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| photo by Elena Vosnaki |
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Showing posts with label mitsouko. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mitsouko. Show all posts
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Weather-Beaten Awakenings: Let it Go
"You must have brought the bad weather with you,
the sky’s the colour of lead,
all you’ve left me was a feather
on an unmade bed”
~It’s Over, Tom Waits
The thunder came crushing down like release from heavens last night. The humidity and the city's torpor of the last few days came to an abrupt end. The foliage, dripping wet and cleansed, as if a giant rubber had erased all dust off it, shone with a newly found brilliance this morning. Mitsouko eau de toilette (with one drop of parfum extrait on the hollow of my neck) wafted off my cleavage in spicy puffs of selfish enjoyment.
How neatly arranged that the demarcation falls on the first calendar day of the month of October; almost as if the skies were conspiring or rather scheduling things with the precision of a conscientious housekeeper. It's official; autumn has started and with it the glorious melancholy that the promise of decline is giving us each year at this time. The moment when nature is rubbing its weary eyes a bit, starts yawning soon to plunge into a short nap. Hypnos (sleep) was the mythological brother of Thanatos and I'm reminded of this little fact as I see the fallen blossoms, yesterday still so orange red, today trampled underfoot in the muddy pools on the ivory pavement, a dark rotting mulch.
Mitsouko by Guerlain, my default rainy-weather-perfume, has often been linked to a certain wistfulness, seeing as it's inspired by a novel concerning cross-starred lovers. But I'm convinced there's something more to it than just mental associations, especially since raindrops make me exceedingly happy, as they're not incessant on these latitudes. As I savor the mowed grass freshly fragrant in the air by the scent of geosmin mixed with chlorophylle rising up, I sense anew that certain aspects of the fragrance are enhanced; its mossiness, its cinnamon-clove kick, its citric tang, its fiery heart torn by unspeakable passions...Although Mitsouko is also customarily linked to glamor, to me it will always remain an introspective affair, something to keep like a secret that puts a smile on your face no one knows anything about.
I'm reprising a ritual and this small tradition aids me more effortlessly slide into the slots of this giant machine of which we're all bolts and wheels in the end. Vaille que vaille...
And how about you? Do you have specific fragrances you wear in rainy weather?
the sky’s the colour of lead,
all you’ve left me was a feather
on an unmade bed”
~It’s Over, Tom Waits
The thunder came crushing down like release from heavens last night. The humidity and the city's torpor of the last few days came to an abrupt end. The foliage, dripping wet and cleansed, as if a giant rubber had erased all dust off it, shone with a newly found brilliance this morning. Mitsouko eau de toilette (with one drop of parfum extrait on the hollow of my neck) wafted off my cleavage in spicy puffs of selfish enjoyment.
How neatly arranged that the demarcation falls on the first calendar day of the month of October; almost as if the skies were conspiring or rather scheduling things with the precision of a conscientious housekeeper. It's official; autumn has started and with it the glorious melancholy that the promise of decline is giving us each year at this time. The moment when nature is rubbing its weary eyes a bit, starts yawning soon to plunge into a short nap. Hypnos (sleep) was the mythological brother of Thanatos and I'm reminded of this little fact as I see the fallen blossoms, yesterday still so orange red, today trampled underfoot in the muddy pools on the ivory pavement, a dark rotting mulch.
Mitsouko by Guerlain, my default rainy-weather-perfume, has often been linked to a certain wistfulness, seeing as it's inspired by a novel concerning cross-starred lovers. But I'm convinced there's something more to it than just mental associations, especially since raindrops make me exceedingly happy, as they're not incessant on these latitudes. As I savor the mowed grass freshly fragrant in the air by the scent of geosmin mixed with chlorophylle rising up, I sense anew that certain aspects of the fragrance are enhanced; its mossiness, its cinnamon-clove kick, its citric tang, its fiery heart torn by unspeakable passions...Although Mitsouko is also customarily linked to glamor, to me it will always remain an introspective affair, something to keep like a secret that puts a smile on your face no one knows anything about.
I'm reprising a ritual and this small tradition aids me more effortlessly slide into the slots of this giant machine of which we're all bolts and wheels in the end. Vaille que vaille...
And how about you? Do you have specific fragrances you wear in rainy weather?
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Guerlain Mitsouko: fragrance review & history
Few perfumes are entangled in such mythos and in such erroneous rumours as Mitsouko by Guerlain. Mysterious, balanced, sumptuous, it's nothing short of a Gordian Knot which demands a swift cutting through its mysteries to arrive at the truth. And truth is not easily provided for this 1919 fragrance which closed the era of WWI and opened up Les Années Folles.
Famous patrons & their fateful stories on Mitsouko
Jean Harlow, the platinum blonde sex-pot of the 1930s who was born on March 3rd 1911, all slinky peignoirs and ice put on the nipples behind those satiny gowns, used Mitsouko in Dinner at Eight; it was her favourite fragrance in real life. Her platinum head was not what the creators at Guerlain had originally thought of: Mitsouko was right from the start destined for brunettes, while L'Heure Bleue was recommended for blondes. She gladly embraced both, much like she let her hairdresser put peroxide, ammonia, Clorox, and Lux Flakes on her naturally darker hair.
Little did Jean know that her first husband Paul Bern would be found dead and drenched in Mitsouko in a astounding case of a suicide just one week after the wedding. Rumours say that it was impotence that drove him to his act of desperation. Jean was put to record saying all three marriages she got into were "marriages of inconvenience". Perhaps the sad story inspiring Mitsouko perfume was a bad omen for her love life as well.
It certainly didn't really bring good luck to other famous patrons, such as the impressario of Les Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev (who drenched his curtains with it) or Charlie Chaplin. In the unexpurgated diary of erotic authoress Anais Nin, Henry and June, Mitsouko features prominently as the perfume that June Miller asks to be given her by Anais. Of course, to follow the truism by Gore Vidal [1], lying had become Nin's first nature, so all bets are off on whether that actually happened: What remains is that Mitsouko was indeed Nin's scent of choice, alongside Narcisse Noir by Caron. Such is the repercussion of the scent in cultural heritage that a pop sensation of the late 1980s, the French duo of Les Rita Mitsouko christened themselves after it!
photo via toutenparfum
The Legend of the Creation: Myth and Misunderstandings
Lore on the inspiration of Mitsouko wants Jacques Guerlain to have wanted to pay homage to a popular novel of the time, “La Bataille” by Claude Farrère. In it Mitsouko, a beautiful Japanese woman and the wife of Admiral Togo, is secretly in love with a British officer aboard the flagship of the Japanese fleet during the 1905 war between Russia and Japan; Mitsouko awaits with dignity the outcome of the battle, nobly overcoming her feelings. Hence derives the confusion about the spelling of the name: although Mitsuko [sic] is a Japanese word, neither is it spelled Mitsouko nor does it mean "mystery" as the official press of Guerlain would like us to believe. Like other perfume tales, it's just that: a romantic allusion to "zee love storee" that enslaves women's imagination and stirs men's loins.
It's a fascinating discovery to find that Mitsouko despite its technical mastery and sumptuous character, and my friend's wittism when sniffing off a vintage bottle that "it smells the way a porn film would", isn't one for seduction: Luca Turin in his 1993 French guide recommended against such a use. It's debatable whether he did so because he found it not immediately accesible for such a purpose or because he deemed it highly intellectualised to demean it via lowly feminine wiles. The fact remains that although highly revered, Mitsouko is one fragrance which the Western man rarely considers as traditionally "sexy" among a stable of fruity chypres that manage to convey the idea of sexiness and erotic proximity much more readily: Rochas Femme, Diorama, even YSL Yvresse... Fruity chypres due to their typically lusher, more "golden" character with an injection of decay (fruit can easily go from ripe to overripe, recalling how a woman can do so as well) are a noted exception within that group of cerebral fragrances known as "chypres". Mitsouko could be the equivalent of someone reading the Financial Times in terms of smarts and composure. Perhaps this is why its erotic tension is not immediately understandable.
Cinematic References
In Louis Bunuel's cult classic Belle de Jour respectable newly-wed doctor's wife, but frigid and masochistic, Catherine Deneuve accidentaly smashes a huge "flacon montre" of Mitsouko in a symbolic scene in her bathroom before setting to spend the afternoon as a prostitute. Would the scene work equally well semiotically with another perfume? Doubtful...
Perfume writer Susan Irvine recounts how one day in Paris she shared a taxi with a woman [wearing Mitsouko] who smelled "the way God intended women to smell: plush, troubling and golden" [2]. And goes on to reveal in a Vogue article that adopting Mitsouko for a year produced no comments whatsoever from anyone, contrary to her compliments galore success with YSL Paris!
Understanding the erotic dimension of Mitsouko
Perhaps what's most interesting about the strange position of Mitsouko in its erotic charge is how it encapsulates two quite different perspectives on how human bodies should or would smell of. The 19th-century Japanese referred to western traders as "batakusai", which roughly translates as "stinks of butter" due to their high dairy consumption which gave their skin a cheesy aspect (isovaleric and butyric compounds do that); while the Brits found the Japanese in turn "fishy", again a reflection on an insular diet. How would the British officer and the beautiful Japanese wife named Mitsouko would have found a middle-ground between their human scents of passion?
Nowadays, Mitsouko is Guerlain's top seller in Japan, in a reverse homage to the brand that ushered Japonism in the mainstream many decades ago. This goes against all received wisdom that the Japanese go for "light" perfume and only rarely ever put it on themselves. One wonders if the cultural milieu of accepting smells that are different than those perceived as pleasurable in the West allows them a higher appreciation of this masterpiece of a scent.
Deconstructing the scent & formula of Mitsouko
The composition of Mitsouko was revolutionary at the time, even though it updated and -arguably- improved on the seminal formula of F.Coty's Chypre: The innovative peach-skin note perceived at the heart of the Guerlain fragrance derives from a modern synthetic ingredient, aldehyde C14 or gamma undecalactone (Peach essence cannot be naturally extracted). The inclusion of the famous base Persicol ("bases" are ready made smell-chords for perfumers) which included it contributes to the peachy, warm effect. Flanked by murky oakmoss and refreshing bergamot at each end ~thus composing a classic chypre chord~, it adds spicy accents reminiscent of cinnamon and cloves ~especially felt in the Eau de Toilette version which circulated till recently.
Mitsouko also utilizes rose, neroli (a light-smelling orange blossom distillation product), woods, vetiver and patchouli for a short but succinct formula which balances itself between apothecary and pattiserie. The candied orange peel effect mollifies every herbal aspect, while the flowers are so subdued and well-blended as not to be discernible as such; if abstraction is elegance, then Mitsouko is very elegant indeed, without nevertheless losing its sensuality; there's a furry little animal hiding underneath it all, although you can't really place it!
The mysterious, haughty fragrance is in chasm with every recent pop trend, making a difficult love-affair much like its storyline; nevertheless indulging in a bottle of Mitsouko is the hallmark of the true connoisseur, like a fine Pinot Noir wine can be an acquired taste. If you try and do not like it in the end, there is no reason to beat yourself up for it, just because we proclaim it such a beautiful and smart fragrance; but be sure to give it a chance in different times, different weather (it expresses itself wonderfully on rainy days, which bring to the fore its earthy core) and different moods. After all, as The Bombshell Manual of Style declares: “Mitsouko has more sensuous layers to unpeel than Rita Hayworth dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils as Salome."
Comparing Mitsouko concentrations & vintages
Different concentrations and different vintages produce different effects. Vintage parfum extrait is so rich and luscious as to render experiencing Mitsouko a rare occasion of olfactory satiation. The oakmoss galore of as recent crops as Eau de Toilette and Parfum de Toilette from the 1980s and early 1990s is exquisite in its unsettling, deeply mossy ambience. The modern Eau de Parfum version reworked by Edward Flechier (this happened in early 2007 due to oakmoss restrictions imposed by European Union legislature, with Eau de Toilette being the first to reformulate) is the best rendition closer to the original idea, while the current Eau de Toilette seems thinned and yielding a bread, yeasty note which I personally feel is incongruent with the image which I have in my head of it.
Bottle Designs
The classic bottle design, called “inverted heart” because of its cap, reprises the design of another Guerlain classic L’Heure Bleue which was issued in 1912, due to the shortages of World War I [3]. It's the golden standard on which both Eau de Toilette and Eau de Parfum still circulate to this day. After the success of Mitsouko, the design stayed, as a gentle stylistic reminder of the two bottles opening and closing the period between the beginning and the end of the war. And indeed if L’Heure Bleue is contemplative daydreaming and above all romantic like La Belle Epoque, Mitsouko is mysterious and emancipated heralding the era of flappers like no other perfume.
Other presentations include the flacons quatrilobe, amphora/rosebud and umbrella bottle (for the extrait de parfum) and the montres (cyclical bottles with a gold pyramidal cap) for the very lasting and robust vintage eau de cologne concentration circulating throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s with the mint green, round label.
A limited edition flanker called Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus circulated a couple of seasons ago (you can read our review on it on the link).
Notes for Guerlain Mitsouko:
Top: Bergamot, Lemon, Mandarin, Neroli
Middle: Peach, Rose, Clove, Ylang-Ylang, Cinnamon
Base: Oakmoss, Labdanum, Patchouli, Benzoin, Vetiver.
Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Guerlain reviews, The Chypre Series
[1] In Palimpsest, a Memoir
[2] Irvine, S. The Perfume Guide, 2000 Haldane Mason
[3] Guerlain archives
pics via felixhollywood blog and parfum de pub
Famous patrons & their fateful stories on MitsoukoJean Harlow, the platinum blonde sex-pot of the 1930s who was born on March 3rd 1911, all slinky peignoirs and ice put on the nipples behind those satiny gowns, used Mitsouko in Dinner at Eight; it was her favourite fragrance in real life. Her platinum head was not what the creators at Guerlain had originally thought of: Mitsouko was right from the start destined for brunettes, while L'Heure Bleue was recommended for blondes. She gladly embraced both, much like she let her hairdresser put peroxide, ammonia, Clorox, and Lux Flakes on her naturally darker hair.
Little did Jean know that her first husband Paul Bern would be found dead and drenched in Mitsouko in a astounding case of a suicide just one week after the wedding. Rumours say that it was impotence that drove him to his act of desperation. Jean was put to record saying all three marriages she got into were "marriages of inconvenience". Perhaps the sad story inspiring Mitsouko perfume was a bad omen for her love life as well.
It certainly didn't really bring good luck to other famous patrons, such as the impressario of Les Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev (who drenched his curtains with it) or Charlie Chaplin. In the unexpurgated diary of erotic authoress Anais Nin, Henry and June, Mitsouko features prominently as the perfume that June Miller asks to be given her by Anais. Of course, to follow the truism by Gore Vidal [1], lying had become Nin's first nature, so all bets are off on whether that actually happened: What remains is that Mitsouko was indeed Nin's scent of choice, alongside Narcisse Noir by Caron. Such is the repercussion of the scent in cultural heritage that a pop sensation of the late 1980s, the French duo of Les Rita Mitsouko christened themselves after it!
photo via toutenparfumThe Legend of the Creation: Myth and Misunderstandings
Lore on the inspiration of Mitsouko wants Jacques Guerlain to have wanted to pay homage to a popular novel of the time, “La Bataille” by Claude Farrère. In it Mitsouko, a beautiful Japanese woman and the wife of Admiral Togo, is secretly in love with a British officer aboard the flagship of the Japanese fleet during the 1905 war between Russia and Japan; Mitsouko awaits with dignity the outcome of the battle, nobly overcoming her feelings. Hence derives the confusion about the spelling of the name: although Mitsuko [sic] is a Japanese word, neither is it spelled Mitsouko nor does it mean "mystery" as the official press of Guerlain would like us to believe. Like other perfume tales, it's just that: a romantic allusion to "zee love storee" that enslaves women's imagination and stirs men's loins.
It's a fascinating discovery to find that Mitsouko despite its technical mastery and sumptuous character, and my friend's wittism when sniffing off a vintage bottle that "it smells the way a porn film would", isn't one for seduction: Luca Turin in his 1993 French guide recommended against such a use. It's debatable whether he did so because he found it not immediately accesible for such a purpose or because he deemed it highly intellectualised to demean it via lowly feminine wiles. The fact remains that although highly revered, Mitsouko is one fragrance which the Western man rarely considers as traditionally "sexy" among a stable of fruity chypres that manage to convey the idea of sexiness and erotic proximity much more readily: Rochas Femme, Diorama, even YSL Yvresse... Fruity chypres due to their typically lusher, more "golden" character with an injection of decay (fruit can easily go from ripe to overripe, recalling how a woman can do so as well) are a noted exception within that group of cerebral fragrances known as "chypres". Mitsouko could be the equivalent of someone reading the Financial Times in terms of smarts and composure. Perhaps this is why its erotic tension is not immediately understandable.
Cinematic References
In Louis Bunuel's cult classic Belle de Jour respectable newly-wed doctor's wife, but frigid and masochistic, Catherine Deneuve accidentaly smashes a huge "flacon montre" of Mitsouko in a symbolic scene in her bathroom before setting to spend the afternoon as a prostitute. Would the scene work equally well semiotically with another perfume? Doubtful...Perfume writer Susan Irvine recounts how one day in Paris she shared a taxi with a woman [wearing Mitsouko] who smelled "the way God intended women to smell: plush, troubling and golden" [2]. And goes on to reveal in a Vogue article that adopting Mitsouko for a year produced no comments whatsoever from anyone, contrary to her compliments galore success with YSL Paris!
Understanding the erotic dimension of MitsoukoPerhaps what's most interesting about the strange position of Mitsouko in its erotic charge is how it encapsulates two quite different perspectives on how human bodies should or would smell of. The 19th-century Japanese referred to western traders as "batakusai", which roughly translates as "stinks of butter" due to their high dairy consumption which gave their skin a cheesy aspect (isovaleric and butyric compounds do that); while the Brits found the Japanese in turn "fishy", again a reflection on an insular diet. How would the British officer and the beautiful Japanese wife named Mitsouko would have found a middle-ground between their human scents of passion?
Nowadays, Mitsouko is Guerlain's top seller in Japan, in a reverse homage to the brand that ushered Japonism in the mainstream many decades ago. This goes against all received wisdom that the Japanese go for "light" perfume and only rarely ever put it on themselves. One wonders if the cultural milieu of accepting smells that are different than those perceived as pleasurable in the West allows them a higher appreciation of this masterpiece of a scent.
Deconstructing the scent & formula of Mitsouko
The composition of Mitsouko was revolutionary at the time, even though it updated and -arguably- improved on the seminal formula of F.Coty's Chypre: The innovative peach-skin note perceived at the heart of the Guerlain fragrance derives from a modern synthetic ingredient, aldehyde C14 or gamma undecalactone (Peach essence cannot be naturally extracted). The inclusion of the famous base Persicol ("bases" are ready made smell-chords for perfumers) which included it contributes to the peachy, warm effect. Flanked by murky oakmoss and refreshing bergamot at each end ~thus composing a classic chypre chord~, it adds spicy accents reminiscent of cinnamon and cloves ~especially felt in the Eau de Toilette version which circulated till recently. Mitsouko also utilizes rose, neroli (a light-smelling orange blossom distillation product), woods, vetiver and patchouli for a short but succinct formula which balances itself between apothecary and pattiserie. The candied orange peel effect mollifies every herbal aspect, while the flowers are so subdued and well-blended as not to be discernible as such; if abstraction is elegance, then Mitsouko is very elegant indeed, without nevertheless losing its sensuality; there's a furry little animal hiding underneath it all, although you can't really place it!
The mysterious, haughty fragrance is in chasm with every recent pop trend, making a difficult love-affair much like its storyline; nevertheless indulging in a bottle of Mitsouko is the hallmark of the true connoisseur, like a fine Pinot Noir wine can be an acquired taste. If you try and do not like it in the end, there is no reason to beat yourself up for it, just because we proclaim it such a beautiful and smart fragrance; but be sure to give it a chance in different times, different weather (it expresses itself wonderfully on rainy days, which bring to the fore its earthy core) and different moods. After all, as The Bombshell Manual of Style declares: “Mitsouko has more sensuous layers to unpeel than Rita Hayworth dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils as Salome."
Comparing Mitsouko concentrations & vintages
Different concentrations and different vintages produce different effects. Vintage parfum extrait is so rich and luscious as to render experiencing Mitsouko a rare occasion of olfactory satiation. The oakmoss galore of as recent crops as Eau de Toilette and Parfum de Toilette from the 1980s and early 1990s is exquisite in its unsettling, deeply mossy ambience. The modern Eau de Parfum version reworked by Edward Flechier (this happened in early 2007 due to oakmoss restrictions imposed by European Union legislature, with Eau de Toilette being the first to reformulate) is the best rendition closer to the original idea, while the current Eau de Toilette seems thinned and yielding a bread, yeasty note which I personally feel is incongruent with the image which I have in my head of it.
Bottle Designs The classic bottle design, called “inverted heart” because of its cap, reprises the design of another Guerlain classic L’Heure Bleue which was issued in 1912, due to the shortages of World War I [3]. It's the golden standard on which both Eau de Toilette and Eau de Parfum still circulate to this day. After the success of Mitsouko, the design stayed, as a gentle stylistic reminder of the two bottles opening and closing the period between the beginning and the end of the war. And indeed if L’Heure Bleue is contemplative daydreaming and above all romantic like La Belle Epoque, Mitsouko is mysterious and emancipated heralding the era of flappers like no other perfume.
Other presentations include the flacons quatrilobe, amphora/rosebud and umbrella bottle (for the extrait de parfum) and the montres (cyclical bottles with a gold pyramidal cap) for the very lasting and robust vintage eau de cologne concentration circulating throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s with the mint green, round label.
A limited edition flanker called Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus circulated a couple of seasons ago (you can read our review on it on the link).
Notes for Guerlain Mitsouko:
Top: Bergamot, Lemon, Mandarin, Neroli
Middle: Peach, Rose, Clove, Ylang-Ylang, Cinnamon
Base: Oakmoss, Labdanum, Patchouli, Benzoin, Vetiver.
Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Guerlain reviews, The Chypre Series
[1] In Palimpsest, a Memoir
[2] Irvine, S. The Perfume Guide, 2000 Haldane Mason
[3] Guerlain archives
pics via felixhollywood blog and parfum de pub
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Strange Case of Dr.Oakmoss and Mr.Citrus (part 1)
We have been discussing the latest perfumery restrictions on ingredients these past few days. [You can catch up here and here]. Today's post is useful and practical advice before you rush to buy everything tagged "vintage" on Ebay or stores, especially on anything that says it has a "note" of oakmoss (many of them do not have oakmoss to begin with, as a "note" is not an actual ingredient ~meaning the effect of "oakmoss smell" can be replicated aproximately with other ingredients, some synthetic, some natural). To set things straight therefore, let me say the following.
.jpg)
Oakmoss is ~according to the latest restrictions applicable from January 2010~ only resticted, not prohibited. Let me repeat: oakmoss is not being completely eliminated from perfumes! The direction simply states that it needs to be drastically lowered. What that means: it's allowed to 0.1% of the formula compound AND at the same time the oakmoss extact has to contain no more of 100ppm atranol and chloroatranol (those two are the sensitising parts of the natural essence) But oakmoss has been steadily getting lowered in the last 10 years at least! Even if it means perfumes with high levels of it in the formula have to change again, those are the very perfumes which have already changed a lot, sometimes to the point of unecognisability as many fans have noticed! (Miss Dior, Ma Griffe, Cabochard etc.). After all the Scientific Committee on Consumer Products (SCCP) adopted the following during the 2nd plenary meeting of 7 December 2004: "The European Commission received a letter from the University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France, with data demonstrating that chloroatranol is a potent fragrance allergen in cosmetic products. The European Flavour and Fragrance Association (EFFA) submitted a study “Local Lymph Node Assay (LLNA) – Sensitisation dossier on Atranol and Chloroatranol” and information on the levels of these substances in oak moss and tree moss" (the latter is exactly the study on which Dr.Rastogi was featured and please read on to find out more). Therefore this is known since at least 2004! In fact there is a very brief post on this link that announces it (with an email to the proper recipient, so it's not like they couldn't have been contacted!): Department of Environmental Chemistry and Microbiology, National Environmental Research Institute, Roskilde, Denmark. (scr@dmu.dk) And another from 2003!
So do you think perfume companies hadn't already wisened up seeing the developments that were impending? Surely not! They were already doing reformulations!
On what concerns Mitsouko in particular Mme Sylvaine Delacourte (artistic director for Guelrain) had the good grace to provide a quote regarding the reformulation of Mitsouko with only tree moss, setting things straight (and I translate):
Perfumes can theoretically still include oakmoss (evernia prunastri or mousse de chêne) in the formula at the approved levels and I quote from the 43rd amendment of IFRA:
.jpg)
Oakmoss is ~according to the latest restrictions applicable from January 2010~ only resticted, not prohibited. Let me repeat: oakmoss is not being completely eliminated from perfumes! The direction simply states that it needs to be drastically lowered. What that means: it's allowed to 0.1% of the formula compound AND at the same time the oakmoss extact has to contain no more of 100ppm atranol and chloroatranol (those two are the sensitising parts of the natural essence) But oakmoss has been steadily getting lowered in the last 10 years at least! Even if it means perfumes with high levels of it in the formula have to change again, those are the very perfumes which have already changed a lot, sometimes to the point of unecognisability as many fans have noticed! (Miss Dior, Ma Griffe, Cabochard etc.). After all the Scientific Committee on Consumer Products (SCCP) adopted the following during the 2nd plenary meeting of 7 December 2004: "The European Commission received a letter from the University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France, with data demonstrating that chloroatranol is a potent fragrance allergen in cosmetic products. The European Flavour and Fragrance Association (EFFA) submitted a study “Local Lymph Node Assay (LLNA) – Sensitisation dossier on Atranol and Chloroatranol” and information on the levels of these substances in oak moss and tree moss" (the latter is exactly the study on which Dr.Rastogi was featured and please read on to find out more). Therefore this is known since at least 2004! In fact there is a very brief post on this link that announces it (with an email to the proper recipient, so it's not like they couldn't have been contacted!): Department of Environmental Chemistry and Microbiology, National Environmental Research Institute, Roskilde, Denmark. (scr@dmu.dk) And another from 2003!So do you think perfume companies hadn't already wisened up seeing the developments that were impending? Surely not! They were already doing reformulations!
On what concerns Mitsouko in particular Mme Sylvaine Delacourte (artistic director for Guelrain) had the good grace to provide a quote regarding the reformulation of Mitsouko with only tree moss, setting things straight (and I translate):
"Our house has honoured two values for decades: Tradition and Modernity. Tradition denotes the quality of olfactive construction of each of our perfumes with savoir-faire and heritage. Modernity denotes the scrupulous and rigorous respect of the European regulations in the constant concern for our clients. Mitsouko has benefited in 2006 from the most recent olfactory innovations which respect our heritage while at the same time repressing the incomfort tied to certain raw materials. Therefore current Mitsouko responds to the European directives".
Perfumes can theoretically still include oakmoss (evernia prunastri or mousse de chêne) in the formula at the approved levels and I quote from the 43rd amendment of IFRA:
“For this material, for pragmatic reasons, restrictive levels allowed by the QRA for certain categories but actually being higher than those already in place before applying the QRA, will temporarily not be implemented until the end of a 5 year monitoring phase. At the end of the 5 years the position will be reevaluated again. […]Introduction of an additional purity requirement in the Standards on Oak moss extracts and Tree moss extracts.”
And category 11 (encompasses all non-skin contact or incidental skin contact products) is unrestricted! If we solemnly swear to only spray on clothes? This is why Luca finished his article with the wittisism “don't spray on skin”.
The "black" point is that since 2007 IFRA accepts big boys as members and this is the real news: Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF, Takasago etc. can be members who have a say in the regulation of perfumes. The perfumes which they themselves produce. Is it about the concern for consumers' health? It might but most importantly it's about money. How could this happen?
Like Anya McCoy told me:
The "black" point is that since 2007 IFRA accepts big boys as members and this is the real news: Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF, Takasago etc. can be members who have a say in the regulation of perfumes. The perfumes which they themselves produce. Is it about the concern for consumers' health? It might but most importantly it's about money. How could this happen?
Like Anya McCoy told me:
"Perfumery is being forcibly mutated into a beancounter-driven business with an extremely limited palette. Afraid of lawsuits from consumers if they dare refuse to reformulate classics or create new fragrances with the limits placed upon them, big perfume houses have capitulated. This is a quote from a retired perfumer I interviewed two years ago, the one who blithely answered "we were asleep at the wheel" when I queried why the perfume industry allowed so many regulations to pile up. IFRA, at first golden and shiny with the promise of providing an industry regulatory system that would give the world of perfumery professional and governmental status, botched the deal ~badly!"
There is a PDF available for download (mail me if you want to read it!): It’s the study that Luca talked about in his article, the one I referenced above and of which Dr Rastogi is one of the paticipants. It opens with:
"Based on the submission by EFFA1 of a study "Local nymph Node Assay(LLNA)-Sensitisation dossier on Atranol and Chloroatranol", the Scientific Committee on Consumer Products (SCCP) adopted at its 2nd plenary meeting of 7 December 2004 an opinion (SCCP/0847/04) on Atranol and Chloroatranol present in natural extracts (e.g. Oakmoss and Treemoss extract) with the conclusion:“Because chloroatranol and atranol are components of a botanicalextract, oakmoss absolute, it has been impossible to trace exposure. Chloroatranol was shown to cause elicitation of reactions by repeated open exposure at the ppm level (0.0005%) and at the ppb level on patch testing (50% elicit at 0.000015%). As chloroatranol and atranol are such potent allergens(and chloroatranol particularly so), they shouldnot be present in cosmetic products."
The study talks about 2 ppm though and I quote:"The main identified allergens in oakmoss are chloroatranol and atranol. The ‘typical’ levels of these chemicals have been reduced to levels described". And it concludes with the very logical matter which we tried to explain the other day on why a simple warning label doesn't cover the issue and I quote (bold is mine):
"In recognition of the fact that contact allergy to oakmoss/treemoss is important, product ingredient labelling is required. Such labelling, as a secondary measure to prevent disease, is helpful only to that group of the European population who have a recognised contact allergy to oakmoss/treemoss (following diagnostic clinical patch testing). Labelling is not helpful to the group who have unrecognised contact allergy".
And tree moss which also contains the sensitisers has to be in tandem restricted so that the combined sum of essences does not exceed 0.1% in the formula.
Therefore since oakmoss is again to be reviewed in 2013, this means that there is a window frame for companies to conform and for us to think about this and decide with a cooler head than today's panic.
But there is hope for oakmoss notes yet! Although the patented synthetic Evernyl is not a satisfactory substitute, there is another oakmoss synthetic, Orcinyl 3, which if used together with Evernyl could do the trick.(And it’s only $2400/kilo).
Laurie Erickson, an artisanal pefumer from California for the Sonoma Scent Studio line, also told me: “The big difference for oakmoss with the 43rd amendment is that people who want to use natural moss have to switch to a low allergen moss like the Biolandes product with less than 100 ppm of atranol and less than 100 ppm of chloroatranol (the Biolandes is the only currently available natural moss I know of that meets this standard). If you use the low atranol moss below the maximum usage level and perhaps add a smidge of Evernyl/Veramoss and/or your other favorite mossy ingredients, you can create a pretty nice oakmoss note and still be within IFRA standards; I’m just starting to work with the new moss but so far I’m quite optimistic. I do wish they’d make some exceptions for the old classic formulas and I’m very concerned about the direction we’re heading with all these restrictions on so many materials, but I think we can still create moss notes in new perfumes even under the new guidelines if this low atranol moss turns out to be as promising as it seems right now. I’m just going through all my formulas to substitute the low atranol moss for the regular moss that I was using, and I’ll know more as I continue that process. I had been skeptical before sampling this moss because I’ve been disappointed with the low allergen versions of lavender and bergamot I’ve tried (though I hear better bergamot is available now), but I was pleasantly surprised when I sampled this moss and I ended up buying some.”
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Ayala Moriel, another artisanal naturals perfumer has interesting commentary:
Therefore since oakmoss is again to be reviewed in 2013, this means that there is a window frame for companies to conform and for us to think about this and decide with a cooler head than today's panic.
But there is hope for oakmoss notes yet! Although the patented synthetic Evernyl is not a satisfactory substitute, there is another oakmoss synthetic, Orcinyl 3, which if used together with Evernyl could do the trick.(And it’s only $2400/kilo).
Laurie Erickson, an artisanal pefumer from California for the Sonoma Scent Studio line, also told me: “The big difference for oakmoss with the 43rd amendment is that people who want to use natural moss have to switch to a low allergen moss like the Biolandes product with less than 100 ppm of atranol and less than 100 ppm of chloroatranol (the Biolandes is the only currently available natural moss I know of that meets this standard). If you use the low atranol moss below the maximum usage level and perhaps add a smidge of Evernyl/Veramoss and/or your other favorite mossy ingredients, you can create a pretty nice oakmoss note and still be within IFRA standards; I’m just starting to work with the new moss but so far I’m quite optimistic. I do wish they’d make some exceptions for the old classic formulas and I’m very concerned about the direction we’re heading with all these restrictions on so many materials, but I think we can still create moss notes in new perfumes even under the new guidelines if this low atranol moss turns out to be as promising as it seems right now. I’m just going through all my formulas to substitute the low atranol moss for the regular moss that I was using, and I’ll know more as I continue that process. I had been skeptical before sampling this moss because I’ve been disappointed with the low allergen versions of lavender and bergamot I’ve tried (though I hear better bergamot is available now), but I was pleasantly surprised when I sampled this moss and I ended up buying some.”
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Ayala Moriel, another artisanal naturals perfumer has interesting commentary: "As of the end of last year, neither of my oakmoss suppliers were no longer carrying complete oakmoss absolute. The sensitizing elements were removed, as per IFRA's regulations. Which is not surprising, since oakmoss is grown and harvested in the EU (mostly in former Yugoslavia), and most of the perfume industry at large is still concentrated on that continent. To my pleasant surprise, even at this manipulated state, oakmoss still presented the full spectrum of performance it always had, and was just as good as ever for creating chypres, fougeres and adding nuances to florals, orientals and citrus".And she likes the Biolandes oakmoss as well! This is what she stated to me:
"1) IFRA is not scheduled to review oakmoss again until 2013, so I have no reason to believe there will be any changes to the current oakmoss regulations before than
2) I checked with my suppliers and they are not aware that this material is about to become unavailable in the near future
3) Since last year, the oakmoss absolute sold in the market was one with the sensitizing molecules removed, namely atranol and chloroatranol and resin acids. This
is also the reason why combining both oakmoss and tree moss is restricted (tree moss contains resin acids, so if it is used in a formula in a conjunction with oakmoss the concentration of oakmoss will be even lower). "
Roxana Villa of Roxana Illuminated Perfume has assured me that she has created an accord that mimics oakmoss sufficiently, composed of natural materials that are within limitations and if her Q is anything to go by on how her woody, green mossy blends go I am very optimistic! Liz Zorn of Soivohle' Perfumes is also another artisanal independent pefumer who is capable of creating oakmoss accords through the combinations of other ingredients: "It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how to dupe oakmoss, or even jasmine for that matter. Natural a combination of natural and man made or all man made."
Alex, a perfumery student who writes J'aime Le Parfum had a lovely quote:
Since reportedly the Chanel Company controls Biolandes, did they just opt for re-creating a chypre with no oakmoss in their 31 Rue Cambon instead of relying on this new low-atranol material? It goes to show how boundaries need to be crossed for something to be created anew or how they cannot be sure on further developments ruining a newly launched product.
The big news is however something else entirely: the raw materials suppliers at Grasse (who mostly dabble in naturals) have been bought out by the big companies! Laboratoires Monique Remy is owned by IFF. Robertet bought Charabot and so on...It figures, doesn't it.
Like Anya Mc Coy says again: "Another wrinkle is the buying up of all the small- to medium- size processing houses, from Charis to Charabot. The pipeline that is in place to bring the extracted aromatics to the perfumer, from the distiller with a field unit in the jungle of Indonesia, to the jasmine plants in Egypt are more and more under the control of corporate conglamorates. If they - the corporations - find it easier and cheaper to use synthetics and the demand for naturals dries up, so will the pipeline. Price fixing, as with vanilla absolute, is firmly in place, in my opinion."
So practical advice: If you need to stock up on favourites from big companies, don't rush to buy whatever has been produced in the last 6-7 years at least. And even then, it's good advice to save up your money for extrait de parfum only, the most concentrated version and therefore the one in which the limitations would pose a greater problem. Do continue to support the artisanal perfumers, now more than ever.
And another suggestion for the perfume industry this time: Have you thought of the vast potential of hair mists and oils?
Alex, a perfumery student who writes J'aime Le Parfum had a lovely quote:
"I do not remember whether it was me or a fellow classmate who asked Jean Claude Ellena several months ago about his feeling about IFRA, and he basically said “I don’t really care, and it does not stop me from doing my work.” I think what he says is key here, and it has to do with creativity. You do not need jasmine to give your fragrance “naturalness” or “richness.” You do not need iso e super to do perfumery. You do not need oakmoss to do perfumery.You do not need majantol* to do perfumery." (*majantol is a synthetic lily of the valley ingredient.)I have personably been in the fortunate position to have smelled the new Biolandes low-atranol oakmoss and compare it to the traditional oakmoss essence and it does seem to perform well, although perhaps not perfectly “photocopied” but a talented perfumer can certainly put it to good use. AlbertCan is also one who has worked with both and corroborates the potential. Technology is on our side if we give it time and who knows what the future holds?
Since reportedly the Chanel Company controls Biolandes, did they just opt for re-creating a chypre with no oakmoss in their 31 Rue Cambon instead of relying on this new low-atranol material? It goes to show how boundaries need to be crossed for something to be created anew or how they cannot be sure on further developments ruining a newly launched product.
The big news is however something else entirely: the raw materials suppliers at Grasse (who mostly dabble in naturals) have been bought out by the big companies! Laboratoires Monique Remy is owned by IFF. Robertet bought Charabot and so on...It figures, doesn't it.
Like Anya Mc Coy says again: "Another wrinkle is the buying up of all the small- to medium- size processing houses, from Charis to Charabot. The pipeline that is in place to bring the extracted aromatics to the perfumer, from the distiller with a field unit in the jungle of Indonesia, to the jasmine plants in Egypt are more and more under the control of corporate conglamorates. If they - the corporations - find it easier and cheaper to use synthetics and the demand for naturals dries up, so will the pipeline. Price fixing, as with vanilla absolute, is firmly in place, in my opinion."
So practical advice: If you need to stock up on favourites from big companies, don't rush to buy whatever has been produced in the last 6-7 years at least. And even then, it's good advice to save up your money for extrait de parfum only, the most concentrated version and therefore the one in which the limitations would pose a greater problem. Do continue to support the artisanal perfumers, now more than ever.
And another suggestion for the perfume industry this time: Have you thought of the vast potential of hair mists and oils?
To be continued with other questionable materials...
Thursday, January 3, 2008
How much more gorgeous can you go?
Seek and you shall find: it is these biblical words that come to mind upon seeing the gorgeous advertisements of the year 1972 by Guerlain.
I was seeking an ad that would depict a red-haired beauty for Mitsouko in a futile search for the entertaining although completely frivolous concept of perfumes for certain haircolours,; a concept that had been in practice however at the start of the 20th century when houses would produce indeed fragrances aimed at different types of women, as classified per haircolour. Patou was one of them. Guerlain also had created Mitsouko for darker women and L'heure bleue for blondes, as I had read in a perfumer's confession to a journalist acquaintance.
And then I stumbled upon these. And a vista of beautiful possibilities opened up...
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Shalimar for a raven-haired seductress
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Mitsouko for a redhead introspect
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L'heure bleue for a wistful, enigmatic dark blonde
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Jicky for a dynamic, sizzling blonde
and finally, the pièce de resistance:
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Vol de Nuit for a regal auburn-shaded brunette
Never mind that it looks like it's the same model on all the above ads. Ah...the perfume lover can dream, can't she?
all pics courtesy of okadi
I was seeking an ad that would depict a red-haired beauty for Mitsouko in a futile search for the entertaining although completely frivolous concept of perfumes for certain haircolours,; a concept that had been in practice however at the start of the 20th century when houses would produce indeed fragrances aimed at different types of women, as classified per haircolour. Patou was one of them. Guerlain also had created Mitsouko for darker women and L'heure bleue for blondes, as I had read in a perfumer's confession to a journalist acquaintance.
And then I stumbled upon these. And a vista of beautiful possibilities opened up...
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Shalimar for a raven-haired seductress.jpg)
Mitsouko for a redhead introspect.jpg)
L'heure bleue for a wistful, enigmatic dark blonde.jpg)
Jicky for a dynamic, sizzling blondeand finally, the pièce de resistance:
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Vol de Nuit for a regal auburn-shaded brunetteNever mind that it looks like it's the same model on all the above ads. Ah...the perfume lover can dream, can't she?
all pics courtesy of okadi
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Coty Chypre: fragrant pilgrimage and review
When friends complained to Pablo Picasso that the portrait of Gertrude Stein he’d just painted didn’t look like her, he answered something along the lines of: “Don’t worry. It will.”
Though the famous portrait was executed in 1904, well before Coty even dreamt of his mythical Chypre – he’d only just come out with his first fragrance, La Rose Jacqueminot, well anchored in the figurative tradition of perfumery at the time – it is what comes to mind when I try to analyse his 1917 Chypre. Does it in any way resemble its long and illustrious line of descendants, from the me-too Millot Crêpe de Chine or Chypre Sauzé to Jacques Guerlain’s two-tiered answer to his rival, Mitsouko and Sous le Vent, the 1946 double-whammy of Germaine Cellier’s leather-laden Bandit and Edmond Roudnitska’s rich, mulled-spice Femme, on to Christian Dior’s masterful trilogy of Miss Dior (Paul Vacher), Diorling and Diorama (both by Roudnitska), culminating it the very épure of Chypre-ity that is Yves Saint Laurent’s first namesake fragrance, Y…
It would. It will.
Smell Coty Chypre as you would scrutinize the sepia photograph of an ancestor and, yes, you will find the bone structure: bergamot, floral heart, oakmoss and labdanum. But the expression of the face, the inscrutable screen of these eyes and what they were gazing upon, what film passed in front of them as the model posed, how can you penetrate that otherness, sunk in another time?
If Chypre had a gaze, it would have seen the last remnants of the ancient order falling apart. The 19th century rotting in the charnel trenches of the Great War still being fought as it was being composed, bottled and sold; as it adorned the wrists and napes of the last Belle Époque beauties.
Yes, with hindsight, Chypre would come to resemble the family to which it gave its name. But it is set in a world lost to us; a world where heavy blows had already been dealt to our vision of things; the blows out of which the 20th century would emerge. And so it hovers between the old, figurative, narrative order of scent and the invention of modern perfumery – of which François Coty can be said to be the father.
Cubism was already going full steam in 1917. Did Coty like the art? His social and political values would express themselves a few years later, when he bought the daily Le Figaro and used it to express his loathing of communism and his admiration for fascism, Italian style. Though Italian Fascism did, at the outset, attract Modernist movements in art and literature, it would repudiate them for the monumental, pompous art favoured by totalitarian regimes. Perhaps Coty, a powerfully instinctive man as well as a visionary industrialist, had no truck with the Cubists and the Fauves who were the toast of Paris but he did, thanks to his intuition, latch on to the same gesture as his artistic contemporaries. He went primitive; he exhumed the archaic to find the face of modern perfumery. Chypre is not a name chosen by chance: apart from being an island with a powerful perfume tradition (something that the Corsican Coty may well have known), it is the abode of the mighty Aphrodite. Neither the naughty philanderer of late Greek and Roman mythology, nor the slender marble nymph of Classic Greek statuary, or the pearly-fleshed shepherdess of 18th century boudoirs: but the old, stern, primitive, man-eating mistress of the spring renewal of vegetation, the impulse to spring life fed on the death of winter. She sleeps on a bed of earthy moss and pungent herbs, anointed with thick redolent oils of jasmine, bathed in the fumes of sizzling golden resin.
Chypre belongs to the same brutal, neo-primitive aesthetics. In the flanks of the 1950s sealed flacon I was lucky enough to acquire, the time-distilled, resinous juice releases a scent that only hints to the later developments of the family. The hesperidic top notes have vanished decades ago, leaving the starring role in the “débouché” – to reprise Roudnitska’s beautiful term – to aromatic herbs, kitchen herbs, really: sage and thyme, and quite possibly vetiver. The floral absolute is jasmine, and it is weighed down with concentrated oils, further pulled into the unctuous base of labdanum, patchouli and oakmoss. In this version, and in the condition it is in, the labdanum’s honeyed, amber notes predominate to pull the composition towards the oriental end of the spectrum. But even in the more modern executions – the 60s eau de cologne, for instance – the amber has pride of place, reinforced by the the vanillin and the hay-like sweetness coumarin. The bitterness and fungus-earthiness of the oakmoss hasn’t yet reached the peak it would when exasperated by isobutyl-quinoline (as in Bandit); or perhaps the vanished bergamot provided the balance between tartness and earthiness. Aphrodite, she of the many guises, is a vegetal goddess: infinitely seductive with her sweet, dizzying fragrances, and willing to take on the adornments of modern chemistry to present a new mask. Her archaic ruthlessness is never far, however, from this attractive surface: Chypre is not a dazzlingly smooth composition like her tawny-flanked daughter Femme would be three decades on, but an assemblage of broad contrasting strokes, grounded on an oriental pedestal of remote antiquity. In a way, it’s amazing that she has given so very different children to so many brilliant perfumers… But she crossed the Mediterranean to visit François Coty in Paris. Perhaps, while kissing him, she bestowed the poisonous gift of hubris, the “sin” (though the term was unknown in Ancient Greece) of exceeding measure and reason through ambition… His disastrous far-right politics and catastrophic divorce ruined Coty, once one of the richest men in the world. He died a pauper. And his Chypre lives on only as a myth – the one scent the majority of perfume lovers dream of seeing risen from the mausoleum of discontinued perfumes – and through her abundant spawn. When you bow your head through time to inhale her essences, it is her daughters you seek. She will come to resemble them. But they can never go back to her utter, arrogant statement.
Pic of Maria Callas from the film by Pasolini "Medea".
Read on the rest of the Chypre Series on Perfume Shrine following the links:
Marble image of Aphrodite, Artemis and Apollo from the Treasure of Siphnians in Delphi, Greece circa 525BC courtesy of arthist.cla.umn.edu
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Autumnal Shift
I'm very much afraid that the coming of autumn is given over to the Greek calendars. For those unfamiliar with this expression it is used to mean that something is never going to happen at all, as Greek calendars never existed, in contrast to the Roman ones, which did. And what is the reason for this ominous and pessimistic declaration? But the difficulty of rotating fragrances in a fragrance wardrobe according to season in this crazy global warming environment.
The transition from summer to autumn in terms of perfume choosing is not an easy one, especially given that nowadays this is mostly an issue of calendar advancement than actual weather change. The warmth and incadescence of autumnal perfumes lends itself to cooler temperatures, "seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness" to quote Keats. And alas it's tardy. And expected to be for quite a while still in our part of the world.
Personally autumn has always been my favourite time of the year. The rush of the beginning of the academic season managed to fill me with new hope even as a student, despite the fact that it meant the end of long summer vacation. It wasn't that it was the beginning of lessons, so much as the rejoining of old friends and the aftertaste of those languid summer days spent at the beach that left skin baked and memories of blissful indolent and idle existence aplenty to last for months. Autumn was and still is the beginning of the year for me.
However, as the indian summer persists well into November nowadays, my hankering for "mists and mellow fruitfuless" is left unsatisfied. My Mitsouko and Opium get anxious to make a grand appearence from their confines, only to be met with another hot dawn that promises to melt away at the edges of reason by noon. Other perfumes are even more shy: Angelique Encens, Fumerie Turque, Rykiel Woman, Boucheron femme, Rochas Femme, Ambra del Nepal, La Myrrhe, to name but a few. They all demand sturdy fabrics, angora or cashmere sweaters and black leather boots tightly encasing jambes d'une nature farouche. Les jambes, you see....they cannot be farouche (=ferocious) in the heat of summer. They mostly drag themselves along...
And so with the onerous duty ahead of me I must get down to sorting out my autumn collection without the actual capability of wearing those tantalising siren-singing scents that beckon me. Not yet, not yet...
And you, what are you longing to bring out of the mothballs? Give us pointers!
In the meantime I am leaving you with John Keats'(1795-1821) Ode to Autumn:
627. To Autumn
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Next reviewwill occupy itself with an amber that can actually lend itself nicely to still warm weather.
Poem courtesy of bartleby.com. Pic of grape-cutters originally uploaded by Parisbreakfast
Friday, July 20, 2007
The Agony and the Ecstasy part2: control and surrender in fragrance
Continuing from yesterday’s post, today we occupy ourselves with the matter of control versus surrender as manifested in matters of relationships as well as sensual escapades that pertain to olfaction.
The amount of control we exercise in indulging our fragrant desires is not proportionate to the pleasure thus derived. On the contrary it varies according to the occasion and circumstances. Although usually control is assumed to be a desirable quality and one that is highly regarded, especially in western society with its competitive background, it is often that it also acts as a binding force that ties us to refusal of sensuous pleasure. The latter could be best arrived at through surrender to stimuli that have or have not been chosen by us in the first place. Imagine the surprising whiff of baking goods when walking past a bakery or the intoxication of smelling a familiar aroma on a stranger passing us on the street. Those are instances in which our degree of control of what we perceive is close to nil. Yet we derive pleasure from them.
Of course one could very well argue that the reverse is also within the sphere of probability. A close encounter with a smell that has foul associations in our mind makes the proximity with the vessel that perpetuates it insufferable, a true torture. In those instances we would dearly wish that we could exercise control over what we actually smell.
Surrender also has a somewhat fatalist tone to it, as if there is some predestined course of events, a kismet that accounts for our experiences instead of us shaping our present and future. The matter quickly becomes philosophical, which is perhaps beyond the scope of this post.
If we were to investigate cinematic examples of this conflict we revert to the 1960s classic by Spanish master director Luis Buñuel “Belle de jour”.
In it Catherine Deneuve stars as Séverine, the repressed wife of Pierre, an upper class doctor; sexually frigid with him, yet harbouring fantasies of a sadomasochistic nature which lead her to become a day-time high class prostitute in a posh brothel run by a knowledgeable French woman. There her fantasies take shape and form, although often following alternative avenues that include Chinese sex toys, assimilated necrophilia and voyeurism. However, although Séverine would like to act out her fantasies with her husband whom she loves, she capitulates to men to whom she is indifferent to in a surrender of the senses that satisfies some inner need that cannot be met in her bourgeois existence. Her rencontre with a criminal youth and also with an acquaintance who exerts control over her in daring tones –as he is intrigued by her iciness which he hopes to shatter- in her regular impeachable life will forever alter her cosmos and make her the victim or the culprit of fate.
As the director himself said:
"All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence."
One particularly brilliant moment that pertains to perfume and our issue is the scene in the bathroom when Séverine accidentally smashes a big bottle of Mitsouko by Guerlain before she sets out to spend the afternoon at the brothel. (It can be seen in the trailer attached below, clicking on the screen). The bottle is in the big round style with the pyramid stopper that was quite popular all through the Sixties.
Mitsouko is a perfect example of a scent that is implicated in sex and the issues of control vs surrender. Much like the literary heroine that inspired its name (the Japanese girl in the novel “La Bataille”) it has a rich heart and sensual base that extol an animalic presence of labdanum and the earthiness of oakmoss and vetiver which combine to give the more ethereal elements of floral notes a subversive mantle. Although Mitsouko has all the pedigree of a well brought up upper-class lady, this is only the surface which one could easily scrape to find a ferocious needy sensuality about to manifest itself in surprising throes.
The subjects of fascism vs socialism, old age, Catholicism and sex are relentlessly explored and in the end the innocent girl becomes a cynical wile woman who believes in nothing any more while the worldly Don Lope played by Fernando Ray becomes rather belatedly the father figure that Tristana needed in the first place. As he reaches the peace he was pursuing all along he exclaims 'It's snowing so hard outside, but in this house, I'm nice and warm. What's there not to be happy about?' It is poignant that he recognizes only too late that acceptance, surrender to the course of life is a surer way to inner peace than struggling to impose one’s will.
Watch the "Tristana" trailer clicking on the screen.
Because to my mind there is an inherent melancholic touch to what I interpret as the loss of innocence, the perfume that I would choose to anoint the beautiful Tristana with is none other than L’Heure Bleue by Guerlain. One of their great classics, issued in 1912, it was inspired by “the blue hour”, that magical moment when the sun has set, but the sky hasn’t yet found its stars, when the odour of flowers intensifies.
Wearing L'Heure Bleue is like partaking in a secret rite of passage that an innocent soul goes through to meet their unintended destiny, just like Tristana in her quest for true love. The bittersweet smell of aniseed is the poignant thread that travels through the journey of life, full of experiences, full of disappointments that make the heart strings ache. Cloves and powdery heliotrope providing the backdrop of a darker theme, while the heady damascene rose and jasmine shine as the memorable sweet moments of happiness found adrift an existence that exerts no control over facts. As the scent of L'heure bleue unfolds, you are left with an impression of rejection, of refusal, of an idealism that is crashed by the vagaries of life that makes me inwardly sigh for all the lost causes and dreams that might have been.
It is also one of Catherine Deneuve's personal choices of perfume in her vast wardrobe of fragrances and I can very well see how she might be partial to its soft caress that whispers of times past.
Next post will persist in this genre with more perfume references. Stay tuned!
Pics from film Belle de Jour courtesy of toutsurdeneuve. Portrait of Deneuve by Raymond Darollet courtesy of Toutsurdeneuve. Clips from Youtube
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Lies and Misdemeanors
How many times have you heard a story regarding the creation of a perfume and in the end realised it must be a fabrication?
From the almost bordering to the homeric notion of "genius through incapacitation" of Coco Chanel picking up the specific batch of Ernest Beaux's No.5 while having a severe headache to another tale ~ according to which Beaux's assistant was the culprit behind the revolutionary amount of aldehydes poured by accident into a vat of jus ready for the making that resulted in a new category of perfumes.
From the melancholic Mitsouko name supposedly meaning "mystery" in Japanese (well, it means "child of light", if you want to know) and the tale that Jicky was the nickname of an unfortunate coup de foudre that Aime Guerlain harbored for an English girl (in reality it was the nickname of his nephew Jacques) to the couturier Marcel Rochas commissioning Femme as an exclusive wedding present for his great beauty of a young bride, which proved to be such a short-lived exclusive that the following year he launched it publicly...
And cut into the modern classic that is Angel, commissioned to smell like the "the caramel scent of sugared apples, the sugary notes of candy floss and the smell of the fun fair" by Strasbourg-born Thierry Mugler. (You can read an interesting article brought to my attention on the gourmand scents mentioning this byclicking here).
Or even the references made by consumers when they talk about a favourite or just plain hip of-the-moment perfume they have fallen for: Remember how Madona in the mid-90s talked about how she chose Fracas, among many others, because it reminded her of her dearly beloved mother who used to wear it, just when the whole chic crowd was rediscovering this forgotten classic and had similar stories to recount?
Perfume needs a tale behind it to sell, it seems. Every single one of the classics has a tale behind it. Every single one of those tales has some element of fantasy. It has to, because perfume seems to be aspirational: people want to buy into a fairy tale, an illusion, a flight of fancy that would make them feel happier, more elegant, more glamorous, more alluring, certainly more attractive. At its basest level perfume is used as an element of attraction. There is an inordinate amount of questions on which perfume would draw in more people of the opposite sex on perfume fora. It practically pops up every day. It also makes column inches in advertorials and articles in the press, especially when it's time for the mega-launches before the Christmas season.
However, perfume also serves other purposes: it signals a certain persona behind it (and this is not used in the Bergman sense) that is projected through the use of something upscale as an emblem of wealth, societal status, taste and cultivation. This is the reason why when giving gifts of perfume of brands that are considered upscale the face of the recipient lights up significantly more than when presenting them with an equal -monetarily speaking- offering of an unknown brand. They feel like they "belong" and that they are validated when presented with said offering, same as when they whip up the credit card to do it themselves. And people mostly want to "belong".
A variation of the latter nevertheless is the undisciplined spirit of people who want to be perceived as breaking the mould, as forming their own individual fashions and opting for something that would set them apart. In a world that is crammed with people smelling the same, the olfactory ID of a different scent acts much like the shoulderpads of the 80s, creating a little distance and hauteur that allows people to mark their own territory. And this is where the ever expanding market of "niche" perfumes falls. Based on the premise that limited ditribution creates exclusivity and that limited advertising saves money for better-quality ingredients, accounting for a better effect, as well as some leeway of an artistic vision that is not as aysterely restrained by "suits" in marketing boards, niche brands opt to play the game by their own rules.
But that is not meant to imply that they do not engage in their own literature of fantasy. Ambre Sultan is supposed to have been inspired by lumps of vegetal amber found in Moroccan souks and served as an inspiration to Lutens to come up with a perfume that has become infamous due to its perceived naughty undertones that to some smell like lady bits. Or think how Annick Goutal reading "Memoirs of Hadrian" by M.Yourcenar envisioned the young philosopher emperor smelling like a crystalline mix of Sicilian lemons and cypress resulting in Eau d'Hadrien. Or yet the very romantic tale of Antonia Ballanca Mahoney recounting the story of her grandfather and a Sicilian song named Tiempe Passate (=time passes) that served as the inspiration behind the homonymous fragrance of austere cedar and powdery orris.
Are those new tales true? I guess it doesn't matter too much. And sceptical readers will have already drawn their conclusions. But it's nice while they last. In a pedantic world they help us dream a bit.
Pic is from the film "Lady in the water", a fairy tale about how fairy tales might help us; courtesy of athinorama.gr
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Orange Blossom week: part 2 - sexy aromas
What is it that links orange blossom to sexy aromas? Many of the interpretations of this note in perfumery take advantage of the naturally lush and sexual aroma of the blossoms and in our investigation of this subject we have come up against many interesting tidbits of information that might help elucidate why and how.
The use of perfume as an enhancement and not concealement of genitalia and hormone odours has been in practice till ancient times. It was the knowledgable ancient Egyptian women who used Kyphi rolled in miniscule balls, placed in the vulva. They also used amber mixes and civet. The Hindus also used the smell of female genitalia as a classification point for women, in which no one is left unappareciated. In Shakespeare's times it was common for men and women to offer apples to the object of their affection that had been saturated in the sweat of the armpit. That was meant to be a signification of desire and perhaps an early attempt at judging whether the prospective lover's pheromones would intermingle well with their sensibilities.
In the Memoirs of Casanova, we come across an observation that there is a hidden something in the air of a lover's bedroom that would make it very easy to choose between it and Heaven itself. So much is the infatuation that a beloved's body produces in the soul. And on that note who can forget the infamous epistle of Napoléon to Joséphine when he passionately wrote to her: "Je réviens en trois jours; ne te lave pas!" (I return in three days, don't wash yourself)
Anais Nin and Henry Miller were no strangers to the alchemical nature of the odorata sexualis of a lover that can be enhanced by perfume and Nin's personal choice of Caron's Narcisse Noir (a fragrance rich in orange blossom)and Guerlain's Mitsouko shows an appreciation for blends that enhance a person's natural sexual aroma. Beaudelaire, Flaubert (who kept the mittens of his mistress on a drawer for sniffing purposes), Goethe and Reiner Maria Rilke are also literature figures that occupied themselves with the fragrant nature of seduction.
Even in our more pedestrian times the allure of the erotic has been used to great effect in advertising. From Schocking by Schiaparelli to Ambre Sultan by Lutens to Boudoir by Westwood, many perfumes have claimed to capture in fragrant droplets the odorata sexualis of a woman for seduction purposes. Last olfactory example of this being Tom Ford' attempt at it when he proclaimed that his last fragrance Black Orchid was supposed to smell of a man's crotch. I think not, but hey, you have been warned!
Of course like a plethora of things in life much of the effect of something relies on context. Meaning that leaving youself unwashed would not shill your charms to potential lovers necessarily if some particular smell is not pleasant to them or the sweat is rank. It all has to do with delicate proportion and adjustment. In a fascinating experiment by Paul Jellineck, recounted in Essence and Alchemy, people had been asked to smell versions of well-known frags such as Quelques Fleurs by Houbigant and a traditional eau de Cologne with and without the addition of neroli. In the former case the neroli just mingled with the other floral substances adding a fresh note and balancing them, whereas in the latter it seemed sultry and rich and therefore erotically nuanced. This goes to show that although there is a clear cut path to lust and sexuality, eroticism in perfume as in any other area is complex and subtle, dependent on context and associations that need a delicate hand in placing them there.
So how orange blossom is linked to all these exciting observations? Let me shock you a bit in case you were unaware of the fact. Orange Blossom (as well as jasmine) is filled with the fascinating indole.
According to Encyclopedia Brittanica:
Indole, also called Benzopyrrole, is a heterocyclic organic compound occurring in some flower oils, such as jasmine and orange blossom, in coal tar, and in fecal matter. It is used in perfumery and in making tryptophan, an essential amino acid, and indoleacetic acid (heteroauxin), a hormone that promotes the development of roots in plant cuttings. First isolated in 1866, it has the molecular formula C8H7N.
It is this base ingredient that is so abundant in white florals -among them orange blossom to a moderate degree- that apparently gives a nod to the human aspect of our existence and reminds us of our primeval objects in life: to have sex and procreate. In this context it is no accident that orange blossom is traditionally used in wedding wreaths, as discussed yesterday.
Therefore if a catcall to carnality is your objective, yet you want to go about it more discreetly than resorting to civet (the pungent extract of the anal glands of a species of the Viverridae shaped like a small fox and native to Abysinnia, Java, Borneo, Sumatra and Bengal and farmed in Ethiopia for perfume purposes), orange blossom can be a Heaven sent destined to confine you in the abyss of Hell.
For this purpose there is no better choice than the rich, sultry, lush and totally feminine with a capital F Fleurs d'oranger by Serge Lutens. Luckily a part of the export line, but also available in a beautiful bell jar in the exclusive Palais Royal for Shiseido line of scents, it is the essence of classy sexiness captured in a bottle. Like a woman of mature wiles sitting under an orange grove contemplating serious romance and seduction it is multi-nuanced with precious essences of white jasmine and indian tuberose that enhance the indolic aspect to magnificent proportions, laced with the sprinkle of fiery spice like cumin and nutmeg rolled in tangy citrus peel, all the while exuding aromas of muskiness and floralncy in alrernative overlappings like the tongue of a skillful lover. The inclusion of rose and hibiscus seeds consolidates the velours aspect of a base that never really leaves the skin, reminding you of happy romance even after it is just a distant memory in the farthest corners of your mind.
Next post will tackle another aspect of orange blossom.
Art photography by Spyros Panayiotopoulos, courtesy of eikastikon.gr
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Continuing the saga: *what* future of perfumery???
I planned on writing up something about how the future of perfumery looks very grim indeed after so much arbitrary action has been taken to limit and restrict creativity for anyone concerned.
You might remember that it started long ago with oakmoss, a natural sunstance of which there is no equivalent synthetic to substitute, rendering a whole olfactory family, that of the chypres, obsolete and wimpering at its last throes of vintage life. After the loss of those vintages, nothing more...This had prompted me to write a lament for Mitsouko the brave. Maybe I was just being my usual passionate self.
But then the issue escalated and then escalated some more.
This has taken such a toll that even Chanel is issuing things in Les Exclusives line (more of which in review form later on) that smell nothing like chypre, yet they are being touted as being the best chypre in 30 years.
I don't know...I might be cynical. But is this what we are reduced to?
So today I came across this excellent article by Tony Burfield who is co-founder of Cropwatch ( a body who does some 'opposition' work for that 40th amendement IFRA of which I have talked about) and I think it's very worth reading.
Please do so here.
It seems as though we are being conditioned to believe that things are not what we see them plainly to be. A Magritte come alive.
I would be very interested in your comments.
Artwork by Rene Magritte "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (=this is not a pipe) courtesy of allposters.com
Sunday, February 11, 2007
The death of Mitsouko
And here we get official confirmation from Guerlain that the rich base of it has been irrevocably annihilated, substituting oakmoss with treemoss. Of course various slight reformulations have been performed along the way in at least the last 30 years, since Mitsouko comes from the mythical age of 1919, a farewell to the old world that got terminated in the throes of the Great War.
Inspired by a tragic tale in the first place, it is an Andromache mourning for her lost Hector, her injustly killed son Astyanax and her looming future in degraded slavery.
Read how she had forseen her future and her most touching goodbyes to her husband as described in Iliad here.
Mitsouko ,much like the above excerpt, is all the sad and proud things imagination can muster...
And although I have not compared with the new current version in rotation at shops, my heartstrings are aching for the loss of the scent that more than anything else signifies imminent tragedy, loss and hurt to me.
The following piece of music best represents the foreboding feeling I get when I utter the word Mitsouko. It's the second movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony (Allegretto) performed by conductor Charles Latshaw and his orchestra to perfection. Click here to experience the awe and wonder for the very last time, listening "to the exquisite music of that strange procession, and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing".
Artwork is by Jean Louis David "La Douleur et les Regrets d'Andromaque sur le corps d'Hector son mari" 1873, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
The death of Mitsouko
And here we get official confirmation from Guerlain that the rich base of it has been irrevocably annihilated, substituting oakmoss with treemoss. Of course various slight reformulations have been performed along the way in at least the last 30 years, since Mitsouko comes from the mythical age of 1919, a farewell to the old world that got terminated in the throes of the Great War.
Inspired by a tragic tale in the first place, it is an Andromache mourning for her lost Hector, her injustly killed son Astyanax and her looming future in degraded slavery.
Read how she had forseen her future and her most touching goodbyes to her husband as described in Iliad here.
Mitsouko ,much like the above excerpt, is all the sad and proud things imagination can muster...
And although I have not compared with the new current version in rotation at shops, my heartstrings are aching for the loss of the scent that more than anything else signifies imminent tragedy, loss and hurt to me.
The following piece of music best represents the foreboding feeling I get when I utter the word Mitsouko. It's the second movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony (Allegretto) performed by conductor Charles Latshaw and his orchestra to perfection. Click here to experience the awe and wonder for the very last time, listening "to the exquisite music of that strange procession, and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing".
Artwork is by Jean Louis David "La Douleur et les Regrets d'Andromaque sur le corps d'Hector son mari" 1873, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Rainy weather: Mitsouko time
What can one possibly say about this iconic perfume? What can one add to the tome upon tome of literature on the subject?
Everything has been analyzed over and over : how it was inspired by a literary Japanese heroine in 1919; how the bottle was the same as the one for L’heure bleue; how the aldehyde C14 in there replicates peach skin; how it is a scent implicated in sex under a different perspective than the one in the West; how it is mixed in tragedy, greatness and cinematic art; how the name doesn’t mean what Guerlain has been telling us after all…(you can see all that on my Mitsouko entry on my personal site Perfume Shrine, section "Perfume in literature and film", linked in index)
Sometimes great works of art ultimately lose if one describes them too extensively. They lose their mystique, their spirituality, their rapport with the hidden forces that make them so compelling in the first place.
So we won’t dissect Mitsouko here. We simply won’t. Just because.
We’ll just let ourselves feel the yearning and sense of loss it evokes and slowly whisper my favourite poem. (I'd like it to be on my tombstone)
The god forsakes Antony
When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them
uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to
her, the Alexandria that is leaving.Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears
deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one
long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who were given
this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion,
but not
with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen—your final
delectation—to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange
procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.
- by Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)
Translated from greek to english by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
Note for understanding the context: The poem refers to Plutarch's story that when Marc Antony was besieged in Alexandria by Octavian the night before the city fell into enemy hands, he heard an invisible troupe leaving the city. He heard the sounds of instruments and voices making their way through the city. Then, he passed out; the god Bacchus (Dionysus), Antony's protector, was deserting him.
If you want to read Constantinos Cavafy's poetry, click here. Plutarch's Parallel lives link here
Mitsouko entry on Perfume in literature and film: here
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