Parfumerie Generale - Gardenia Grand Soir

Tonight won't be just any night

The "big night." Gardenia Grand Soir would go well with a bias cut silk dress and champagne. But the "grand soir" is also a revolutionary concept meaning the destruction of the previous regime and the establishment of a new society – a break after which anything is possible. Was M. Guillaume hinting at a brand new way to construct a gardenia perfume?

I love the smell of live gardenias but it's a difficult smell to replicate in perfumery. Gardenia Grand Soir hits a lot of the right notes and, after a slightly discordant beginning, resolves into a very pretty floral.

GGS captures all the buttery, creamy and green facets of gardenia but not the stinky, blue cheese or animal/indolic, notes. Gardenias have some weirdness to them; GGS tones that down. GGS starts with a strong, grassy green note with a hint of mushroom. Yes, mushroom is a part of the real gardenia smell! Don't worry if that sounds strange to you, it's only there for a few seconds but the green grass note lasts. For the first hour I wasn't sure about GGS, the green and the creamy seemed to be battling for dominance but they calmed down and unified to a gardenia, hovering above sweet sandalwood.

GGS is a duet between the two notes, gardenia and sandalwood. Sandalwood is not only used as a base in GGS, but aspects of threee different types of sandalwood are used to enhance and create the gardenia. According to Ca Fleure Bon, M. Guillaume used Australian sandalwood for a creamy effect, synthetic sandalore in the base for warmth, sweetness and better diffusion, and mysore sandalwood because it “is more dark with light cypress and violet like notes.”

That comment set off the light bulb for me, because I had been detecting a fruity, sweet/tart purple note in the heart of GGS. It must be the violet aspect of the mysore sandalwood that M. Guillaume mentioned. And the cypress is present too in the green angles of the gardenia.

I like GGS quite a bit, maybe even enough to add the the FB Wish List. It's a very pretty, even sexy, gardenia. It's a "grand soir" in the romantic way. Wear it on a night when you feel things are about to change and everything and anything is possible.

P.S. What are your favourite gardenia perfumes? Do you prefer more cheesy mushroom and indoles in your gardenia?

House: Parfumerie Generale
Nose: Pierre Guillaume
Notes: gardenia, sandalwood

Photo: Ivan Plata

Parfumerie Generale - Bois Naufragé

Summer lovers in a bottle

Bois Naufragé was inspired by the gorgeous photograph "Nu au bois flotté" by Lucien Clergue (1971). Sexy skin, sun-bleached wood and a sea breeze would be what you'd expect from this image.

There's been some disagreement on the perfumes blogs about whether Bois Naufragé fulfills expectations. Now Smell This didn't find it oceanic or sexy. Confessions of  a Perfume Nerd smelled pina colada.

But I'm one of those for whom Bois Naufragé works perfectly. To me, it smells like the beach. It starts with a very green note combined with coconut and the milky sweetness that together makes fig to my nose. The figs are salted with that fleur de sel note, but it's light, not over bearing the way I found Côte d'Amour to be too salty. In the middle there's a light, tart note, like a trace of lime. The dry down is slightly woody and musky.

Ok, that's not sounding beachy is it? But if I stop concentrating on the individual notes and just smell, Bois Naufragé resolves into the smell of the beach. There's a light sea breeze, the warm, lactonic (milky-sweet) and salty skin of someone nearby – sun tan oil washed off by the ocean – sand dunes and grasses all around.

Bois Naufragé reminds me of the movie Summer Lovers. The fig and the sea salt seem perfect for Greece. It gives me that relaxed, endless summer by the beach feel.

House: Parfumerie Generale
Nose: Pierre Guillaume
Notes: carob tree, also called "fig of Egypt", treated as driftwood, fleur de sel, ambergris


Photo: Le Nu au bois flotté, by Lucien Clergue
Image: Summer Lovers (1982) 

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

Eau d'Italie - Au Lac

Watery floral

The PR material from Eau d'Italie tells me that Au Lac was inspired by the early 20th century love affair between Italian Princess Vittoria Colonna and Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni. Part of this affair took place on an island in Lake Maggiore in an Italian garden near the shore. Au Lac is supposed to smell like "A gorgeous Italian garden at the height of summer, the air filled with the scent of flowers and the fresh waters of a lake...", you get the picture.

What does Au Lac smell like? Watery lotus, a hint of palest green, some airy, barely there osmanthus, mineral water and laundry-clean musk.

When I smell Au Lac the country that comes to mind isn't Italy, it's Japan. Specifically, the famous aversion the Japanese have to wearing perfumes that you can actually smell. Chandler Burr has written about this, Display It, don't Spray It,  and a recent article in the Japan Times says the same thing:

The Japanese can tell if someone is wearing perfume from three train cars away, and are quick to wrinkle their noses. It just puts them into a funk. They will likely swear the smell has clung to their nose hairs or taken up residence in their nasal membranes where they will have to inhale the offensive perfume for the rest of the day.

The Japanese cosmetics market is huge, but perfume sales are low - nothing compared to the European and North American markets. So, how does a perfume house make it big in Japan? Make more perfumes that don't smell of very much at all.  Many perfumes bloggers have alluded to this phenomenon, remarking that this or that new sheer, "clean" perfume or "anti-perfume" like L'Eau Serge Lutens, must be for the "japanese market."

I guess there's enough perfume in the world to suit everybody's tastes but, as for me, I'd like a little more "there" there. A little funk for my trunk. Even (horrors) a waft in my wake. I don't want to cause a stampede on the subway but, when I huff my wrist, I want to smell something more than water with petals floating on top.

House: Eau d'Italie
Nose: Alberto Morillas
Notes: Water Lily, Bitter Orange Leaves, Panarea Fig Leaves, Osmanthus, Italic Rose Bud, Sambac Jasmine Petals, Papyrus, Mineral Amber

Photo: Nganguyen

Téo Cabanel - Alahine

Warm amber on a self-possessed beauty

The perfume house, Téo Cabanel, was actually founded more than 100 years ago, and revived in 2003. The in-house perfumer, Jean-Francois Latty, has created four perfumes for the house, but the beautiful Alahine is the only one I've tried so far.

Alahine is an alluring soft amber. Captivating and seductive, Alahine will enrapture you with mysterious scents of luxurious oriental palaces.

Alahine is a floral oriental and a must try for all amber fans. The amber smells a little like smoke, as if the resin is being burned on a brazier. There are gentle spices, especially pepper. Amber and spices are artfully blended with a rich rose and both are joined by sweet honey with vanilla and orange blossom.

It reminds me a lot of Serge Luten's Ambre Sultan and Ormonde Jayne's Ta'if - as if the honey and pepper rose of Ta-if was combined with the spicy amber of Ambre Sultan. I tried it though, and that layering combo doesn't even come close to replicating the sweet/warm/spicy yumminess of Alahine.

With Alahine on, I daydream of lounging on multi-colour carpets, escaping the heat of the day behind intricately carved wooden screens, perfuming myself with rose, smelling the spice market on the breeze and burning some amber in a brazier nearby.

House: Téo Cabanel
Nose: Jean-Francois Latty
Notes: bergamot, ylang-ylang, jasmine, Bulgarian rose, spices, orange tree, pepper plant, "honeyed rose of Morocco," iris, cistus, patchouli, benjoin (benzion?), vanilla, sandalwood and musk.

Etat Libre d'Orange - Putain des Palaces

She wore wore lipstick, he wore leather gloves... and brought marzipan.

Hotel slut. Well, they don't beat around the bush (so to speak), do they? Etat Libre d'Orange is a house devoted to quirky perfumes. Putain des Palaces is meant to evoke sensual fantasies of a woman dressed for seduction, a meeting in an anonymous room, temptation and intimacy.

It's pretty accurate, actually, but it smells like an assignation from decades ago, when a woman in expensive makeup smelled a certain way. PdP opens with a juicy tangerine that highlights a thick rose and violet bouquet. The rose and violet together smell like old-fashioned face powder and creamy lipstick, perhaps left smeared on a collar. I think only Chanel lipsticks still smell that way.

There is a man in the room too. He's wearing soft leather gloves and a light spicy cologne with ginger and violet leaf. For a while PdP is all about this couple, the woman in her seductive floral paint and the man with the leather gloves. But as PdP sits longer on the skin it takes a surprising turn, it becomes a gourmand. Sweet, sexy amber comes out from under the leather, gets sweeter and starts to smell like almonds. PdP becomes a chewy marzipan treat. Perhaps the lover brought it as a gift?

Putain des Palaces is bit of afternoon delight.

House: Etat Libre d'Orange
Nose: Nathalie Feisthauer
Notes: rose absolute, violet, leather, lily of the valley, tangerine, ginger, rice powder, amber, animal notes

Why it's hard to test perfume at the cottage

Also, bug spray.

Photo: mine