Guerlain Vol de Nuit: fragrance review and history

Roja Dove likes to narrate the tale of an American customer who came into a British shop opulently dressed in mink and diamons when Vol de Nuit was not available in Britain, and upon being offered by the sales assistant to try something else, she quipped "Honey, I didn't get where I got today wearing anything but Vol de Nuit and I am not changing for no-one!" Such is the emphatic loyalty Vol de Nuit produces in its admirers ~dame Diana Rigg, Katherine Hepburn and Barbara Streisand among them. I can very well understand why, because I have been securely caught in its web myself. Its haunting, powdery, almost skin-like quietude accounts for a rather sweet fragrance that caresses the senses much like the moody bass and saxophone in a smooth jazz piece. It is seductive despite itself ~in contrast to the calculating wiles of Shalimar~ peppered with the noble juxtaposition that a pressed shirt decorated with an art-deco jewel would evoke.

Guerlain followed their tradition of using evocative names inspired by famous personalities or stories (Eau Impériale for Empress Eugenie, Eau du Coq for French actor Coquelin of Syrano fame, Shalimar for the imperial gardens of Lahore, Mitsouko after Claude Farrere's protagonist in "La Bataille"; and much later Liù after Puccini's heroine in "Turandot" and Chamade after Sagan's novel). They chose "Vol de Nuit"/ Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, chief pilot of Aéropostale, French continent-to-continent mail operations company, and a combat pilot in World War I. Saint-Exupéry also wrote "Courier Sud"(Southern Mail) and "Terre des Hommes"(Wind, Sand and Stars) but was immortalised via the classic allegory "The Little Prince". A close friend of Jacques Guerlain, famous for his romantic conquests and very much read at the time, he disappeared in a reconnaissance flight during World War II (1944). His fate, eerily similar to Fabien's, the newly-wed protagonist of "Night Flight", a pilot on the airmail plane from Patagonia to Buenos Aires who is caught in a cyclone and dies while his wife Simone anxiously awaits signal atop the control tower, is shrouded in romantic mystery. Thus, two years after the publication of the novel, in 1933, Jacques Guerlain launched his fragrance by the same name.


The fragrance Vol de Nuit, inspired by the brave early days of aviation, much like En Avion by Caron, or alternatively the ocean-liner named Normandie by Patou, they all coincided with the at once fascinating and perilous exploration of uncharted territories, exotically comparable to our contemporary exploration of the galaxy. And yet despite everything Vol de Nuit compared with En Avion or even Normandie is tamer than its whirwind name would suggest but none the less magisterial for it. Technically a woody oriental, yet with its pronounced opening green note it totters between an oriental and a chypre. Which is understandable if one considers that it was the first fragrance to make overuse of galbanum, thus influencing classics to follow such as Germain Cellier's Vent Vert, Paul Vacher's Miss Dior and Guy Robert's Chanel No.19. The other characteristic element in Vol de Nuit is jonquil absolute. The initial green rush of those two notes along with spice (a delectable touch of cinnamon, perhaps deriving from benzoin) follows a swift diminuendo into delicate flowers similar to those that appear as if pressed between the pages of a stranger's antique journal in the heart of Chant d'Aromes. The ambience of that floral hug is softly-spoken, refined and gentle ceding to a haunting drydown of woody musky nuances, with the characteristic ambery-vanilla-orris-coumarin sweetness that comprises the tradition of Guerlain (the Guerlinade). The original composition contained costus oil, but today that ingredient is restricted, therefore synthetic approximations by IFF are used. That powdery, discreetly smoky phase resembles the quiet plush of Habit Rouge (the masculine version of Shalimar ) laced with the slight wistfulness over a wise advice that you just didn't follow...

Notes for Guerlain Vol de Nuit:
Top: orange, bergamot, lemon, mandarin, petitgrain, galbanum, sage, aldehydes
Heart: violet, rosewood, palmarosa, jasmine, jonquil/daffodil, pimento
Base: Vanilla, benzoin, Peru balsam, musk, cedarwood, orris, tonka bean, oakmoss, agarwood, sandalwood, vetiver, ambergris, castoreum.

Originally the Vol de Nuit flacon was designed with a front that represented an airplane's propeller at the time when Air France was born and air-travel held the lure of adventure. The name is cut out of a circle of gold metal suggesting the propeller belt. The outer box was conceived to look zebra-stripped to denote the fascination with exotic travelling and Africa, the wild continent.

Later on the flacon followed the almost vase-shape of other Guerlain scents. In the '80s and '90s a refill was made in plain glass for the classic gold Habit de Fete canisters. The parfum circulates in the squat short flacon with the quadrilobe stopper that still holds Jicky and Nahéma in extrait de parfum. The French Air Force Collge orders bottles of Vol de Nuit to be emblazoned with their emblem so that their cadets can offer as gifts when officially visiting abroad. There even was a talc product aromatized with Vol de Nuit which I hope I could come across one day.

The parfum concentration in Vol de Nuit is eminently nobler, yet the Eau de Toilette especially in vintage versions is very satisfactory and rich. It is incidentally one of the Guerlain fragrances where the newer batches have not the pillaged air other thoughroughbreds have suffered, although it lasts somewhat shorter, perhaps because under LVMH supervision all the animalics have been replaced with synthesized versions to comply with current ethical concerns (as is the case in all Guerlain fragrances).
NB: Not to be confused with the recent introduction of Vol de Nuit Evasion (2007) which is in fact an eau de toilette concentration of Guerlain's Guet Apens/ Attrape Coeur (more on which subsequently).

Vol de Nuit is available from Guerlain counters although not all of them carry it and if they do it might be tucked back behind the countertop. Ask for it!

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Guerlain series.

Pics through euart, ebay, parfum de pub.

A perfume for Sirens

It is perhaps in tune with upcoming Valentine's day and therefore despite the fact that Perfume Shrine doesn't usually go the fluff celebrity way, we couldn't disregard this opportunity to discuss someone who has been in the public eye lately and has a taste for perfume as well.
Yes, Carla Bruni has married French president Nicolas Sarkozy; and who would have thought it too probable?
But love or infatuation has its ways and one cannot argue with the heart. In the case of Bruni, it is not the first time and one might argue it won't be the last. But let's not be a Cassandra like The Independent posed to be for the happy couple and wish them the best of luck and that they have fun; people in love or lust deserve as much.

I admit that Carla's musical odyssey had never entered my consiousness and she had remained the quintessential supermodel-breaker-of-famous-hearts in my mind. An Elizabeth Taylor of serial tabloid romances. Where to begin? Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Kevin Costner, Donald Trump, Vincent Perez, Laurent Fabius, the Enthoven father and son... But who can blame her? She has made it clear and brava for her candour:

"I'm monogamous from time to time, but I prefer polygamy and polyandry."

Who can blame her? Her choice, her right, her decision.

When I read in the above article that

"Even when I was having my hair and make-up done backstage at a fashion show, I would sneak in a copy of Dostoevsky and read it inside a copy of Elle or Vogue"

I had to pause though.:Why reveal this now, when such a practice necessitated covering it up when posing for the designers' clothes and fragrances? Are politicos over her to sound a certain way?

Heir to one of the wealthiest families of northern Italy, thanks to their tyres business, the Bruni Tedeschis ~by the way, the second surname could denote a German streak in the family~ and with a sister, Valeria,who is an acclaimed actress, Carla Bruni has been implicated in perfume both in her role of ambassador of image for designers' fare and through her personal choices.

Famously she has been the public face of Ysatis, the soaring chyprish floriental by Givenchy, a fragrance that sings a beautiful motet in unison like a small choir. I recall it being advertised with a memorable rhyming line in its Greek campaign which unfortunately cannot be translated to comparable effect; suffice to say that it invoced that once you smelled the woman wearing it you would seek her out...

Her own perfume choices range from the sophisticated, divine Vol de Nuit extrait de parfum by Guerlain as her signature to the more prosaic Versus by Versace.
One would think that her quote below is reflecting the feeling that Vol de Nuit in particular evokes in the psyche of its wearer:

"Desire is not very precise in my case, so I never choose. The one thing all the men I've loved have in common is a strong feminine side. I find feminine men very virile and macho men very fragile. Machismo is a defence mechanism."

The mysterious Guerlain could therefore be an eminent choice for the siren who seduces men possessing a feminine side, as she herself revels in the androgynous facets under the more traditionally femme guiles of this amazing, dual-faced fragrance.

Could that be her femme fatale secret and not the great bum to accompany the Terminator smile and the Dostoevsky intellect? One would love to suppose so...

Pic of Bruni from sportaction.gr, Ysatis and Vol de Nuit ads from parfumdepub.

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...

Shalimar for a raven-haired seductress


Mitsouko for a redhead introspect

L'heure bleue for a wistful, enigmatic dark blonde

Jicky for a dynamic, sizzling blonde



and finally, the pièce de resistance:
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