Bourjois Kobako: fragrance review

Kobako means "small box" in Japanese, as far as I know. But try adding a katana-blade symbol over the first "o," and it turns into Kōbako. Then it gains the nuance of a small box for solid aromatics used in the incense ceremony in kōdō (香道, "Way of Incense"); the ritual burning of incense to count the time. Such is the case with Kobako by the classic French brand Bourjois. 

A composition that initially hails from 1936 and the creative genius of perfumer Ernest Beaux, but which survives to this day in a contemporary Parfum de Toilette version that was first issued during the 1980s in the cristal taillé style bottle and the maroon box photographed below. The actual launch date for the modern version is 1982, and I doubt that the two editions have much in common, both stylistically and artistically. There was too much water under the bridge by then.

photo by Elena Vosnaki

It's interesting to note that one of the connotations for the word 'box' is the one used in slang, in many languages, for female genitalia. Indeed, again as far as I have been informed, kōbako in modern Japanese slang refers to that as well. But the scent in question is not an animalic or intimate smell that would polarize at all. In fact, it's this discrepancy that prompted my review.

The current fomula is not the one from the 1930s, so the description pertains to the 1980s mix. 

The domineering feeling is one of soap, like an old-fashioned soap for men, with cinnamon and sandalwood, and that creamy feeling that generations past associate with comfort and hot water. The florals used in the heart of Kobako are not discernible; they mix and mingle and tear apart again. There is definitely rose, which mollifies the formula, and probably a segment of something white-floral for a bit of clarity (possibly a part of lily of the valley aroma chemicals to give diffusion and expansion.)

Kobako combines these elements in a naughty, playful, almost haphazard way - the masculine backdrop with the feminine florals and the aldehydes - to render a juxtaposing composition. It hides its dark corners, but it's not entirely clean either. It has the versatility to make itself wearable all year long and never bother or disappear.

It feels fresh and spicy one minute, metallic and powdery the next, with a segment of dry patchouli in the back. What is this scent, I ask you? It consistently garners some comment or other, always in a positive way. It might not be the most accepted fragrance or the most derided - it hinges on that razor-sharp axis - but it's worth sampling at the very least. Some of you will end up wearing it when you won't know what to wear for the day, I promise.

The woody element in the back and the soapiness render Bourjois' Kobako very easy on the skin. There is not enough spice, although cinnamon is mentioned. I do not detect it as such, more of a smidge of clove, which is faint. It's also quite musky, in a good way, not the screechy white musk from laundry detergents, but not dirty either. It just melds with the skin and holds on to it.

In memoriam: Thierry Mugler (1948-2022)

 Fashion designer Thierry Mugler passed away on January 23rd 2022 as announced on the designer's Instagram account. 

Although he had distanced himself from designing for many years, earned profits from his rights into several products bearing his brand, from sunglasses to Mugler fragrances, and he had completely transformed himself into the hybrid bodybuilder Manfred for a couple of decades now. His face, unrecognisable after several plastic surgeries gone amok, draws a tear from those of us who recall his earlier, smashing work as a young and promising designer in late 1980s and early 1990s Paris.

 

Lean and dynamic, fueled by a relentless energy and a penchant for Amazonian beauties, Mugler put a certain pizazz on the catwalk, promoted drag-queens and pop idols, and made Nadja Auermann an icon in his razor cut, big-shouldered suits and metal bustiers. Much like Helmut Newton, he seemed to really appreciate the power of women.

 I recall it was a real shock when fashion and style discussion boards flooded in the mid-2000s with pictures of him, shot in front of a mirror, stark naked and in slippers (of all things!) posing as a human transformer, all muscle and perverted features. The word was Manfred. We circulated the picture from email account to email account with jaws dropped at the damage he -seemed to have- inflicted on himself. He had retired from designing by then and sold his brand to Clarins in 1997, which was the luxury Group who collaborated with him in the first place to produce his seminal fragrances. Now we know better than to judge or body-shame. Thierry obviously needed the Manfred persona at that point in his life.

 

His seminal project for Angel eau de parfum was life-changing for the industry.  His other perfumes – Cologne, Alien, A*Men, Womanity, and perfume projects such as work with Tom Tykwer for the movie Perfume, and the Mirror Mirror collection were exception contributions to the art of perfumery.

Now that Thierry Mugler is dead, and his brand has changed hands from the original creators of his classics, it's time to reflect and honor that which he has given us. The propensity for boldness, the trust in ourselves not to fear. The confidence to wear what we please. And the realization that even ugliness at times can have a beatific effect in our lives.

Please read my dedicated article on Fragrantica.com 

RIP sweet prince, transported to a big galactic star in blue... 

In Memoriam: Gaspard Ulliel

 The actor who is best known to perfume lovers thanks to fronting the advertising campaign for Bleu de Chanel is no more. The star of many films, including an Yves Saint Laurent biopic (named Saint Laurent, an excellent casting choice!), Sibyl (2019) and Un Long Dimanche des Fiancailles (2004), Gaspard will be missed.

 

His life's thread was cut at the untimely and early age of 37 at a skiing accident. The claustrophobic atmosphere of the commercial for Chanel seems foreshadowing now.

 

Cast a thought for his ethereal and sophisticated beauty that will haunt our perfume bottles to their end. "For the man without limits". How ironically, tragically apt.

Fragrance Tendencies for 2022: The Perfume Shrine Forecast

 The new year opens before us with the world of perfumes reflecting everything that concerns us in the rest of pop culture. From the world of woke to environmental consciousness and artificial intelligence, 2022 is set to be an exciting year. Let's go examine these tendencies in fragrance for 2022 one by one.

 

Reclaiming the Name of the Rose

Perfumes with rose work slightly like the classic trench coat in beige gabardine in our closet, or a brit pop song in a department store with youthful products. They brighten the mood with their easy reception even by novices, their purity of intentions, their classicism in structure. This year, creators and companies, mainstream and niche, are reinventing the rose.

 Tom Ford leads with 3 suggestions that follow last year's Rose Prick, this time with geographical inspiration: Rose D'Amalfi, Rose de Chine, and Rose de Russie are released in February 2022, before Valentine, as part of the new Tom Ford Private Rose Garden collection. Red and rose and for Armani with the new Sì Passione l'Εclat de Parfum, with the bright Cate Blanchet as the muse of the campaign again. As with Lancôme with La Nuit Trésor Intense L’Eau de Parfum (what a mouthful, have your smartphone at the ready to show to sales assistants).

 Digital Anamorphs

When marketing perfume, we often tend to resort to ancient techniques - things that are collected and processed by hand. In the actual industry, however, this is definitely not the case. Fragrances by large and small houses incorporate sophisticated ingredients of human laboratory preparation and advanced industrial sophistication technologies. Headspace was one, a popular technique first used in Antonia's Flowers, that captures the smell of things, and then recreates them in the lab as innovative arrangements. 

Nowadays technologies such as artificial intelligence are used to compose perfumes. In 2021 there was even an all-digital fragrance created as a non-exchangeable work (NFT)! The launch of Paco Rabanne Phantom in late 2021,  with its cute robot-shaped bottle, let consumers use their smartphone to tap on its head to create a digital experience.  

The composition of Paco Rabanne Phantom on the other hand is entirely created by artificial intelligence (AI) and this is going to be used more and more in industrial size perfumery. Digital interactive bottles and perfumes created entirely from artificial intelligence will continue to pierce our minds and noses. In 2022 and beyond. 

 

More art + perfume go hand in hand 

 

Arpa (sounds like harpe in Greek…) is a new multi-platform brand by perfumer Barnabé Fillion. It combines aroma, music, architecture and images in a complete experience of all the senses. Coupling that is becoming an increasingly strong trend. In November 2021, Arpa was officially released at the Dover Street Parfums Market and the final collection did not disappoint our high expectations. 

 

At Arpa, Fillion reunites with many of its former partners, drawing on different talents to create accompanying pieces for the brand's perfumes. These include a series of sculptures and records that are combined with scents, such as Anicka Yi and the French DJ Pilooski. The graphics were designed by the heavyweight Nathalie du Pasquier of the Memphis Group, while an office space was designed by the architect of the Australian firm Aesop, Jean-Philippe Bonnefoi. Meanwhile, limited edition bottles have been hand-crafted by glassmaker Jochen Holz.

 

 

Chinese Tips for Chanel

As part of its approach to China's always-aimed-at market, this dormant luxury consumer giant, Chanel with a distinctive eco-friendly approach creates recyclable, bio-sustainable products in a new line of cosmetics, makeup and grooming products called Chanel No.1

 

The collection with the camellia logo bears the symbol of the flower in red, just in anticipation of the Chinese New Year (the so-called Lunar Year) and with the expected lightness in the fragrances. For Chanel No.1 L'Eau Rouge, perfumer Olivier Polge explained: "This aromatic spray with a composition of 97% natural ingredients, can be used in combination with another product of the house or alone". 

The composition ends with a drying down of iris and clean musks for a slightly powdery feeling of cleanliness.

 

  Hot air? Not exactly.

 This is not the first time that pure air has been packaged in bottles for consumers with a sense of humor. The Air de Montcuq was a first attempt: Montcuq is a French village, but the headphones bring a bit of "air from our butt" - the smell happily reminiscent of ethereal mountain scenery and freshness.

 Air Eau de Parfum by The Air Company is a sexless fragrance composed of carbon dioxide, which binds at its source. To do this, the brand produces hydrogen which is fed to the patented carbon conversion reactor along with CO2. The resulting reaction converts hydrogen and CO2 into ethanol, methanol and impurity-free water, which form the body of the perfume. Then, the Air Eau de Parfum preparation ends with light aromatic notes, such as orange peel, jasmine, violet and tobacco - so as not to deviate from the aromatic parameter.

 

 

Eco-consciousness will flourish 

Starting with Rochas and their Rochas Girl, lots of companies, not only Chanel above, put an emphasis on eco-consciousness, sustainability and green imprint. 

Fashion brand Chloé has even issued a sort of manifesto on their website. "We intend to become a force for positive change beyond the Chloé workplace by working with our main suppliers to promote and further our standards while ensuring transparency. Based on our environmental impact research, we learned that our biggest impact comes from raw materials. This has prompted us to work with external experts to identify lower impact materials. We are focused on increasing their proportion such that we can reach 90% by 2025 at the latest. Consequently, this will contribute to our target of reducing emissions by 25% per product."

This is reflected in both their Chloé Eau de Parfum Naturelle and their newest, just launched Nomade Eau de Parfum Naturelle, fronted by Naomi Scott.  

We will continue to see this trend gaining momentum throughout 2022 and beyond.  

 

Three Case Studies from 2021 Mapping the Way into 2022: Fragrance Market Cues

 Apart from the pandemic, which made 2021 a very hard year to test out fragrances in physical stores, since testers were removed, there were three significant signposts that pertain to the fragrance market at large and which dictate how 2022 and the coming years will flow. 

 

DIOR & SAUVAGE: Ads and Representation

When the ads for the men's Sauvage Parfum with Johnny Depp first hit the scnreen with images of the wild American countryside, and descendants of Native Americans dancing ritualistically in late 2019, I remember thinking "the only thing worthwhile about this synthetic swirl whichpasses for perfume is its advertisement ”. Being a true harbinger of failure, the ad was harshly hailed as cultural appropriation.

Having no shares in Dior, or in the monstrous behemoth of LVMH to which it belongs, I find that it is one of the few times that the audience proved to be less informed than the house. The counselors of the house had done a thorough research, in order to be completely respectful of the context towards the minorities of the natives. They even named the native people who participated in the project. However, the French connection of sauvage with silk fabrics with a weave anomaly, the most "irreconcilable", was completely lost in the Anglo-Saxon language. Thus in the collective unconscious, as is often the case, the conflation of the name sauvage (= savage) with the depiction of Native Americans, was the strike of death… Advertising was withdrawn in 2020. 

 

Dior exhibited quick reflexes for the main face of the campaign. Johnny Depp's cancellation apropos his trial with his ex wife, Amber Heard, was completed in 2021. And while the lawsuit, which Depp lost, concerned his own lawsuit against the British media for libel, in the public consciousness it was as if every charge against him had been proved. Acting as Pontius Pilate, Dior froze every ad with the old protagonist in 2021. Just 3 weeks ago Dior announced the replacement of the main person in the Sauvage campaigns with the French footballer Kylian Mbappé.

 

How the American public, which is targeted by designer brands, will identify with a person so French and especially with a footballer (a sport that is much less popular in the US than in the rest of the world) is an issue that obviously did not concern them. And the reason is simple. Sauvage sells itself, since its release in 2015, with the intensive promotion that has been given to it so far in stores. In other words, LVMH only cares to be considered politically correct, so as not to risk a second John Galliano controversy… For those who do not remember, Galliano was also (justifiably) fired by Dior when he had an unacceptable anti-Semitic outburst in a Parisian restaurant, which was broadcast extensively.

 

 

Billie Eilish's breasts and the vanilla of her dreams 

 

To say that the American pop singer is the pop phenomenon of the last 2-3 years is an understatement. Billie wrecks havoc on the Net, with her body image disorders, her exposure to porn from the age of 9, her loose clothes that seem to swallow her, and the viral photo shoot for Vogue with corsets. So she released her first perfume , like any self-respecting celebrity. Eilish by Billie Eilish, currently available in the US.

 

 The choice on the one hand of the scent, and on the other hand of the bottle for Eilish, arouses the interest of any student of pop culture. Regarding the actual scent, while one would expect a fragrance as subversive as the image of the young singer - a breath of fresh air in a hyper-sexualized environment that visually projects pop stars as concubines at the very least - is a predictable vanilla. The launch was accompanied by the usual claims that "Billie was dreaming of the vanilla she could not find and decided to make her own". (I swear, I've been hearing this exact tag line ever since Donna Karan introduced her own fashion house at the close of the 1980s-early 1990s). 

 

As for the perfume bottle, it represents a bust of her body, with her breasts overemphasized. The official version claims she personally chose this mold because she is very proud of this segment of her anatomy. Cool I'd say, self-emancipation! Only there's the catch that the company that oversees the perfume project, that is Parlux (who released the perfumes of Paris Hilton among others) probably wanted to compete on an equal footing with the independent brand of the Kardashian sisters, KKW (Kim Kardashian West, from when Kim was still married to Kanye). Said independent company released some very successful commercial perfumes under the KKW umbrella in the last 2-3 years, with bottle-molds made out of the trunk and infamous hips of Kim Kardashian…

 

100 Years of Solitude for Chanel No.5 

 

It sounds like an oxymoron, but it's really not. The most famous perfume of all time does abysmally in blind tests. Typically, when we give it to modern audiences to smell and evaluate it, without telling them what they smell, it is rated much lower than it's really worth. The perfume continues to be produced and sold, but not actually worn! Gifted, symbolically, totemically, but safe-kept… 

 

The Ψηανελ company, however, is very careful in maintaining the legend of Chanel No.5. With various screenings, revealing "reports" about his bottles on the nightstand of Marilyn Monroe (its most famous customer), and snippets in the history of its creation. 

Ernest Beaux, the perfumer of Chanel, actually envisioned his original formula one night in the Arctic Circle, in the ports of the soon-to-be Soviet Union. The generation of millennials and generation Z no longer finds contact points with it. 

 

 A friend, a critic and acclaimed author had said about it, “Chanel N ° 5 remained more wearable than most old perfumes, but it shows its age again. This is not an argument against him. In fact it is just the opposite. There is a royal correctness in N ° 5 that you will not find in a perfume of Comme des Garçons, and an extreme or boldness in Comme that you do not find in N ° 5. As long as you understand what you are communicating with either one or the other.”  

Modern audiences are familiar with vanilla (see Billie Eilish above) in thousands of variations and the soapy sophisticated profile of No.5 looks heavy, formal - and oh mon dieu "old lady"! (age racism for perfumes is the last bastion) This year's 100th anniversary for Chanel No.5 was therefore celebrated with a series of "collectible" body products and items (such as a water bottle and stickers!) called FACTORY NO.5 at stratospheric prices for what they offered… The highlight was Chanel's Advent Calendar, offered at a steep price, with some flimsy products (there were stickers again...), key chains and other such trinkets. The influencers were rampant with calling out Chanel on Tik Tok. And rightly so. For half the  price you could have gotten the advent calendars by Dior or YSL with normal useful products.

 

So corporate hypocrisy got a big churn during 2021. Fragrant market please beware of such phenomena in 2022.