Prescriptives Calyx: fragrance review & history

Part of PerfumeShrine's regular Underrated Perfume Day feature, I'm inspired to talk of Calyx because it strikes me as the Prometheus of hardcore (if such a strong word can be used for the genre) fruity fragrances that have dominated the late 1990s, the 2000s and 2010s market so far (and in part a culprit for the emergence of fruitchouli). Coming out as far back as 1986, an uplifting tart tropical punch splashed all over a tan California blonde right out of the shower, it subsisted on the other edge of hope, pitted as it was against the likes of Coco by Chanel, Opium by YSL, Dior's original Poison or Giorgio Beverly Hills.

Still, the cosmetics brand that issued it, Prescriptives (since out of business, except for this fragrance which is still in production and now distributed via Clinique counters), part of the Lauder Group, had the necessary market cojones to sustain its sales for years. The pure, custom-tailored image of their cosmetics was a natural fit for the idea of a pure, celestially squeezed perfume which back then had none of the connotations of sugary hard candy stickiness and hair salon peach/apple waft we associate with fruity fragrances today. Its perfumer, Sophia Grojsman, is famous for her clean but potent accords, which make use of a very different idea of feminine allure than the standard "vintage" and European concept of animalic scents that enhance -rather than conceal- the odorata sexualis and hide cigarette smoke remnants off Old World garments. Calyx was the culmination of American Artemis versus European Aphrodite: the "lean, mean, clean machine" was coming on scene for good and Lauder (who oversaw Prescriptives) had already built a generous following thanks to their sparkling clean fragrances such as White Linen and Estee. Grojsman was put to record elaborating on the cachet of fruit as feminine nectar saying "some fruit accords, like the one in Calyx, have a very pure quality. It's a different kind of sexuality, more innocent than the animal notes…And men like innocence. To them it is sexy…Fruit also carries a connotation of sin. Where would Adam and Eve have been without that apple?"

This assertion is in a nutshell the axiom of feminine mental submission. In a way these fruity scents seem to me as if they're not so subtly introducing a regression on feminism. Woman becomes a pliable little girl again, fresh and unknowing in her virginal, not yet sexualized body, which awaits the all prescient male to do the plucking. It is important to note that contrary to similar concepts of youthful, nubile allure brandished in European brand fragrances of the time (such as Loulou by Cacharel) the girl in question is never presented to be aware of her own erotic capital as an authentic Lolita would be. Rather the innocence is poised as a halo around her, a scent message of total abandon of control. Where's the temptation of the knowledgeable apple, I question.

Calyx doesn't smell of apple either. It smells of a neon cascade of grapefruit (though like with Un Jardin sur le Nil with its illusion of green mango there is no essence of the illusory fruit in question in the formula), boosted by guava and papaya (which give an almost overripe scent bordering on garbage if you really notice it) and a cluster of more traditional, zestful fruit notes (namely the citrusy mandarin and bergamot for uplifting elegance and the lactonic peach and apricot for comfort & skin compatibility). The weird thing with Calyx is that the standard cool-steam-room of lily of the valley heart with its transparent florals from a distance is flanked by a little berry underpinning on the bottom and transparent woody notes that rely on bombastic synthetics. The feeling earned nevertheless is one of celestial, mental awareness rather than one of tropical languor on Bora Bora sand dunes all smeared in Coppertone lotion and for that unique reason it deserves a place in the lesser pantheon of perfumes worth giving a second chance to, feminism aside.

The full list of Notes for Prescriptives Calyx includes:
Top: mandarin, passionfruit, peach, mango, bergamot, grapefruit, papaya, guava, mint, cassia.
Heart: cyclamen, lily of the valley, jasmine, rose, neroli, marigold, melon.
Base: vetiver, oakmoss, sandalwood, musk, raspberry.

Neela Vermeire Creations Bombay Bling!: fragrance review

What do we know of India really? Its people say सत्यमेव जयते (i.e. truth alone triumphs), a motto inscribed in all local currency, but to our western mind this vast country is a tapestry of so colorful a thread and such intricate a yearn that it is almost impossible to exhaust it if one had two lifetimes over to do so. Bombay Bling! by Neela Vermeire Créations aims to give us a glimpse of this tapestry. Testing it I was expecting to savor this complexity; to paraphrase Dracula addressing Harker before coming to London, I so longed to go through the crowded streets of your mighty Bombay, to be in the midst of the whirl and the rush of humanity, to share its life, its changes, its deaths. The fragrance didn't disappoint. On the contrary. It rekindled the desire to go to India again, to merge myself with it.

Source: behance.net via Kjirsten on Pinterest

Bombay Bling! by Neela Vermeire is meant to fuse the dichotomy of India: the advances of the economic world and the colorful culture. The underbelly of the big city combined with the glitter of Bollywood on the vast sandy stretches of Juhu beach and the Queen’s necklace. Fortunes made and lost on the Bombay stock exchange and gambling dens of Mumbai. Beyond the Deccan plateau's archeological ruins...a figurative arm's length beyond the place where Alexander the Great wept, his fate, glory and dreams behind him, before him only the sea...where the cenotaphs of rajputs of Jaisalmer lie... there, in that still shrouded land a giant is stretching its legs and testing its strength; India. An exuberant fragrance, Bombay Bling! takes as a point of departure the mingling of tart, juicy fruits (an unripe mango veering into citrusy tang) squirted over lush flowers of the subcontinent and underscored with a humming woody backdrop. The deep, earthy sweetness of patchouli leaves blends with the banana note of the ylang. Brown sugar and cumin-like intimacy, like when you're smelling a lover's sweat, dripping on sandalwood chippings; milky, soft drydown, yet radiant and fun loving, like a lime and paprika dish with a side of mango chutney. Above all Bombay Bling! is optimism in a bottle!

Bombay Bling! is part of the original trio of fragrances issued by Neela Vermeire Créations which also includes Trayee and Mohur (the fourth instalment, Ashoka, is launching soon). These Indian inspired perfumes, like Chants of India, draw upon the tradition, history and cultural milieu of that vast Eastern sub-continent in which Neela herself has roots. These are truly "transparent orientals", modern and wearable, and therefore it comes as no surprise that Neela commissioned Bertrand Duchaufour to compose them for her niche line.

They are all satisfying tenacious and project with varying force, with Trayee the most introverted and Bombay Bling the most extroverted. Their trail is delicious, creating a lasting impression.

Notes for Neela Vermeire Creations Bombay Bling:
Mango, lychee, blackcurrant, cardamom, cumin, cistus, Turkish rose, jasmine sambac, ylang-ylang, tuberose, plumeria, gardenia, patchouli, tobacco, sandalwood, cedar, vanilla

Bombay Bling! is available as an Eau de Parfum 55ml (in refillable flacons), available at select stockists and on www.neelavermeire.com, where you can find a discovery set

The song is of course originally from film Mother India (music by Ali Naushad Saab) but this is a very popular Greek-lyric version called "My poor heart, how can you bear it" (lyrics written in the 1960s by Demetris Goutis) hereby sung by Eleni Vitali. A small token of appreciation of one people to another...

Disclosure: I was a sample by Neela. 

Travel Memoirs: Singapore part 2

Walking under a lightly tinted oriental umbrella fit for the hot sun, but also the sudden shower of the tropics, I find myself savoring the sights and smells of exotic Singapore again as I reminiscence. Besides the lush vegetation, olfactory stimuli exist in other venues as well.

One of the best ways to get to know a culture is through its cuisine. Singapore’s cuisine seems to have been a fusion of other cultural influences long before fusion became the “in” word it has since become. Encompassing elements of Chinese, Indian and Malayan gastronomy it is as rich and fragrant as the wildest imagination could fathom. Tamarind, turmeric and heavy smelling ghee (a class of clarified butter) feature heavily as does sampal, a common chili-based accompaniment to most foods. Fragrances such as Black XS for Her or John Varvatos have taken elements of that rich spicy tradition of Asia and wouldn’t be too out of place in this subtext.

The aroma of spices is evident in such dishes as Char siew rice (chā shāo fàn) and Char siew noodles (chā shāo miàn), a Cantonese-inspired dish of rice or noodles served with barbecued pork in a thick sauce. Satay bee hoon, thin rice vermicelli, is served with spicy satay sauce of crushed peanuts. Kare Kare is a Philippine-inspired dish of oxtail, similarly stewed in peanut sauce. Oyster omelet, combines the fishy, iodine odor of oysters with coriander leaves. Spicy kangkung, a dish of leafy green vegetables is fried in sambal, imparting a biting hot tang that excites the tongue’s buds.

The fruit selection is both amazing and surprising in its variety and fragrant goodness. Atis, the Philippine word for Cherimoya, are to quote Mark Twain "the most delicious fruit known to men." Mangos are a breed apart from what you get in the West. If your idea of a mango is the green, unripe one in the refreshing Un Jardin sur le Nil by Hermes (which smells more like a wounded grapefruit), you are in for a welcome surprise: the deep apricot color, sweetness and yumminess of aroma in mangos of tropical southeastern Asia is a feast for all the senses. To the other end of the spectrum, in the heavier oriental category, a complex mix of the spices and fruits of the southeastern Asia is encaptured in Jungle L’elephant by Kenzo.
Kalamansi (citrus micracarpa) can also be found in Singapore, a small citrus fruit, often called sour lime, with which description it’d be hard to argue after one tongue-curling taste of the juice. Cold, served in cocktails, it imparts a zesty, tart and sweet aroma with shades of grapefruit and tangerine that is totally refreshing amidst the monsoon steam.

The desserts range from the interesting ice cream flavors like corn, cheese and ube (the Philippine word for taro) to halo-halo (pronounced hah-low hah-low), crushed ice with corn and fruit and jelly and Bubur cha cha, yam and sweet potato cubes served in coconut milk and sago, served hot or cold. Red rubies, a Thai-inspired dessert, is made by boiling water-chestnuts covered in rice flour and red food coloring, served over shaved ice, rose syrup and evaporated milk. The latter is sometimes referred to as "mock pomegranate", since the chestnut pieces bear a resemblance to the pomegranate seeds. Magical Moon by Hanae Mori includes coconut, milky lactonic notes and rose in a fragrance that reminds me a bit of this particular dessert.

After an orgiastic feast that leaves you a bit too full for comfort, seeking comfort of the soul is where your weary but satisfied feet take you. Singapore offers temples of Hinduist, Buddhist and Taoist credo and even Muslim mosques to cater for its cosmopolitan citizenship. Yueh Hai Ching temple and Thian Hock Keng temple are well known placed amidst the central part of the city. In front of the antique stores, a laughing Buddha is sitting to whom people clamor, to rub his belly and drop coins into the slot over his navel for good luck and karma.

In the relative quiet of the Hindu temple, full of the fragrant smell of what seems like Nag Champa incense and illuminated by numerous small candles under the enshrined deities decorated with flowers, one of the caretakers invites us to see the idol up close; he cups a metal bowl over our heads and gives us herbal leaves to chew on as well as red powder. The latter is used to mark a woman’s forehead.

In comparison the Buddhist temple is packed with people kneeling in prayer, chanting from dog-eared books and burning incense sticks which produce a thick smoke of what would be olfactory heaven if they had stuck to the alloted three sticks per burning, incidentally the lucky number for this. The smell of the temple overall reminds me of the peculiarly wonderful mix in L’artisan’s Timbuktu: one part incense to two parts living, breathing beings. People in their desire to please the divine universe, bowing their heads in supplication, have grabbed handfuls of sticks, their tips smoldering into ash which falls on their hands and on their clothes in fleeting moments of pain. I try to imagine what they’re praying for and fail: surely everyone is different and they have their own worries to think about, much different than what I contemplate myself.
The mystical atmosphere of the temples will accompany me on the long, long flight home as I already long for visiting once again.

Pic of Wakm Hai Cheng Bio temple and Trishaws courtesy of Worldisround.com. Ati/Cherimoya pic courtesy of Wikipedia