L'Artisan Parfumeur Mure et Musc: fragrance review

Berries are an especially pliant fruity note in perfumes; no less because a certain group of synthetic musks has a berry undertone. The classic Mûre et Musc by L'Artisan Parfumeur paved the way in as early as 1978. The passionfruit focus of Escada's own Chiffon Sorbet didn't come out of the blue either: Guerlain's Nahéma (1978) brought a saturated fruity mantle to the central rose lending sonorous timbre. 

 

The idea for using this fruit in fragrance was conceived by Jean Laporte, the founder of the small niche brand of the pioneering group of artisan perfumers of the 1970s, L'Artisan Parfumeur. His little wonder of innovation from 1978, Mûre et Musc, still seduces its audience just as much over 40 years later. Discreet and gentle, Mûre et Musc was almost hippy-ish in its innocent naivety. The fresh tanginess of citrus (comprised of lemon, orange, and mandarin with a hint of spicy basil) complements the blackberry, enhancing the sweetish trail with a musky base note that lingers for a very long time on skin and on clothes.

Flanked with raspberry ketone, blackcurrant bud, and Galaxolide (a clean smelling musk), this structure would be simple, direct, innocent, sweetish, and tart in equal degrees, and captivating to those harboring the same memories in their heart of hearts! He succeeded with Mure et Musc, a huge cult phenomenon which gave rise to a constellation of berry musks that took the market by storm and formed the springboard for many young girls to jump into the realm of fine fragrance.

But why did it become so special in people's minds that even drugstores came to order their own blackberry-musk mix for their not-especially sophisticated clientele? "Its cottony-fruity notes that melt flawlessly to the skin. It's a close-to-the-skin perfume, which brings people in," to quote Jean-Claude Ellena who oversaw the commemorative editions that reprised the theme decades later for the, now owned by a conglomerate, L'Artisan Parfumeur. The original's cute innocence and come-hither subtlety still beguile the young at heart.

 

 

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.