Beyond brand - the real revolution in perfume

Edmond Roudnitska in his garden

creator of perfumes for Dior, Rochas and Hermes

Oh you lovely reclusive Perfumers! 

Come out from hiding behind those faceless multinationals! 

Ever since Frederic Malle's Editions de Parfums (2000) there has been a profound new interest in the people behind the famous signature perfumes. For the first time the author of the perfume is promoted on the label just as an author on the cover of a book. 

So who are these artists behind the perfumes we wear and cherish?

In the spirit of celebrating the 'perfume authors,' Basenotes website interviewed 50 of the most famous Perfumers in the world today and asked them, who would they choose, "if they could travel back to the time of their choosing to meet, chat and co-create with a perfumer past?" 

Like other arts, it shows how scent has the power to traverse space and time. This is a most fascinating collection of interviews, thanks to Marian Bendeth of Basenotes. 

Link: Scent Treks through Time

 

shelves crowded with perfumes

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes, 

I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. 

From Songs of Myself, Walt Whitman

Link: photo by Tim Walker 

Bois Blond, Parfumerie Generale (limited edition)

I wore Bois Blond for months. Just to get me through. And I believed - because it was so good - I believed the man behind Parfumerie Generale, Pierre Guillaume, had trained as a winemaker.

Well, I was wrong. So why did I believe this? I don't know whether the sales person had told me this...

Or was it the deep woody, sherry, cognac notes I find in their perfumes? Like a bourbon barrel from Kentucky gives a sherry edge to some Scottish whisky.

Not only that, but the perfumes are numbered without names; just like bin vats for wine barrels in the winery.

Ah well.

I wrote to PG about the wine connection and this is my delightful response:

The father of Mr Guillaume he is a wine collector and as a child PG visit a lot a Chateaux in Bordelais, Bourgogne and Midi of France with his father to discover and taste Wine culture... He share the passion of his father but, never "work" himself in wine making.
For information, Mr Guillaume is crazy about woody and oriental note and he's always working on it a lot, trying to discover newones...
He also use a lot of ingredients usually found in food aroma, not only in perfumes.
Bois Blond, it is a fragrance of sunny woods with memories of summer dusks, awaiting the summer monsoons.

This is a limited edition perfume, so get your hands on it (if you can). It's like suddenly finding your own space in the peak-hour crowds. The country in the city. Or a ray of sunshine coming out just the moment you walk outside for your break.

Link: Parfumerie Generale

"Perfumes to evoke memories" (Canadian interview)

Warning:
may want to translate the perfume's name
before splashing on...

Much fun had last week when Mz Harris interviewed me for her great article published across Canada - Perfumes to evoke memories - about the trend for some perfumes to smell like a specific time, place or experience.

Something close to my heart and, I know from your lovely emails, for many other Wine Woman Song readers.

Here is my original post about the terrifying memory recall I had when trying on the perfume Secretions Magnifique in the perfume department of Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge. Yes, a strange experience.


Link: Perfumes to evoke memories article

Pomegranate Noir, by Jo Malone (2005)

scene from Metropolis

"The inspiration for Pomegranate Noir came to Jo Malone after she saw one of her friends dressed up in a red silk dress at a middle eastern hookah party all the while stuffing dollar bills in her cleavage." – reviewer, Base Notes

If you have been invited to an eccentric 81-year-old billionaire's party in Convent Garden as a thank you for helping him hide in your cellar from his ex-wife's (famous you-know-who) lawyer serving him notices for over £50 million, then wear Pomegranate Noir.

The invitation says the party is to "commiserate a dissolute, wasted, wanton life. But fun. No flowers - come if you can."

No flowers - come if you can. An apt description of Pomegranate Noir; debauched fruit, almost bruised, and dark frankincense mixed with the eternal smells of decadence: musk and patchouli.

More noir than pomegranate fruit, it almost scars the memory with it's wickedness. In a fun way, of course.


Link: Base Notes

woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown

Rossy de Palma!


One of the stars from my all-time favourite film, Pedro Almodóvar's Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios), now has her own fragrance:


Rossy de Palma Eau de Protection by Etat Libre d'Orange.


Rossy de Palma wanted her fragrance to be based on red roses.


Sure, Eau de Protection has roses.


Red roses an angry lover might throw back in your face.


Don't try to get yourself out of this one – thorns, blood and scattered rose petals on the bitumen – you arsehole.


It's not your usual pretty rose-based perfume. And it's all the better for it.


Angular, sharp and edgy - hey, it is Rossy de Palma's signature scent after all.


So it's also ironic, cool and has plenty of sly wit.


A rich hippy patchouli note is toughened up by a good hit of black pepper, astringent ginger and tannic bergamot (Earl Grey tea).


*Breathe*


Can you handle it?


Are you sure?


It's a Spanish rose, darkly.


Mz Darkly sez, mmmmm me likey.


Actually, compared to Etat Libre d'Orange's other perfume, Secretions Magnifique, it's a real sweet heart.


"Scratch a cynic, find a romantic"...??


Link: WWS Secretions Magnifique: blood, sex - magic?
Link: Rossy de Palma Eau de Protection
Link: Pedro Almodóvar y las Mujeres (Spanish)

heaven

"Because half of the world's vanilla crop is grown in Madagascar, the whole island smells like vanilla ice cream."

Link: Rob Brezsny

Marcel Duchamp's Eau de Voilette (1921)

A readymade perfume by Rrose Selavy (aka Marcel Duchamp, photographed by Man Ray.


Not violet (violette), but veiled (voilette).


And still surreal as anything out there.

Habit Rouge (1965) by Guerlain

John Paul and Talitha Getty, Marrakesh 1969 by Patrick Lichfield

So I loitered around Duty Free at Marrakesh airport to pass the time before my flight back to London. Like the Guerlain groupie I am, I hung around the counter and without much thought, I spritzed myself with their old-school men's fragrance, Habit Rouge...

From now on, it's going to be near impossible not to think of Morocco when I next smell Habit Rouge. It is Marrakesh: the lemon top notes with middle notes of woods – all found in Moroccco – such as Sandal and Cedar, with a good dose of 60s patchouli. Then the deeper notes are leather. I felt like I had just left a souk.

Which I literally had, that morning. I had been in the main square, Djemma-El-Fna, standing at the orange juice stall with a glass of fresh grapefruit juice and a bag filled with a pair of babouches (Moroccan leather shoes) and a bottle of Moroccan Rose oil.

While the plane dived back into the milky-tea sky of London, the smell conjured images of the Gettys on the rooftop of their home, the Pleasure Palace, in Marrakesh in 1969.

Thudding down at Gatwick airport, and all smells, in general, become sanitised and anodyne - in other words, Western. By the time I'm outside the airport and on the train home, the only thing that has an intense smell is my wrist where I sprayed this perfume. It's then I realised this Oriental, the first Oriental fragrance for men, might be a little too dramatic for some "modern" noses, peut-être. However, I'd be very interested to meet the man who can wear this well.

Link: Habit Rouge - the new Habit Rouge limited edition metallic

l'Air du désert marocain

“When I created (the perfume) l'Air du désert marocain, which still is my personal favourite, I had a picture in mind, a hotel bed in Marakkesh, in the early evening, the sun gone. The moon would rise soon and I imagined myself being in this room, lying on the bed, exhausted from the heat of the day, with the window open, letting the cool air in. A soft and dry wind coming in, carrying the scents from the near desert, and the spices of the busy streets below. Lying on the bed, dreaming of a moon raising over the sandy hills of the Saharan desert, I dreamt the fragrance of a Moroccan night.”

– Andy Taeur, creator of the cult perfume, l'Air du désert marocain


Hello dears!

I am slipping off to Marakkesh today to revive the senses.

Love, J x


Link: Andy Taeur's blog: a perfumer's blog on perfumery

Agent Provocateur

Fancy your evenings in Guantánamo orange, but without the waterboarding torture? Then put a bid in for these limited-edition knickers from Agent Provocateur to support legal action group Reprieve. These two unlikely bedfellows came together to create Fair Trial, My Arse following

"...bizarre and unfounded accusations by the US military authorities that the Reprieve legal team smuggled contraband underpants into a prisoner in Guantánamo Bay."

So whilst Enhanced Interrogation Techniques are still exclusive to long-term holidays in Guantánamo Bay, you can enjoy your own "interrogations" at home with these sexy knickers – and support Reprieve and human rights.

But you'll have to be quick – Ebay auction ends on 28-Mar-08 at 15:25:53 GMT

And ps. they're orange and black - so you too can be a tiger like me grrrrrrrrr!!!!!

Comme des Garçons 888 (2008)

Ever wanted to be gold? Me too. Comme des Garçons designed their new perfume, 888, to be the olfactory expression of gold. Could this be our chance?

It's not the exotic Oriental I expected. No Alladin's cave here; no curling incense from a genie bottle amongst piles of gold coins and jewels. Quite the contrary.

Imagine you are in a Swiss bank with a biometric password standing in an air-conditioned vault – piled high with pure gold slabs. This is a serious perfume.

After testing it, I ran my nose up and down the inside of my forearm all day as if it had turned into a smooth bar of gold bullion. The smell is streamlined and modern with the base note a derivative of saffron with notes of pepper, coriander, geranium and amber.

It reminds me somewhat of Cinema, by Yves Saint Laurent (perhaps, the amber?); although if this is solid gold bullion, Cinema is more like a Solid Gold dancer in comparison. Personally, I imagine an older woman wearing it. But no doubt it will be a big hit in China. Eight is a lucky number in Asian cultures; and so, 888 is particularly auspicious.

For me, the only thing that smells equally good on everyone is money. Not everyone can wear gold.

Launched this month, it has a limited release.

Link: Available at doverstreetmarket.com (London).

Secretions magnifique: blood, sex - magic?

What does a perfume that smells of blood, sweat, saliva and sperm smell like? Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge is the only place in London selling this "exclusive" scent by Etat Libre d`Orange. I jumped on the (not-so-fragrant) tube to find out.

In the perfume section, Secretions magnifique is easy to find. How many perfumes in Harvey Nichols feature a school boy drawing of a cock? This is anti-perfume; I get it. Ingredients: agreement adrenalin, agreement milk, agreement blood, iris, coconut (?), sandalwood...etc.

Here goes. I spray it on my wrist; my friend jumps a metre back.

Trauma in a Bottle

Do you know what broken bones and blood smells like? It all flooded back. Nine years ago – after a few drinks, we crossed the road and my friend was hit by a car. Blood poured from the crack in his forehead. I held his head up, to keep him talking, while we waited for the ambulance. The traffic passed around us. It was nearly midnight, but the bitumen was still warm from the day.

Smell is the most primitive of the senses. I was shocked a perfume could provoke this deep, visceral memory. This is not hyperbole; it felt shocking. Yet the perfume presents itself as an intellectual concept: magnificent secretions.

I tried to smell my wrist again - I wanted to keep an open mind, maybe it will change into something else? - but it literally made my stomach turn. All I could "smell" was confusion, panic, flashing sirens, exhaust fumes and too much alcohol thrown into the mix. Perhaps, it was just me: but could it smell better on another person?

Whatever. I had to get it off; this smell, this memory. Even the expensive Harvey Nichols' bathroom soap didn't help the nausea – and worst of all – I could not get the smell off my skin.

After I calmed down a bit I couldn't help but thinking, who would like this? Perhaps the sado-masochist in your life who owns everything. Although at £75 you'd want to be stinking rich.

Personally, I'd rather a night out, wake up next to some take-out trash in a dirty bed, still in my clothes from the night before, smelling of tequila and stale cigarettes, catch the humid tube to work, hungover, with my nose smashed up against some sweaty businessman's armpit. Now how do we bottle that?

Link: New perfume smells of semen and sweat - London Metro

Rich hippie rock star

Keith Richards in Morocco with a local kif, 1967

Usually smell evokes our deepest memories of the past; this perfume unburies the deepest dreams for my future.

The dream is always the same. One day I will buy a palace in Morocco with 16 rooms, or enough for all my friends from around the world to crash whenever they "need a break". I'll spend the day in slippers and kaftans, with wafts of this perfume floating behind me in every room. Sharing a shisha and endless glasses of fresh mint tea in the shade on those bright Tangier afternoons. You'll never know who will turn up, sometimes Paul and Jane Bowles will fang by and we'll have a Naked Lunch... Who knows? But I do know: I'll be wearing this –

"Racy, dangerous, sensual tropical floral with extracts of rare Indonesian flowers, Madagascan Vanilla Bean and Clove Bud."

Ooooh, I so want it. Now.

Link: Rich Hippie Rock Star

Vetiver (1961) by Guerlain

"When all of the flower ladies want back what they have lent you
And the smell of their roses does not remain...
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?"

--Bob Dylan, "Queen Jane Approximately"

I don't care, take the flowers back. I'm not in flowery mood anyway. I am wearing Guerlain's Vetiver today. No flowers here.

When I first heard it was a man's perfume, I was slightly shocked, until I thought of a huntsman (or huntswoman, like in those period-piece French films) riding through the forest after a rain shower, the rich and warm smell of the earth and a moment's pause by a stream for tobacco, the smoke curling through the mist. It smells like the freedom of luxury, and its sudden relief.

The Foul and the Fragrant

The aromas of the “fleshy madness” taking over Paris on a rainy evening, when the “dripping city exhaled an unpleasant odour suggestive of a great untidy bed."

L’Assommoir, Emile Zola

Have you ever really smelled a carnation? Put your nose deep in – you'll find it has a sweet, blood-like, meat smell.

Outside the strip clubs in Kings Cross they sell them on the street; old carnations dyed a bizarre radioactive blue and ultra-violet black.

I like these hyper-real flowers. Just the thing for drunk guys to buy, take into Porky's Nitespot in Kings Cross at 3am and give to an unknown stripper whilst confessing undying love for them – oh yeah everything looks like a good idea under neon.

But do these inter-galactic carnations have a smell? It's hard to tell. These old carnations are too often overpowered by the miasma of stale alcohol, old vomit and sweaty junk along Darlinghurst Road.

Can I get all Baudelaire on your ass?

ah! the poor flowers of the Cross. They were once white and pure and now they're dyed…etc.

Nah, it’s never that simple. However, apart from the rose, the carnation is the most tortured and abused flower. The rose is hybridised; the carnation, bastardised. Constant experimentation with high school chemistry lab dyes has left the carnation with little dignity. (Of course, too many 80s weddings featuring carnations in Baby's Breath can't have helped their reputation either).

But could it be, on an instinctual level, the blood-like smell is deeply scary - even gory? The redolence of blood, a reminder of death? Red and white carnations often feature on top of coffins before they’re finally incinerated. Maybe, deep down, carnations can remind us of things that make us uncomfortable.

But is it offensive?

No. Anyway, what is an offensive smell? As I wrote about wine in an earlier post, "what makes a wine sexy?" I often find technical wine faults, that others find offensive, to be quite enjoyable. It can sometimes make the wine more interesting.

Some people describe Brett (Brettanomyces) as a mousey smell. But I never get that: I get an earthy nuance, a funkiness. Let's just say I’d never tip wine out in the sink just because it’s “dirty” – now that's something I would find offensive!

A dirty woman

My favourite wine descriptor, "This tastes like a dirty woman." The mind boggles. Gerry Sissingh descibing a wine at a Hunter Valley tasting. Perhaps Gerry was succinctly describing the Brett character that can characterise Hunter Shiraz. But, then again, perhaps he was not – who really knows??

Another favourite description of the fine line between the fragrant and foul is Len Evans describing a wine as much like “an actresses’ handbag.”

I don't know what an actresses handbag smells like, I can only have a good guess. His description certainly makes the wine tasting more interesting – for the conversastion that follows alone.

And like the neon blue carnations of the Cross, there's no right or wrong when it comes to taste. Well, perhaps there is a truly foul and a truly fragrant. But I like them both.