Monday in Blue and Other Melancholic Stories

The blues, "but I still got the blues for you", Rhapsody in Blue and Blue Monday, the bleakest day in the year, as I discovered just today upon opening my online subscriptions. Little did I know that the third Monday of January is officially termed "blue", supposedly because the weather is at its dullest, the festive spirit has worn on, the resolutions for the New Year have had their chance of proving how futile (or impossible to keep) they are and everyone is just waiting for the nascent buds of spring to formally and univocally feel better.

Blue seems a loaded term in Anglo context, whereas where I come from it's all blue skies and azure seas and a feeling of contentment; or alternatively the eye of God (this is why the protective "evil eye" amulets routinely display a blue eye). There is no S.A.D at my place, as far as I know, and mid-January is usually halcyon days with plenty of sunshine and temperatures in the 15-17s Celsius. Greeks, however, with their inherent sense of drama, do black better, close as it is to true funereal colors; once upon a time there were whole villages with people perennially dressed in black in mourning for someone or other lost in war. Melancholia literally means "black bile" in Greek.
It might also have to do with blue just performing more joyfully in these southern latitudes: a beautiful piece of lapis lazuli edged in 18K gold had lost most of its vibrancy and intensity when brought to the grey skies of the UK when I was a student. Lackluster, it just wasn't the same. But two weeks back home and I started to wear it again, an amulet of Pharaonic resonance, no doubt because the country of the Nile exploited its natural sunshine the same way to enhance the beauty of gems.

The French word glauque although directly inspired by the Latin (and the Greek glaykos/γλαυκός which means "light blue") has come to denote a qualitative awfulness or vacuousness as in lifeless and listless. Blue doesn't really do well in French either (at least in that respect) it seems…

Nevertheless blue is a beautiful concept for fragrances, both in shade and in nuance: from the wistful L'Heure Bleue (denoting the hour that the French call entre chien et loup) to the bright cerulean of its modern Guerlain "rendition" L'Heure de Nuit (whose shade one of my wittiest readers compared to Toilet Duck's to the burning of my mind's "eye" ever since), blue makes an honorable appearance in fine fragrance. Just think of the gorgeous "lantern" design by Guerlain, famously utilized in Guet apens, or the majestic blue of Shalimar or even of the pentagon of Tauer perfumes. Blue "sports" fragrances for men have somehow blurred the positive associations of blue (well, at least the escapist ones, if the bleak ones remain, given how awfully bad many of those fragrances smell) yet there are some examples of blue perfumes (or flacons!) which eschew the rule that "blue=marine", such as the infamous case of Angel by Thierry Mugler, Armani's La Femme Bleue or Cacharel's Loulou in its memorable turquoise.

So tell me, which are your "blue perfumes"? Are they wistful and nostalgic, filled with saudade, or are they colored blue and evoking seascapes and fresh ocean spray?

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