.

So without further ado, here is a list of perfumes that have marked my life thus far. (I'm sure I'm leaving something out.) I'd love to see your list as well!

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• Earliest memory of perfume: I'm five, and my father has brought back from Hawaii three "island flower" perfumes whose plastic caps are in the shape of a flower. The perfumes smell exotic. The liquid inside is viscous and sticks to the cap like egg whites.

• Cherie, a girl in my third grade class who lisps, has cute crooked teeth, and tries to kiss me at recess, wears a lemon perfume. This is a happy scent and memory.

• My mother wears Charlie and goes to university. It smells smart and daring to me.

• At the mall during one of my explorations at the perfume counter, I discover Calvin Klein's first eponymous fragrance. It smells like apples and fall to me. I'm in love with the simple bottle, too, and put it on every chance I can get.

• My beloved grandmother wears L'Air du Temps, until the very end. I can't smell it without thinking of her.

• My piano teacher smokes menthol cigarettes and wears a very strong, indolic floral that to this day I'm trying to remember. (Fracas? Joy?) Whatever it is, the combination of her mentholated cigarette breath and smokey clothes plus that perfume (plus the spearmint gum she chews to try to cover up the cigarette smell!) leave a lasting olfactory impression on me. Perhaps the most pungent one! Combined with her raspy voice, wild glasses, and smart polyester pant suits, Mrs. Foley, if she could be olfactorily summed up, smelled to me like diesel fuel and flowers.

• A cousin gives me a violet soliflore for a present. Its sweetness depresses me, and I never wear it.

• A cousin I admire wears Oscar de la Renta. My favorite aunt wears Charles of the Ritz.

• In high school, I decide I love Grey Flannel and don't care if it's for men. I feel daring wearing it with my private school jumper and little white socks. (It definitely competes with Ralph Lauren's Polo, which all the boys are wearing.) I also love Lauren, and flirt with Chanel's Cristalle, which I'm given on a trip to Paris by a family friend. I'm sure Giorgio is in the picture somewhere...

• When I move away from home, my mother sends me off with a giant bottle of Diva, with the crystal stopper. I don't (can't?) wear it.

• In my 20s in New York, at college, I'm waitressing at a restaurant and the bartender, who really wants to be a jewelry designer, brings in a perfume blotter with an odd, refreshing scent I don't know what to make of. It's Bulgari Green Tea. A waitress at an earlier job wore Calyx, which made me swoon; I loved its fruity/sour/floral personality. I'd never smelled anything like it before.

• I move to San Francisco, and a succession of perfumes worn by women I have crushes on remain favorites to this day: Angel and Gucci Rush. A girlfriend wore Aveda's Creme Brilliant hair pomade and CKOne. (Strangely, I was more fond of the Aveda than the CKOne.)

• I start wearing Poison as if it's the 80s all over again, when I'm in the mood to get into some trouble. (It always works.)

• My partner in crime/best friend at the time, Susan T., wears Hanae Mori, a wispy vanillic floral that's way too powdery and feminine to me. She insists it's better than Angel, which she thinks is the most disgusting perfume she's ever smelled.

• The only perfume I remember on a boyfriend is one I still don't know the name of. It's his mother's perfume, and it's odd and resiny and incongruous with his looks. (I'd also never met a dude who wore women's — vintage! — perfume.) Maybe that's why it sticks with me so much. So strange that I can still conjure up the memory of a perfume with no name, so many years later.

• I wear Gucci Rush, Angel, Bulgari Green Tea. And I discover Bulgari Black, which seems sexy and wild.

• Before I read Perfumes: The Guide and go perfume crazy, the last perfumes I purchase and wear are Tom Ford Black Orchid, Bulgari Eau Parfumée Au Thé Rouge, and some weird MAC perfume that smells like vanilla and booze.

And....the rest is history! I wear everything now, from vintage to niche to mainstream. But I'm about to get me some Gucci Rush. I miss that stuff, and it's going to be my summer fragrance.

What would your life look like measured out in perfume? Anything you'd still wear?

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Artist Louise Bourgeois's installation Cell II, 1991 (in the above photo) is, to me, the most beautiful rendition in art of perfume's power. The first thing you see is a series of French doors. They're connected together to almost fully enclose what's inside: the table with empty/almost empty Shalimar bottles, next to which is a sculpture of hands held together as if fretful or worrying. In order to see what's inside (the doors seem to want to protect what's inside) you have to peek through an opening. You really feel like you're invading someone's privacy. The solid marble hands seem more fragile, somehow, than the empty bottles, one of the many paradoxes of perfume — how it endures like memory.

Poivre by Caron (1954)

Many fragrances from the 1950s helped women to express their erotic selves through carnal, animalic perfume notes, or as the Max Factor Primitif ad put it: to "say the things" that women "would not dare to."

But this is a familiar trope in perfume. Sniffing Caron's Poivre and thinking about all the metaphors of fire and explosives in its ads and descriptions, I got to thinking, how many perfumes express violence and danger in their notes, perfume signifiers not entirely subsumed by sexuality?

Well, Caron’s Poivre, for one. Apparently, Caron creative director Félicie Wanpouille, who had collaborated with Caron perfumer Ernest Daltroff on the drop-dead sexy Narcisse Noir, wanted to buck the trend of 50s well-mannered, ladylike florals. So she asked Caron’s then-perfumer Michel Morsetti to create something fierce and wild.

Caron's Poivre extrait starts off with a firey and earthy spark of crushed black pepper and sharp florals (you really smell the ylang ylang). Then, like a slow-motion olfactive explosion, it unfurls carnation's clovey facets, weaving together floral and spice, with sweet warmth from clove and opoponax.

To add fuel to the fire, so to speak, it turns out that pepper is not the only note that signifies darkness and danger in Poivre. Not only has the American carnation largely lost its characteristic spicy smell, it appears that we don’t have the dark associations with carnations/cloves that Europeans do. In France, cloves have been considered bad luck for centuries. Carnations have long been associated with funerals and even repressive communist regimes. Grain de Musc blogger Denyse Beaulieu gives us an even bloodier association: in her post on Serge Lutens’ modern carnation perfume Vitriol d’oeilette, we learn that “this was the flower that was carried by aristocrats as they went to the guillotine during the Terror in 1793.” Yikes.

Notes: Red and black pepper, clove, carnation, ylang ylang, jasmine, opoponax, cedar, sandalwood, vetiver, oakmoss, musk (Notes and information on Félicie Wanpouille's hand in the creative side of Poivre thanks to Perfume Shrine; her image from Perfume Projects)

A heady mix of florals armed with explosives and spice, Poivre by Caron could easily be a niche scent today. It's hard to imagine the stereotypical 1950s woman warming up to it — until you remember that not everyone in the 50s was Sandra Dee and Doris Day. (Even Sandra Dee and Doris Day probably weren't Sandra Dee and Doris Day!)

Who could I imagine wearing Poivre? The other 1950s women: poets Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, and photographer Diane Arbus — all three artists who came of age in the 50s who were fascinated with intensity, violence and dark eroticism. They were women who didn’t need a perfume to say the things they would not dare to — all three dared to, and then some. And even though they got burned by the fires they got too close to, they at least tried to break free from the 50s trap that enclosed many women in that era.

 

 

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Some vintage perfumes are as hard to find as endangered animals in the wild. You know when you can't even find it on eBay, you're going to have to do some serious sleuthing — or begging, as the case may be. After falling in love with Roger & Gallet's Blue Carnation (a clove-splosion if there ever was), I needed to get a whiff of what I'd heard was one of the most beautiful renditions of carnation/clove: Caron's 1954 Poivre. It became a quest for a mythical beast as exotic and beautiful as the Chinese dragon in the above ad. (Incidentally: HAPPY YEAR OF THE DRAGON.)

When I read a comment on some long ago blog by Fragrantica writer and perfumista extraordinaire Ida Meister/Chaya Ruchama about owning vintage Poivre, I shamelessly (but gingerly?) approached her on Facebook and asked if I could buy a teensy sample. Although she didn’t have much, she wouldn’t let me pay and generously sent me enough for several whiffs and a review. (Thank you again, Ida! I even got a lovely note with a lipstick kiss on it. So sweet!)

I’m in love with clove/carnation notes, now, particularly in perfumes that don’t play up the floral angle. (I want to love Caron’s other carnation scent, Bellodgia, but its carnation/clove notes are overpowered, in my opinion, by too-sweet florals. Poivre does the opposite: it turns the bass up and turns down the higher notes.) Apparently, IFRA (the International Fragrance Association, otherwise known to perfumistas as The Enemy), has started clamping down on eugenol, the primary component of clove. I’m not sure if this means I’m going to have to stick to vintage and kiss modern clove notes goodbye, or not. I've heard varying reviews of the Poivre and Coup de Fouet (its EDT) reformulations. If they're not great, don't blame Caron; blame IFRA and its compulsion to mess with ingredients like eugenol. (The Grain de Musc writeup for Serge Lutens’ Vitriol d’oeillete got me smacking my lips. I've ordered a sample, so we'll see if it holds up!)

I end with an electrifying recording of Sylvia Plath reading her poem Fever 103. Here’s to women who play with fire and the perfume that they can smolder in.

 

 

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 (SOLD OUT)
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 (SOLD OUT)
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.