First sour, then garbage-y, it returns to its bright greeness and, in the next movement of the perfume, everything settles into the spicy, warm floral that is Dioressence's basic personality. Glamorous and festive, Dioressence is a party scent.
Top notes: Aldehydes, orange
Heart notes: Jasmine, geranium, cinnamon, carnation, orris, ylang-ylang, tuberose
Base notes: Patchouli, oakmoss, vetiver, vanilla, musk
Lore has it that perfumer Guy Robert was approached by the Christian Dior folks and asked to create an animalic Dior, a perfume that could live up to the tagline, "le parfum barbare" (the barbaric perfume). Given Diorella's magnificent fruit-gone-bad note and Miss Dior's not very ladylike whiff-of-underpants note, you could almost call it the Dior formula!
Robert had the good fortune to acquire some ambergris, and while at the Dior HQs, after rubbing his fingers into the oily block (which is how you smell this floral, marine-like scent), he went into the bathroom and washed his hands with a Miss Dior knock-off soap. On the plane ride back, he smelled his hands et voila! — "le parfum barbare" was born.
Dioressence is heady and intense; not everyone could wear this. (As much as I love it, I've gotten more than one headache from overapplying it and overzealously sniffing it. My bad!) Like Chamade, which it reminds me of a bit in terms of character, Dioressence makes me think of women like Endora from Bewitched or Anne Bancroft's Mrs. Robinson. Lusty, a little tipsy at the holiday party, and ready to get into some trouble.
She might be in some Pucci dress (reeking of Dioressence, of course), and you may have to stand back from her when she's regaling some crazy story to you in her too-loud voice. But days later when you catch a whiff of it again on a stranger, you think: glamour, parties, experienced women, too many cigarettes, and flowing glasses of champagne. Barbaric? Sounds like the height of sophistication to me.
Actually Dioressence is not from 1969 but from 1979.
Posted by: Valerie | February 16, 2012 at 04:20 AM
Hi Valerie. Thanks for stopping by. I usually find Basenotes.com the most reliable site when it comes to dates, and they list 1969 as the year of Dioressence's initial launch. As it turns out, that information comes from perfume expert Michael Edwards, who lists the perfume's dates as 1969/1979 in one of his books (probably "Fragrances of the World"), meaning that the relaunch happened in '79. If you follow this link, you'll see a Basenotes reader added a photo of her bottle, and the style is definitely late 60s, not late 70s. http://www.basenotes.net/threads/259741-How-Old-Is-Dioressence
I think Fragrantica lists 1979 and others have just replicated that, so it's a little confusing.
Posted by: Perfumaniac | February 18, 2012 at 03:38 AM