Would you appreciate a fragrance that projected around the way knitting needles would stick inside your nostrils, the equivalent of a scent porcupine? The "needles up the nose" characterization has never found a more apt bond than the one spontaneously created in the mind of one perfume lover on the board of Perfume of Life years ago regarding
White Linen. The phrase has since entered the online perfume lingo as a casual but evocative definition for the painfully sharp, supremely stinging feeling that certain perfumes heavy in
aldehydes (i.e. synthesized molecules with a "bright", soapy and fizzy aspect), such as this particular Lauder perfume, produce in those who smell them.
White Linen is possibly among the most distinctly aldehydic floral fragrances of all time, an honor it shares with
Chanel No.22, but whereas
No.22 goes for the snuffed out candle waxiness and smokiness (which recalls incense if you glint your head just this way),
White Linen, its American counterpart and about 50 years its junior, goes for the steam of an iron pressing on a crisp, starched shirt which has been washed with the harshest lye soap on earth. In short, memorable! (You'd never mistake it for "
white noise fragrance")
White Linen was launched alongside
Lauder's Celadon and Pavilion in 1978 as part of the makeup and scents collection "New Romantics" (in itself influenced by the music trend that was just emerging). Composed by Sophia Grojsman,
White Linen bears her signature style of impressive cleanness projected via loudspeakers fit for a Guns n'Roses concert. For a Russian emigre Grojsman has acquired throughout her career a particularly American ideal of femininity, no doubt thanks to the exigencies of the American giant of aromatics who employs her, International Flavors and Fragrances; well scrubbed, athletic, spick & span, Athenian rather than Venereal.
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| 1993 print ad |
Coming on the heels of the
sporty leathery Azuree, the bitterish
chypre perfume Private Collection and the bright and
soapy-smelling aldehydic
Estee, it's not difficult to see how
White Linen also fits in the canon of Lauder and in the zeitgeist of the late 70s, when women began to make a career of executive positions and started in earnest to 'bring home the bacon, fry it in a pan' as one
commercial* of the times claimed.
Although ubiquitous and always in production since its launch, without any detectable changes in its formula, it's one of those fragrances that fly under the radar, so I am archiving
White Linen in my
Underrated Perfume Day feature. Its monolithic structure (built on huge single blocks of materials, much like later Grojsman oeuvres such as
Tresor by Lancome)
White Linen packs a punch.
But the
aldehydic knock-out comes with an astounding discovery: the
aldehydes contribute just 1% to the formula, with equal parts of Galaxolide (synthetic clean musk, garlanded by at least 3 other synth musks) and Vertofix (giving a cedar wood note) accounting for almost half of the ingredients! The secret is that unlike most other
aldehydic floral fragrances it lacks the modifying, mollifying caress of
bergamot and
ylang ylang.
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| late 1990s print ad |
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| 1986 print ad |
A fresh rose core, so fresh that it borders on cleaned-up orange blossom, bring a kinship of
White Linen to
Calandre, while the overall genealogy brings it as a modern classic that derives from
Madame Rochas and
Chanel No.5. The sheen of squeaky green
lily of the valley boosts the sharp cleanness, the sparkle of
hedione brings luminosity and
vetiver gives its own freshness and subtle woodiness alongside a powerful
amber note. The latter two elements give
White Linen a touch of sophistication which could tilt it into unisex territory.
White Linen is a powerful, titanic Aurora and although it is removed from what I (and many other people) find
comfortable, I can't fail but to admire its guts and its blinding brightness, white-washed like a house directly carved out of white volcanic rock in the Aegean.
*that's actually the slogan for Enjoli.
The advertising photos are all so charmingly appealing that I decided to include them all.
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| 1978 print ad |
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