The new Rumeur by Lanvin: Fragrance review & history

When the old becomes new again we may be witnessing Gaudí's "Sagrada Familia" or "Le Tombeau de Couperin" by Ravel.
What I mean: it’s not necessarily a bad thing! Enter the re-orchastration of Rumeur by the house of Lanvin which is both rather pretty and completely different than the somptuous vintage formula.

Jeanne Lanvin was originally a milliner that came to design clothes for her daughter and her friends’ daughters, establishing a salon that finally catered for adults just before World War I. Soon the salon became an entity of its own, continuing the tradition till today under the creative baguette of young designer Albert Elbaz.
It is however the perfume spectrum of Lanvin that has not survived that well over the years and that is assuredly a pity.

Jeanne Lanvin had a mysterious personage named Madame Zed (doesn’t she sound like a Graham Greene novel set in post-war Vienna?), an elderly Russian, creating perfumes for her, the last of which was the legendary My Sin, a very successful triumph. After that it was André Fraysse who was hired as house perfumer in 1924, segueing on to create what was termed by another great nose (Edmond Roudnitska) “the most spectacular tetralogy in perfumery”: Arpège in 1927, Scandale in 1931, Rumeur in 1932 and Prétexte in 1937. Sadly, only Arpège with its sonorous musical name still circulates on perfume counters today (after some adventures in formulaic changes, but happily restored to its original glory finally), as the world is fickle and tastes change, it seems. It might have to do with the fact that the perfume department of the house was sold to L’oréal conglomerate, too. (But you’d call me leftist if I insisted and I wouldn’t want you to do that). In any case, Arpège saw a flanker on its tail in recent years, éclat de Arpège, a pleasant, lilac -coloured, fruity floral that coincided with the latest olfactory trends, but bore no relation to the rich tradition of the house.

And then, just like that, last year saw the re-emergence of the old glory of Rumeur. Or was it but a specter of its old self?
Certainly the new version bears no olfactory relation to the old one’s dark chypre trail of fruity nuances on a dark mossy bed of plush. Those were times when such things were appreciated. By today’s standards and due to the eclipse of oakmoss from perfume formulae the vintage Rumeur is intoxicating and very perfumey; although by no means unwearable or outdated. Still, the house needed a new perfume to boost its re-vamped image and the difficulty of obtaining rights for use of a new name, not to mention the brainstorming needed for the inspiration of a successful one, were stumbling blocks that eased the acceptance of an older name being stuck on a new product. This dampens our hopes of them ever re-issuing their older treasure, like for instance Guerlain did with their Sous le Vent, but rather continue on that path that Piguet led with Baghari. However, much like Baghari, the result in Rumeur’s case is not disappointing.

Conceived by Francis Kurkdjian , the talented perfumer who is responsible for among others Narciso for Her, Rose Barbare for the Guerlain art et matiere line, and Eau Noire for Dior, it has his familiar style of silky elegance that can never become cloying or childish. Retaining the mere sketch of a chypre composition as most new “pink chypres” do (the term was brilliantly coined by Ayala Moriel to denote the new chypres that lack an oakmoss base) it has the abstract powdery floral feel I have come to expect of this exciting new category of perfumes that come to the rescue after the avalanche of too many fruity florals and teeny bobber vanillic candysticks. It’s a welcome change and a subtly sensual trend I am quite willing to follow.

The new Rumeur begins on a subtle and fresh plane of aldehydes that support the exquisite florancy of pretty seringa, the family of which lilac is an offspring, and of quiet soft-petaled magnolia, like transparent veils of a white material on a soft feminine body illuminated by the afternoon sun. If you have been enamoured with the discreet sexiness of Narciso for Her especially in its superior eau de toilette version like I have, then you are sure to appreciate the loveliness such an effect produces in the new Rumeur. Although patchouli is listed in both scents you would be hard pressed to discern it as the whole effect is of a very sensual but abstract aroma that is hard to pinpoint.
There is subtle muskiness and sweetness that whispers come hither in a way that does not entirely do away with romantic sensibilities of yore. It culminates in a panorama of woody notes enriched with the depth of ambroxan lending projection and decent lasting power on skin and clothes.
On the whole, picture it as a silky rosy robe de chambre ready to shed its modesty with one fell sweep of the cute ribbon that anchors it to a supple waist and you’re there.

The bottle is quite pleasant to look at, a bit like the shape of Promesse by Cacharel, with a matte golden ring on the cap, from which I don’t advise you to hold it like the perversely smokey eyed and modernly coiffed model does in the printed advertisements. In my opinion there is a discrepancy between advertising image and actual scent in this one as the no doubt innovative clothes of the model do not reflect the prettiness and romanticism of the perfumed result. However in an aggressive society which reflects in the sexual arena as well, it is the visual rather than the olfactual that is predatory and mean. Happily the new Rumeur is neither.


Official notes for the reissued Rumeur by Lanvin: magnolia, white roses, jasmine sambac, seringa, orange blossom, lily of the valley, patchouli, musks, ambroxan.

Available from major department stores.

Top pic courtesy of cofe.ru, "My sin" ad from okadi, new ad for Rumeur from escentual.

Best of the next? What lies ahead

Today after last evening's festivities I did not have lots of time or energy to write a long review or an elaborate article. I did come by a new reportage on Osmoz though and thought you might find it interesting too, so I am in turn reporting it. After reading interviews of new fragrance designers and noses as varied as Marie Salamagne of Firmenich or Celline Ellena, daughter of Jean Claude, we come to the conclusion that they share one common feature: they are all young, upcoming, the future of perfumery. Reading about their way of thinking has a voyeristic thrill for me. Worth checking out here. You should click on the black and white pics that appear as a "banner" to read individual reviews.
If you want to see what the editors of Osmoz picked as best from the young perfumers' respective creations, you can jump right ahead here to see their selection of feminine and masculine new scents and take notes on what to try to smell next. Happy sniffing!

Pic comes from thriller film "Ils" courtesy of Athinorama

Alice in Wonderland: fragrance review

Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
`I don't much care where--' said Alice.
`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. `--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'

From "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll



When passion for perfume meets a fertile imagination you can bet you’re about to see how deep the Rabbit hole goes. The literary association is completely relevant in the case of German based Konstantin Mihov’s Alice in Wonderland, a new ultra niche scent inspired by the immortal tale of Lewis Carroll and its flights of fancy into the world of surreal and grotesque and the first to come out of his line "Parfums d’imperfiction" (what a great name, combining imperfection with fiction!!)

Although the brilliant concept would predispose someone of an experience of really weird Magritte-like emanations that -as if they were fairies or genies- would escape their container to wreck havoc and mayhem, Alice in Wonderland is really meant to give us a glimpse only of the strange world and not a full-on vista.
Indeed, apart from the beginning which I personally thought was the weaker part of the creation with its curiously “blunt” gasoline Artemisia note that was not sour or bitter as expected from that sort of ingredient, the core of the fragrance is a fantasia of glorious violet that is never cloying or oversweet managing to convey a feeling of playfulness.
The top however is completely intentional as Konstantin reveals, meant to evoke a different experience of sipping mint tea without any sweetners.

Alice is an inquisitive little girl and her attitude is in many ways redolent of a curious nature eager to get to the heart of things. By the same token, young Konstantin has been delving in fragrance-making for quite some time, 7 years to be exact, even before his psychology studies at the University, exploring the building blocks of perfumery and combining the forces of natural essences with aroma chemicals to produce scents that would be inspired by his visions and memories.

Alice in Wonderland starts on bitter Artemisia with its tea-like drydown rather dulled and then mingles the herbal aspect of a cooling minty essence and some lavender (I think) with that most curious of perfume notes, violet. Now, that is an aroma that has two basic permutations: the sweet candied school of Guerlain’s Insolence or Malle’s Lipstick Rose (in the later married to rose) or the greener, drier verdancy of Jolie Madame and Ayala Moriel’s Viola. Violets have been making a comeback in recent years after a long absence in which they were considered old-fashioned and obsolete. I consider this a good sign.
Here the violet note tends to go for the sweeter path aided by some vanillic/ hay accord, but it does not go full force in that direction. Rather tentatively it explores the crystalline aspect of it, remaining a little cool but not aloof. Alice also does not powder herself profusely, as she is only a little girl; ergo the perfume is not using that element to achieve dryness and distanced sophistication but remains light hearted.
Konstantin divulged that his violet notes come in fact from synthetic ionones (gamma-methylionone, alpha-ionone), and not from orris root combined with something as I suspected at first (probably due to carrot seed essence). In fact Konstantin impressed me and revealed in one fell swoop his confidence when he revealed actual ingredients of the composition and not mere notes. Not what your average perfumer does and all the more power to him for doing so!
The absence of artificial colouring, glycerins and preservatives is also a plus.

The virtue of the composition lies in the interchange of the herbal and floral and their beautiful dialogue. The base does not differ much from the core and the theme of the perfume echoes like a leitmotif throughout, perhaps underscored by some restrained and austere wood as a backdrop to the mischievous protagonist much like the second characters in the fairy tale.
The lasting power of Alice in Wonderland is good for this kind of scent and the character of the perfume exploring masculine and feminine sides of the same idea makes it suitable for both sexes, if they feel a little adventurous and not firmly type-cast in predestined societal roles.

Last but not least, Konstantin uses his own bold and romantic handwriting on the labels of the apothecary style bottles, in heavy black ink, accounting for a visually very pleasing product.
I wish him many successful fragrant endeavours in the future!

A 50ml/1.7oz bottle of eau de toilette costs 28 euros on Konstantin's own site. Shipping per bottle varies depending on destination - to a European destination, it is 4 euros and to overseas destination, it is 8 euros.
SAMPLES: samples can be ordered at the price of 5 euro which includes shipping anywhere (the samples are 2-3 ml non-spray vials), through email containing a shipping address which will be answered with a Paypal invoice.
Visit his site here
Feel free to email him if you have any questions, requests, or concerns: konstantin.mihov@gmail.com

ADDED: You can also now get your bottle or sample at First-in-Fragrance/ Aus liebe zum duft.com


Top pic artwork by Arthur Rackham 1907 courtesy of bedtime-story.com. Bottle pic courtesy of Konstantin Mihov.

The death of Mitsouko

Those who have followed Perfume Shrine since it started on a previous host know that I have talked about what Mitsouko means to me. How my own words cannot convey what it stirs in my soul.

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.

Glorious stink

The ebb and flow of human taste and its modus operandi is an undecipherable commodity. What is considered appealing and desirable and what is not doesn’t obey any quantitative measure. Which of course accounts for trends, market research and lost fortunes in wrong assumptions side by side with the successful lucky guesses.
The same applies to smell and fragrance. More pointedly so when the aromas emanating from someone are of a more intimate nature.

Ever since the dawn of humanity homo sapiens has shared the biological fate of his ancestors in the olfactory field. His sense of smell has primarily directed him to opt for the healthy game and fresh produce and avoid the stale and rotten. It is also possible that it has directed him via odorata sexualis to suitable mates through which procreation might be consummated with the imperceptible help of pheromones, aroma materials that are emanated by individuals to attract. For millennia man has been content to do just that.

And then civilization came into the picture. In the great civilizations of antiquity such as Egypt, Greece and Rome, the desire to distance oneself from the animal nature and embrace the humane, as manifested in science, philosophy and the arts, has made man take measures as to maintain a level of cleanliness that is beyond the mere necessity of survival. All those civilizations have been very hygienic indeed, if we take into mind that there was no running hot water and no bubble baths in a million permutations.
Yet Herodotus talks about how the ancient Egyptians of his time bathed regularly shaving their body hair and even their scalps as to not let perspiration nestle in intimate parts of the body and fester bacteria (OK, he did not use the word bacteria precisely). How they had inward lavatories for their needs and how they took pains to maintain hygiene there. How they used sweet scented oils and incense to accompany the dead to their last dwelling place on earth.
The Greeks were by no means less clean. They too -living in a warm climate- had been taking regular baths using silver and golden basins followed by massage with aromatic oils of thyme and basil at every possible occasion, cleaning their clothes in the rivers with ash and aromatic herbs as described in the Odyssey and equating hygiene with sanity and longevity. Numerous are the mythological tales of gods and goddesses taking baths while mortals gazed hidden. It was Galenos who invented the first bar of soap mixing crushed flower petals, olive oil and ash from burnt logwood.
Ancient Rome was the apex of public baths, in which people of all ages intermingled and talked about state matters in elaborate buildings divided in unctuarium (where they chose the unguents with which they would groom themselves), the frigidarium (cold bath) and the caldarium (hot bath) and then on to the labrum for the final cold shower.
Even lavender that clean smelling herb is named after the roman word for bathing, because of its ubiquitous use.
The tradition of the bath as a civilization index is no more apparent that in Tacitus’ opus Germania where he mentions with some disdain that Germanians, considered barbarians at the time, bathed in rivers. At least they did bathe! Which is more than can be said for the squalor and filth in which Medieval Europe lived for centuries after the fall of Rome.

While Islam reveled in the luxuries of bathing (aided by the religious prerequisite to clean one’s head, hands and feet before every prayer, a phenomenon that occurs with frequent regularity throughout the day), western Europe inaugurated a practice of not washing up one’s body at all, for which the church can be found to be a great culprit.
Maintaining that mixed baths (as were previously tentatively explored) were corrupting the soul and that tending to one’s genitals might lead to impure thoughts, they condoned the absence of bath as a means of chastity while at the same time they traditionally equated holiness with the sweet smell of myrrh and incense. How those two could co-exist is beyond me, but this is not the only paradox one comes up against if one explores the matter further.

It was as late as 1750 according to Alain Corbin and his book “Le Miasme and la Jonquile”, which explores the adventure of sanitation and the desodorisation of society, that the élite chose to distance itself from the foul stench of the gutters and disease that were abundant in the crowded -by then- cities of France. A taste for the aroma of deer musk or of catty civet and of pure country air mingled in what was to become the height of French perfumery. The impression of cleanliness underscored by the reminder that we are all human, full of smells that could be perceived as disgusting in their pure state.
However perfumes seemed to be necessary still to repel the germs and bacteria through their cleansing properties as the tradition of filth continued, albeit a bit subdued: at least the clothes were as freshly clean as possible.
Louis XIV was said to have only bathed two times in his whole long life despite asking his guests and courtesans to wear a different perfume every day and the mere thought disgusts us today, earning a reputation of filth for Frenchmen which sadly has not been totally shifted if I judge by the miniscule pieces of sanitary paper that come out - one at a time!!- through the automatic devices at French toilets today.
On the other hand there was also an allure of the animalic and forbidden in similar practices when Napoleon infamously wrote to Josephine: “Je reviens en trois jours; ne te laves pas!” (I return in three days; don’t wash yourself).
The pair of them began a vogue for heavier smells as Josephine was madly in love with the smell of musk, to the point that her boudoir at Malmaison still has an aura of the aromatic essence present. Napoleon on the other hand preferred her in violets.

The Victorian age reveled in pure and simple smells as a contrast to the more decadent Empire style, using single floral waters (soliflores) for men and women alike. But it was the Puritans more than anyone else that began the hysteria for cleanliness with their desire to eliminate all traces of animalic tendencies from man. Sadly this is an insurmountable task, as the human body has to produce bile and bacteria to break down food which accounts for a smell that cannot be completely eradicated however hard one tries.
Indoor plumbing and hot water at the click of a button made taking baths an easy and swift procedure that is as an automatic reflex for today’s men and women as brushing one’s teeth. Technological progressions made the manufacture of industrial strength deodorants to put under one’s armpits as a necessity of every day life that is a god sent if you’re ever stuck up in a crowded underground wagon on a hot day of August. Perfumed products in an array of mind arresting variety are manufactured to lure as in and buy more, more, more…

And yet in all that progress we seem to have lost what has once been ours in ancient years: the conjugation of mind and body, the clean with the human.
The examples of complete perfume bans in offices in latter days, the denial of the sensual and natural in favour of the sanitized and deodorized has permeated every single aspect of today’s life. Everything around us is artificially scented with a chemical aroma that defies every law of nature. We scrub fanatically to remove any trace of human smell from our bodies and then we apply perfumed products that would supposedly give us back what nature intended to give us in order to attract a mate. We seek to find “clean” but at the same time “sexy” smells. Above all we do not want to offend. Being accused of smelling of body odour is the height of mortification for anyone beyond infancy. (since kids do not really “smell”; there have to be sexual hormones at play to do that…)
In an overcrowded planet that has no room for any more bodies, this was to be expected.
And this is what accounts for the recent resurgence of perfumes that aim to regress in the stink and funk of our human condition: from the goat-y magnificence of Muscs Kublai Khan by enfant gaté Serge Lutens to the dirty smell of Kiehl’s Musk eau de toilette and from the soft caress of a slightly sweaty body that has been active in human activities of L’air de rien by Miller Harris (with the collaboration of Jane Birkin) to the gimmicky Sécretions magnifiques by état libre d’Orange which recalls semen and blood (sounds the recipe for some tabloid article)…

It is clear that one yearns for what one is denied of. And the reason why isn’t very hard to see.


Artwork by Patric Boivine for CGnetworks.com