Jean Patou - Joy

Affordable Luxury

Jean Patou released Joy during the Great Depression in the 1930's with an advertising campaign that billed it as "the costliest perfume in the world." Does that seem odd? It was actually a very clever marketing move. After the Wall Street stock market crash in 1929, the Parisienne fashion house lost many of its American clients who could no longer afford haute couture clothing. So, Jean Patou offered instead a luxury perfume that, while expensive for perfume, was still more affordable than the clothes. Joy offered a taste of uncompromising quality and luxury that still fit his clients' budgets.

To create Joy, perfumer Henri Almeras famously sourced that most precious ingredients in huge amounts. Ten thousand jasmine flowers and twenty-eight dozen roses are required to make each bottle of Joy parfum. Jean Patou has its own dedicated fields of jasmine and roses in Grasse, France.

I have a bottle of the EDT. Joy opens with sparkly, waxy aldehydes and green lily of the valley. After a few minutes you begin to appreciate the fragrant jasmine and rich rose bouquet. It's lush and very well blended. The dry down has a dark, slightly bitter note behind the flowers and a touch of warm muskiness.

According to the Jean Patou website, the formula for Joy is unchanged; I find that hard to believe, but the quality of Joy is undeniable. It is gorgeous and I highly recommend it to any fans of plush florals or jasmine. Joy may no longer be the quintessential luxury perfume (I found my bottle at Winners), but it's an everlasting beauty.

House: Jean Patou
Nose: Henri Almeras
Notes: (From Jean Patou website)
Top: Bulgarian rose oil, Ylang Ylang, Tuberose
Heart: Rose de May, Jasmine de May
Base: Musk

p.s The top photo is Greta Garbo in Mata Hari, 1931. Here are some more photos of her. Delicious, isn't she? I believe that's a bottle of Joy on her dressing table, on the left, in the last photo.

Givenchy - Givenchy III (Vintage)

Dry green elegance

Do you believe in practical magic? Can we bring about the warmer weather by wearing perfume that is evocative of spring? Continuing my one woman protest against the snow still on the ground, I have another green perfume to recommend: Givenchy III.

Released in 1970, Givenchy III is a dry and elegant green chypre. It starts with sparkling aldehydes and leafy green galbanum. A sunny hint of peach balances the galbanum's bitterness. The heart is a slightly powdery, white bouquet with a green lily of the valley. The florals are kept dry, not sweet, by the addition of hyacinth and iris. The base notes are lovely smooth woods; slightly earthy and mossy.

Givenchy III feels like finding a patch of snowdrops on the mossy floor of the woods in Spring. It's a ray of sunshine and hope in the winter gloom.

Note: My bottle is a vintage tester I bought from Fritsch's Pharmacy. I'm not sure what year it is, but it looks like the photo below. It has the best spray of any bottle I own. A nice, fine mist.

House: Givenchy
Nose: Jean-François Latty, Raymond Chaillan, Y. Jerrold
Notes:
Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, mandarin, galbanum, peach, gardenia
Heart notes: lily of the valley, hyacinth, rose, jasmine, iris root
Base notes: Patchouli, oakmoss, amber, sandalwood

Photo of snowdrops by R~P~M

Dior - Miss Dior (vintage)

I thought she was a Veronica and she turned out to be a Betty

I have a vintage mini of Miss Dior, I think it's from the 80s, that I've never tried but a recent review by Normand at The Perfume Chronicles made me want to pull it out and give it a sniff.

The opening of my Miss Dior is sharp and green. I can smell a lemony bergamot and some old-fashioned aldehydes and the oak moss from the base. My first impression  was that it is a bitter green chypre; if Miss Dior was person, I would say she was a cool blond and a bit of a bitch. She's beautiful , but cold.

And then she changed. The bitter green was replaced by pretty florals. Miss Dior became cheerful, maybe even a little flirty. Amazing. I like it when a perfume does the unexpected. But she still wasn't finished evolving. In the base notes, a smooth, soft leather with a little smoke joined the flowers. The flirty girl now had some sex appeal. She winked at me as she pulled on a pair of leather gloves.

House: Dior
Nose: Jean Carles and Paul Vacher
Notes: Top notes are aldehydes, gardenia, galbanum, clary sage and bergamot; middle notes are carnation, orris, orris root, jasmine, neroli, lily-of-the-valley, rose and narcissus; base notes are labdanum, leather, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, oakmoss and vetiver.

Raphael - Réplique (Vintage)

A vintage sample is a little thin but has great bone structure

My recent haul of vintage perfume from Fritsch's Pharmacy came with two, very old, carded samples of Raphael Réplique. The juice inside the vials has reduced about half-way, through evaporation, but there's enough left to tell that this was something special.

The top notes are all gone, except for a brief sparkle of aldehydes that must have been stronger once. Then I smell spices, the cardamom still comes through well, and a fruity wood that reminds me of Serge Lutens Bois de Violet.

In the middle of Réplique's life on my wrist, the clary sage takes over and smells like green leather, with the fruity wood and spices still underneath.

In the later stages, the leather fades and the base notes shine on their own. Wood, vetiver, amber, musk, patchouli and oakmoss, make a dry/sweet darkly rich tapestry that is wonderful, even in this attenuated form.

Réplique must have been stunning once. What's left in my vial has become a little too thin over time. There's no sillage left and it doesn't last long. But I can tell the perfume was once a great beauty, and maybe unique. Was it an aldehydic floral? A chypre? An oriental? It seems like a combination of all three. Complicated and grown-up, Réplique was a perfume with style and grace.

House: Raphael
Nose: ?
Notes [According to irmashorell.net, a site that re-creates lost perfumes, this is the original formula]: top notes of Italian bergamot, Sicilian lemon, cardamom, neroli, coriander, clary sage and fresh aldehydes. Mid-notes of ylang ylang, lily of the valley, Egyptian jasmine, mimosa, tuberose, heliotrope and coumarin. Base notes of oakmoss, olibanum, powdery amber, musk, vetiver, patchouli

Photo: Lisa Fonssagrives by Irving Penn

Jean Desprez - Sheherazade

Secret treasure

I have a secret. It's a store, a wonderful, impossible store. A hidden gem like something right out of  a fairy tale, where treasures you've only read about sit on shelves in glorious disarray, higglety-pigglety, the rare, the mundane, the outright discontinued, vintage and reformulated, all the perfume of my dreams. I'll share the address with you some day, but for now, I'll tell you about one of the samples I found there: the discontinued Sheherazade, by Jean Desprez.

Sheherazade, the woman, was a clever Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights. Sheherazade, the perfume, is a sweet, powdery oriental with a woody, base. It reminds me a bit of Caron's Bain de Champagne, but darker and more complicated. The opening is like powdered sugar with a dark bitter note that I think might be the rosewood? I could have sworn there was leather in there, but the only notes I could find, at The Perfumed Court, don't mention any.

The powdery opening warms into a spiced fruit in the heart, with some rosy carnation and dry, rooty orris. The base notes continue the sweet, woody theme of the opening with vanilla, sandalwood and resins.  Sheherazade is an interesting contrast of light and dark, sweet and bitter, floral and woods. There's enough here to keep me interested, maybe even for 1,001 nights.

Sheherazade is now on my list of perfumes to buy when I get back to my secret store. It's a bit sweeter than my normal, but I like that it's deep, resiny and woody, complicated, and just different from the modern perfumes I own.  Hopefully my magical store will still be there when I have a chance to return, and won't have vanished like a mirage in the desert.

House: Jean Desprez
Nose: ?
Notes: (From The Perfumed Court) Top notes of Aldehydic, Bergamont, and Rosewood Middle notes of Rose, Carnation, Jasmin, Ylang Ylang, Orris, and Cassia. Base notes of with notes of.... Vanilla, Sandalwood, Benzoin and Opoponax .

Caron - Montaigne

Elegant and stylish, retro and modern

The perfume house of Caron opened in 1904 in Paris. In the eighties, Caron opened a store on Avenue Montaigne which famously features crystal "fountains" or urns, designed by Baccarat. When you purchase an urn perfume, the bottle is filled for you from one of these crystal fountains. The store in New York has them too, I hear, and I dream of visiting it one day.

In 2007 the perfume Montaigne was created by Richard Fraysse, the master perfumer for Caron. Montaigne preserves the elegant style of classic french perfumery while also being modern.

The opening will be familiar to anyone who has worn Chanel N^o5 - a floral bouquet with sparkling aldehydes; Montaigne has more jasmine. I immediately think "Oh, old fashioned perfume!" but it's old fashioned in a great way. Chanel N^o5 is still on the best-seller list for a reason.

After that lovely opening, the heart is powdery and creamy at the same time. It's centered around a thick yellow narcissus, supported with lighter mimose and orange blossom. I know it says "bitter orange" but I think is smells more like the orange blossom than the fruit. The creaminess comes from sweet amber and vanilla in the base.

Montaigne lasts for a good long time; I sprayed it at 8:00 a.m. and at 4:30 p.m. my wrist still smells like a yellow, orange and cream coloured bouquet.


House: Caron
Nose: Richard Fraysse
Notes: jasmine, coriander, bitter orange, mimose, narcissus, sandalwood, amber and vanille.

Photo: Mattias Kristiansson

The Party - The Party in Manhatten

A swell ring-a-ding-ding

I swoon. Don't you love the elegance and glamour of the 1930's? It was a time of decdent parties on Park Avenue, women in daring gowns and debonair men in tuxedos. The Party in Manhatten has recreated that golden era for you in a gorgeous perfume.

TPiM was created by Paolo Borgomanero, former President and co-founder of Acqua Di Parma. He wanted to create a perfume for those who "appreciate the luxury and charm of old times." According to Fragrantica, TPiM ws inspired by a 1930's perfume from a great perfume house whose name is being kept a secret.

It will be no secret when you wear this perfume - a couple of dabs leaves a significant trail when you walk into a room (the more swellegant french term for this is sillage) - but what a way to make an entrance! And it lasts forever.

TPiM is a chypre with aldehydes. On first sniff, without having read anything about it, I thought "Mmmm vintage!" The smell of roses and rich amber with a hint of citrus are the top notes. I also smell the sparkly champagne of aldehydes. Although there's no tobacco in the notes, I had one coworker comment that I smelled like sweet tobacco, maybe it's the bourbon and amber.

In the middle the rose is joined by the classic florals jasmine, ylang-ylang  and iris. These same flowers are in Chanel No.5 and TPiM reminds me of my precious bottle of No.5 Extrait. The base shares many of the same notes as well, especially the smooth amber and oakmoss. There's a kind of sexy animalic vibe to it as well, even though I see no civet in the notes, the base is musky-sexy.

In the 1930's, my grandmother was a beautiful, 20-something red-head. Although she lived in Detroit, not Manhatten, I can imagine her wearing this perfume, and putting on her best pearls for a party. Maybe she would have slipped away to a speakeasy afterwards; they called them blind pigs in Detroit. Wearing TPiM I can close my eyes and image beautiful women, in furs and gold lame dresses and red lipstick sipping champagne cocktails and smoking cigarettes.

Ladies or ladyboys, if you really want to project refinement, elegance and confidence and ooze sexiness, but want something other than Chanel No. 5, get The Party in Manhatten. It's priced as a luxury item, but it's incredible beautiful, you won't smell like everyone else and it's unforgetable. To quote Ferris Beuller, "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up." I dream of doing so one day.

House: The Party
Nose: Paolo Borgomanero
Notes:
Top: citrus, aromatic and spicy with bergamot, tangerine, sage, carnation, bourbon and carrot.
Floral heart notes are: jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang and iris.
The base is woody and musky with vetiver, patchouli, oak moss and gray amber.

Photo: Dorothy Lamour in Swing High Swing Low, 1937