Upcoming things

Somehow, I happened to stumble upon rather interesting stuff lately.
Just to give you the idea, and excuse the lousy photoshop job, it's random pictures taken from elsewhere or by my dear friend who takes care for my mail.

From upper left:
(1) Vacarme by Rauch, I'm not sure.
(2) Via Lanvin in extrait
(3) mystery Weil
(4) Detchema by Revillon - I hear it's an aldehydic
(5) Fete by Molyneux - should be something green
(6) mystery something inscribed Champs Elysees - the eBay seller says it's some Guerlain thing but I discussed it with two other perfumistas and they are in disagreement. It was cheaper than a bathroom air freshener so bite it
(7) Samsara by Guerlain (the one with the red blob)
(8) Chanel trio of Bois des Iles, Gardenia and Cuir de Russie
(9) Le De by Givenchy - I have a sample somewhere and it rocks, it's a lovely honeyed scent
(10) No. 22 by Chanel - rather vintage, guessing from the bottle
(11) Miss De Rauch
(12) Numero Cinq by Molyneux - rarity of rarities
(13) Woodhue by Faberge
(14) Stolen Moments by Fragonard

You can expect a storm of reviews and hopefully interesting ranting in the upcoming weeks.

No. 46

When there's a reason to expect a perfume in the mail, and when the package smells, it's a BAD sign. Like, very bad sign.

I'm not sure how to ascertain that once-opened bottles will not leak, and now I mean those with glass stoppers, not those with screw-on tops. I suppose that sealing it with wax or at least clingy foil could do at least some job. Last week, it happened to a bottle of Chanel No. 22 so I threw all the clingy foils and ziplocks in a box and colognized (TM) them.

How to salvage a perfume that leaked: I use the method of colognization (TM); for that, you need a tightly sealable container large than the material in which perfume is soaked and some alcohol, easy to obtain in a local pharmacy. Pour alcohol on whatever is holding the perfume (the famous red silk scarf wallpaper alert! it may be, or a heap of foils or just about anything). Put in the container, close shut and leave it there. You might shake it, toss enclosed object around to bathe them in alcohol, whatever. After some days, pour into a flacon, wring textiles, press newspapers or clumps of foil, whatever. If smell lingers in whatever there was (famous red silk scarf smells of irises and musk, I think, half a year after the accident), put it between your clothes or books or something. Which is exactly the thing that happened to No. 22 and consequently to the wrapping material of No. 46.

No. 46 has been discontinued since forever but I snatched some. I had nothing better to do than brag to Helg; she went Oh, damn, the one with the torn label that I saw on [somewhere in the internetz] the other day? Tell me no, it looks like a fake, but, if you got that one, send me a sample because were it a fake, the who made it had damn cojones and a special degree of ruthlessness. I scratched my head and thought that I asked for it, that hunting old stuff I don't know is an idiotic idea somehow in general and that it'd serve me right.
A day after that mail, it arrived. The package smelled rather well, I uttered a few curses and went to buy more alcohol (1). The wrappers went to a marmalade jar and yielded a slightly dilué version which was however powerful enough to knock me off the chair if I hadn't smelled the thing before.
Roses.
Or carnation.
Probably both.

It's not that grandma-style rose like Penhaligon's Elizabethan Rose, nor that sweet, slightly sickening rose of Nahema or Mahora in extrait version (2), it's warm, spicy, carnation-y and slightly reminds me of Fleur de Feu but after a while it mellows to sweet musky calmness. Something that I badly miss among Les Exclusifs.
A quick search showed next to none results, something on Perfume Intelligence, a review by Octavian at 1000perfumes and a few discussions along the lines of Wtf is Chanel No. 46.
Excellent fragrance, dear children.

We're still discussing the possible fakeness with Helg, I sent her a sample and we'll see. Should that be a fake, then the creator should apply for a job at some place like Givaudan. Because, it had cojones, special degree of ruthlessness and created a stunning perfume worth the price, even if it were Eau de Rose by Anonymous Pharmacy of Podunk.

Now, after a while, the drydown is still sweet and musky with a hint of lily of the valley and/or vetiver and it promises to last forever. Someone out there should start taking 100 litre orders.

Top notes: bergamot, orange, neroli
Middle notes: rose, lily of the valey, ylang-ylang, jasmine
Base notes: vetiver, orris, sandalwood, coumarine, vanilla, musk (3)



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(1) It's not that easy to get, in fact. They sell it only in small amounts, only 60% and they look weird at people in the pharmacy. I asked a doc friend to get me the 96% thing through the secret sources, though.
(2) Mahora deserves its own story for the bottle, if for nothing else. Not to be expected anytime soon, Mahora is left behind at home II.
(3) notes after Perfume Intelligence, http://www.perfumeintelligence.co.uk/library/perfume/c/c3/c3p6.htm

Fougère Royale, a long lost legend

I read Luca Turin's The Secret of Scent shortly ago and got some food for thought. For those who do not know, Luca Turin is a biologist interested in smell and in perfumes and he writes about these, including the popular Perfumes: The Guide, written with Tania Sanchez.One of the bits of food for thought was Turin's enthusiastic description of Fougère Royale by Houbigant. Created in 1882, it's the first perfume that used a synthetic ingredient, coumarin, and Luca Turin describes it thusly:

It does smell of coumarin, to be sure, but it is also fresh, clean, austere, almost bitter. This is the reference smell of scrubbed bathrooms, suggestive of black and white tiles, clean, slightly damp towels, a freshly shaven daddy. But wait! there's a funny thing there, something not altogether pleasant. It's a touch of natural cuvet, stuff that comes from the rear edn of an Asian cat and smells like it does. [...] Small wonder Fougere Royale was such a success. At a distance, he who wears it is everyone's favourite son-in-law; up close, a bit of an animal (1).

It sounded intriguing enough to me; I have a weak spot of perfumes gone for long. Some two weeks ago, I gave it a random try on eBay and there it was, a small bottle and only half full but for a price I could afford; the seller guessed that it may be from the 1940's and I must say that I have no clue, I'm not that much of a collector - there was indeed a relaunch of this fragrance after WWII so I'd guess it's from this time. Should anyone know better, feel free to inform me.
Anyhow, it was affordable so I bought it out of sheer curiosity; if it were awful or gone bad, I was quite sure that I could pass the bottle to a collector friend. Decent deal. On Monday, an envelope from France landed in my mailbox, containing Cœur Enchaîne by Honore Payan of Grasse (another brand of which I know nothing) and that Fougère. The latter leaked a tiny bit, spreading the bitter scent into the wrapping foil and around.

It is bitter. And bitter and bitter, in all imaginable shades, bergamot that bites your nose off from inside. There's that adstringent feel of very strong green tea (2), crushed spruce needles - no resinous smell, rather an olfactory rendering of the taste of spruce needles, a whiff of something indefinably sweet-ish but not sticky... and, well, that piece of clingy foil does smell of something animalic after being around for several days. With a touch of dirty sea water in a port, with all that ugly floating on it (3). There is something soapy all over, not that pink soapy smell of roses but the sort of soap one uses for weird and tough stains. Bathroom - no way, for me, it would have to be much more homely to resemble a bathroom. An outhouse at a summer cottage, with gusts of wind between the boards and quite a bit of nature nearby. There are no clearly discernible floral accords as far as I can say but I'd guess quite some bergamot, a touch of rose and I wouldn't exclude iris and carnation...
This is one of those perfumes that I cannot compare to anything - I suspect there's something similar somewhere out there of which I'm unaware...
... I looked around the internetz and someone somewhere mentions Covet being a modern fougère, fougère 'on crack' and indeed, there is similar sort of biting pungency I originally ascribed to an overdose of muguet and bergamot. I loved Covet from the first time I sniffed it at Stockholm airport and now it scored another point in sympathy. It's not exactly similar but there's that feel.

Houbigant doesn't exist as a house anymore, the name was sold in the early 1990's along with the formulas for the perfumes and all that remained is names so (4), alas, there's hardly any chance of a reissue of either Fougère Royale or anything else from the good olden days... sigh.


Fougère Royale by Houbigant, created in 1882 (some sources give 1881) by Paul Parquet
Erm, could've tried to search first.
Top notes: lavender, bergamot, clary sage
Middle notes: geranium, heliotrope, rose, orchid, carnation
Base notes: oakmoss, musk, tonka, vanilla (5)
I suppose there should be coumarin instead of tonka and civet added.


Next time, or some other time: Chanel No. 46
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(1) Turin, Luca: The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell, p. 22. Faber and Faber, London, 2006. ISBN 978-0-571-21538-6
(2) I do drink tea and I have some general idea about it but that doesn't mean that I'd cease to be a coffee person. Should you give me gifts of this sort, I still prefer Peets coffee. Unless the tea were really really good. Really. I can stand crappy coffee but I hate crappy tea.
(3) I dislike sea in general, not only when it gets stinky.
(4) Something more here
(last) After basenotes.com