Perfume Meetup Recap

With a little help from my friends

Sunday was the perfume meetup at Noor, and it was fun. Fred and Nahla, the owners, were lovely hosts as usual. There were tons of people there, and lots of samples and new perfumes to sniff.

I was struck by the beauty of Stephen Jones from Comme des Garcons. Jones describes it as a "violet that's been hit by a meteorite." Odd description but a pretty perfume. Fred made me a sample and I'll probably review it later.

Kay from Perfumeniche let me smell her samples of Andy Tauer's new Pentachords, Auburn, Verdant and White. My first thoughts were: I like Auburn and recognize the orange topnotes and Taueresque basenotes; I did not like the opening of Verdant at all, too much like lettuces and I hate lettuces, but the drydown was better; and White struck me as the greatest departure for Tauer from his usual, but now I can't remember what it smelled like at all.

Ann from www.thespatravellersdiary.com was there and told me all about the Sniffapalooza in New York and let me smell some of the samples she got there. I'm jealous; maybe someday I'll get to go.

Kim Pittaway, another vintage fan like me, brought me a sample pack of some of her new vintage finds! I can't wait to try them.

There were many more people there, I hope I'm not snubbing anyone, but too many to list. I didn't buy any perfume this round, but who knows... That Stephen Jones sample is calling me and I can't get those new Nasomatto perfumes Noor has out of my head, especially the Narcotic Venus, a spicy tuberose and jasmine with real Va-Voom.

Thanks to MasterClasster from Basenotes for organizing!

Worth - Je Reviens (vintage)

Spring will return

As I write this, I can look out my window and see bleak, grey Toronto. The whole city seems to be just persevering, grimly soldiering on, fighting forecasts of snow flurries like the last remnants of a bad cold and hoping for the relief of spring.

So I continue to wear perfumes that remind me of spring. Narcissus and hyacinths are my favourite flowers for early spring. Cheerful and vibrant, but not sweet, these flowers are earthy and pungent and demanding. They may be gorgeous in a pot, but they take some work to love in a perfume.

Je Reviens is one of the rare perfumes to focus on narcissus.  Although it seems old-fashioned today, when Worth released its perfume Je Reviens in 1932, it was a very modern fragrance. The dark blue bottle was designed by René Lalique to resemble a one of the new skyscrapers of New York. It became very popular in the 40's as a gift from soldiers to their sweethearts. Je Reviens was actually the fourth of five perfumes released by the house of Worth. Their names put together create a love poem: Dans La Nuit (1924) Vers le Jours (1925) Sans Adieu (1929) Je Reviens (1932) Vers Toi (1934).

In Je Reviens, the oily, earthy smell of narcissus is combined with aldehydes to make it sparkle. The heart of the perfume is an interesting combination of fresh non-sweet notes like narcissus and hyacinth and the warm, round, sweeter notes like hay and tolu. Tolu is a balsam with a sweet, mellow smell that has a touch of cinnamon to it. The spiciness of cinnamon and the slightly clove-like smell of hyacinth balance a powdery heart. I tested both the parfum and the EdT, and in the parfum you can smell the jasmine and lilac more clearly, but both formulations are pretty. The far drydown adds a musky wood.

Worth re-released Je Reviens in 2010 and I assume it was re-formulated, but I have vintage samples (from Fritsch's, of course.)

I want to thank my favourite Aunt for introducing me to Je Reviens. As a girl in the 50's, it was her first "grown-up" perfume. I'm wearing it a lot lately, thinking of her, and waiting for spring to return.

House: Worth
Nose: Maurice Blanchet
Notes: Top: aldehydes, narcissus Middle: hyacinth, jasmine, violet, lilac Base:  vetiver, tolu, oakmoss, sandalwood, musk

The Perfumer's Workshop - Tea Rose

3D Rose

The Perfumer's Workshop released Tea Rose in either 1972 or 1975, depending on what sources you read. According to Sephora, in 1971, Perfumers Workshop International asked Jack Mowen of Firmenich to create a long-lasting rose fragrance that captured the scent of an entire rose garden, including the leaf and stem. The result was Tea Rose.

I can look at the notes of Tea Rose and suppose that the bergamot is providing brightness and lily of the valley is lending its greenness to the perfume, but really, the notes of Tea Rose are irrelevant. Tea rose is quite simply the most hyper-realistic rose you will ever smell in a perfume. Close you eyes and sniff this, and you are standing in front of a huge bouquet of fresh cut roses. The kind with real rose smell, not the gorgeous but odourless ones they sell now in florist shops. In Tea Rose, you can smell the soft creaminess of the petals, the green of the cut stems, and the woodiness of the thorns. It is amazing.

A word of caution, Tea Rose could just as easily be called Godzilla Rose - it has monster sillage and tenacity. Just the tiniest dab on my wrist was enough to have office neighbours inquire what the lovely smell was. And it lasts! After 48 hours, two showers and one bath, and the generous application of two other perfumes, I could still smell rose on my wrist. The other perfumes didn't stand a chance; eventually Tea Rose conquered them all.

Although my sample is vintage Eau de Parfum, Tea Rose still widely available online in EdT, and at very reasonable prices. If the EdT has any of the tenacity of the EdP, a bottle will last you for a long time.

Not everyone these days wants to smell like fresh roses. Many label rose as the dreaded "old lady perfume." I have to admit that I think of my grandmother, with her rose milk hand cream and sachets of dried petals in her drawers, when I smell Tea Rose. But I think we should take back the rose. This Valentines Day, wear Tea Rose, or give it to your beloved, instead of those soulless, smell-less, long-stem roses they sell at the shops. What could be more romantic than smelling like a real rose?

House: Perfumer's Workshop
Nose: Jack Mowen
Notes: bergamot, rose, lily, tuberose, sandalwood and amber

Photo: rose, Drew Avery
Photo: perfume bottle, mine.

Roja Dove - Diaghilev

Glamour is not dead
As part of their exhibit to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Ballets Russe, The Victoria and Albert Museum collaborated with perfumer Roja Dove to create a new fragrance.

The Ballets Russe

In the early 20th century, an amazing confluence of art, dance, music and fashion was happening in Paris. At the centre of the this artistic playground was the influential company, the Ballets Russe and its founder, the Russian impresario, Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929). Under Diaghilev, the Ballets Russes collaborated with choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky and composer Igor Stravinsky. Artists who designed sets included Braque, Picasso, Matisse, Miro, de Chirico, Dali, and Utrillo. Coco Chanel herself designed costumes for four productions. The costumes and artwork (like the picture, right) of artistic director Léon Bakst, with their bright colours and swirling orientalism, had a great influence on fashion and design.

The Chypre

To celebrate this influential person, and the golden era of the Ballets Russe, Dove chose to create a chypre. Chypres were popular at the time and include some of the greats, like Coty Chypre and Caron Tabac Blond and legend has it that Serge Diaghilev used to spray his curtains with Guerlain Mitsouko.

Diaghilev, the perfume, is a true chypre, not a perfume that skips the oakmoss, adds patchouli and calls itself a "modern chypre." There is an uplifting citrus opening, a lush floral heart, and a warm, earthy base with oakmoss. But within this classic form, Dove has created a modern fragrance with transparency and complexity, like layers of chiffon silk.

What does it smell like?

Diaghilev starts with a sheer lemon-orange note that is slightly smoky. I always think that I haven't sprayed enough at this point; the old-fashioned bulb atomizer delivers such a fine mist. But as the perfume sits on my skin it seems to get stronger. Once the heart notes arrive it has significant sillage. And what a waft! Diaghilev is a sex bomb. Rowrrr. There's nothing animalic listed in the notes, but Diaghilev is a very, very naughty girl. It's a full and ripe and bed-headed in rumpled sheets kind of naughty. Diaghilev is a woman whose chic updo is a mess and her silk gown lies where it dropped on the floor last night.

The hussy heart of this perfume smells like some of the great vintage perfumes but done in a modern way. It's a "modern vintage" like The Party in Manhattan. The bottle features a figure by Baskt, Narcisse. Maybe that is why I keep thinking of narcissus when I smell Diaghilev, but it's not listed in the notes. There's rose and jasmine, a classic combo, and maybe baked peaches with spice, just a hint.  The base is sweet and dark and dirty and, of course, it has the necessary touch of oakmoss, without which it would not be a chypre.

I love Diaghilev. It was released by the V&A Museum in a limited edition, only 1,000 bottles, although I hear rumours they may make more. I bought it unsniffed, the first time I've ever done that, because I'd heard good things about it. I'd heard it was a chypre with classical bone structure and I knew that Roja Dove is a perfume expert and a connoisseur of the Grand Old Dame perfumes.

I'm not disappointed. Diaghilev is one of the few perfumes I wear that I want others to smell. You know how it is; I test so many different perfumes that most of the time I just want to keep my sillage under the radar. But with Diaghilev, well, let them smell the gorgeousness that is me.

House: Roja Dove for the Victoria and Albert Museum
Nose: Roja Dove
Notes: bergamot, amalfi lemon and orange; middle notes are jasmine and rose; base notes are vetyver, iris, patchouli, oak moss and vanilla

P.S. In my typical backwards fashion, I didn't read Roja Dove's beautiful reference book, the Essence of Perfume, before writing this. But I have a copy now and I'm looking forward to it. I may write a book review.