Réglisse Noire (1000 Flowers) and Eau de Réglisse (Caron)
I have written before about my experience of anise/licorice notes and all the personal associations they hold for me. And though I've dabbled in many perfumes featuring licorice, I've never really felt as though I'd found the anisic ideal.
Eau de Réglisse is a good example of a near miss. It came to me as part of a Caron "pick five" decant sampler which included Aimez-Moi, Le Troisième Homme, Violette Précieuse, and that old standby Nuit de Noel. I found Eau de Réglisse's old-fashioned lemon-drop freshness enormously attractive, but the licorice promised by its name seemed more of a whisper than a fully-voiced statement. I wore it and took pleasure in it, but I can't deny the tinge of disappointment I felt... as pale as the tinge of licorice in the midst of all that lemon.
1000 Flowers' Réglisse Noire, on the other hand, is a licorice perfume, not a perfume-with-licorice-in-it. Here is réglisse at its most glistening and regal-- elevated like a jet obelisk upon a pedestal of cedar and spice. But it lifts off like a rocket and stays in orbit for hours, weightless and luscious. Nothing with this much verve could possibly go anywhere but vertical.
In every way, Eau de Réglisse pales in comparison to Réglisse Noire. It's less tenacious, definite, distinct-- but then, it's less licorice. In a competition for best limoncello perfume, it would do pretty well for itself. But here, there's no contest.
___________
Why wear Réglisse Noire? Because for something predicated on one of the world's stickiest and most dense confections, it's as sheer as voile and as cooling as the fine mist thrown off by an epic waterfall.
What does it do? Initially, it really, really, really makes me mourn for Callard & Bowser licorice toffees (oft-lamented now that they've been discontinued). But at some point, Réglisse Noire takes a subversive little turn into patchouli territory, landing on something akin to Lucien Lelong Tailspin, only sweeter and more transparent. Call this a triumph, for licorice and all its lovers.
How do I feel? Oh, so relaxed and composed in my veil of soft, anisic tranquility.
In her preface to Perfumes: The A-Z Guide, Tania Sanchez comments on the instinctive tendency of perfume consumers to opt out of scents that challenge our self-perceived identities. In her opinion, the risk-free road leads to boredom, "like obsessively matching your shirt and socks every day." To shake things up a bit, she suggests occasionally wearing the absolute opposite of what we think suits us.
I thought this was very sound advice, until I remembered that the absolute opposite of what I think suits me is a floral—any floral. Were I to accept this challenge, I’d have to find a flower I could commit to.
I found myself lured by Sanchez' take on Lalique's Flora Bella, a "sleepy little greenish violet" made interesting by icy notes of milk and helional. To a lifetime disciple of warm Spice Road orientals, Flora Bella sounded like one hell of a stretch. Yet I returned time and again to reread and ponder that oddly compelling description. The more I pondered its mystery, the more I had to experience it firsthand.
True to its icy nature, Flora Bella arrived during a snowstorm. I restrained myself from opening it immediately, figuring that if I'd married myself to this total stranger in haste, I might as well repent in leisure. But in the end, there’s only one way to test the concept of wedded bliss: get in bed.
Flora Bella’s opening -- an assertive chord of daphne and tuberose -- misled me initially into thinking this might turn out to be your regulation bridal bouquet. Then I became aware that these sweet floral notes were suspended in something crystal-clear and infinitely cold. It held them aloft and separate, preserving their scent without allowing it the slightest expansion. Flowers in an ice storm: merciless.
After an entr'acte of fresh cold cucumber and approaching snow, we launched into Scene Two: an extraordinary accord of heavy cream in a stainless steel bowl that has been placed in the freezer to chill before whipping. No extraneous flavors and very little sugar mar this milky, opalescent semifreddo. It only sweetens as it dries down, but in a taunting, deliberate sort of way-- retreating beyond your grasp even as your hunger for it grows.
Flora Bella is truly a lunar phenomenon, aloof and breathtakingly beautiful. Its glow is akin to the adularescence of moonstone, the satiny chatoyancy of polished selenite, or -- most appropriately -- the blue-gold-pink aura trapped within Lalique Sirènes glass. It stops you in your tracks like a long, cool stare from a beautiful stranger's eyes; it holds you at arm's length even as it penetrates your heart.
---------
It's been thirteen years since I wrote the above review. Yet it seems to me as though its main character has been a part of my mythical landscape for millenia. The love I bear for Flora Bella -- paired with my dependence upon its ability to neutralize all manner of the blues -- has led to a dangerous sort of complacency: Run out of Flora Bella? Impossible! There's PLENTY!
I admit I've been extravagant -- encouraged, to be sure, by my naive belief that 100 ml. is a practically inexhaustible amount of perfume. I've gone through two bottles in a decade-plus and lost count of the number of decants I've shared with friends. I've applied hundreds of extra spritzes to my own self in the blithe belief that there's tons of it left.
But there isn't. I'm on my last bottle. Last, ever-- because Flora Bella has been long discontinued. The level of perfume in it declares an unavoidable truth.
How does perfume become personified in our minds? From the very first, I have envisioned Flora Bella as a naiad: fluid, fickle, evasive. I have privately referred to her as "the mermaid perfume" and worn her on vulnerable days when I wished to absorb some measure of her alien, Aquarian untouchability. The sea-change seems to occur as readily as that which I undergo with Arabie (silent temple-keeper treading the labyrinth) or Puredistance Antonia (sacred kore joyfully gathering flowers for Persephone). This cannot just be my imagination. Whether by chance or by design, these spirits must reside in the perfume.
And like gods of old, their motives often lie beyond mortal understanding.
In the best tradition of the siren, Flora Bella will consent to remain in my company only up to a point. Eventually she must return to the sea; we both know it. One day soon, to the tune of my tear-stricken, utterly futile pleading, she will up and vanish… the path of her departure erased by the remorseless surf.
Tomas -- the cheerful philanderer of Milan Kundera's novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being -- adheres to a self-written code of ethics when arranging his many liaisons. "The important thing," he claims, "is to abide by the rule of threes. Either you see a woman three times in quick succession and then never again, or you maintain relations over the years but make sure that the rendezvous are at least three weeks apart".
Tomas breaks his own rule by remaining with (and even marrying) the tormented Tereza-- but the woman who "understands him best" is Sabina, an artist with whom he shares a bond untrammeled by jealousy or possessiveness. While Tereza represents all that is heavy and serious, Sabina personifies the weightlessness of freedom from attachment. Over time, her ephemeral quality proves contradictory to both Tomas and Tereza, for while she slips in and out of their lives, they cannot forget her-- nor she them. There is something about Sabina which lingers in memory, if not in actuality.
If Sabina were a fragrance, could she be anything but eau de cologne?
When something lovely, brief, plentiful, and refreshing is called for, eau de cologne is the obvious answer. Other fragrance compositions are "heavy" -- complex, deliberate, meant to be taken (and worn) seriously. Cologne is "light" -- a fleeting pleasure intended for impromptu use.
Yet for all its transience, eau de cologne can make a deep impression on the psyche. Many perfume wearers I've met tell of the indelible mark made in their memories by a certain fragrance worn by an older relative. More than half the time, that fragrance is an EDC. The paradox inherent in eau de cologne is that one enjoys so brief a time with it-- but once the bond is established, loyalty lasts a lifetime.
The first eau de cologne released by Giovanni Maria Farina in 1709 set a new standard in fragrance composition and usage. The rules were simple: take a base of orange blossom, peel, and leaf essential oils. Combine them variously with other citrus oils (lemon, lime, mandarin, grapefruit, bergamot), herbs (rosemary, thyme, lavender, artemisia), and florals (usually indolic white flowers such as jasmine or narcissus). Dilute the result in a disproportionately large amount of alcohol (up to nine parts out of ten). Lose the inhibitions, and start splashing it on.
Guerlain's introduction to the eau de cologne playing field came fairly late in the game (1853), by which time the genre was well-established. Guerlain's contribution was the use of stronger aromatic fixatives such as musk and cedar, which preserved the airiness of the classic EDC format while extending its life by a crucial heartbeat. Aside from Farina 1709 Original, 4711 Kölnisch Wasser, and Lanman & Murray Florida Water, the Guerlain series of eaux offers about the best introduction to the eau de cologne aesthetic that I can think of.
Over the last two weeks -- during which the East Coast became a veritable EZ-Bake Oven and the B.O. factor among the public I serve reached an all-time ascendancy -- I've thoroughly enjoyed flitting back and forth between Impériale, Fleurs de Cédrat, and Eau de Guerlain. If breezy, fresh, and fruity is the antidote to summer doldrums, I never needed it more than now.
Created in 1853, Eau de Cologne Impériale is the oldest of Guerlain's colognes. It kicks off with an intense lemon-lime accord, vibrant and exuberant, before revealing its beautiful-but-brief verveine-and-orange-blossom heart. Of course it lasts no longer on skin than it has taken me to type these words, but it's not meant to. One only needs a momentary boost to avoid slipping into a hot-weather case of the vapours.
Eau de Fleurs de Cédrat requires a little more time to appreciate. This one's a sorbet, creamy in texture but not milky in the slightest, with the dryness of powdered sugar and a mild animalic element which keeps it on skin somewhat longer than its counterparts. Its name is a subtle play on words, touching on cèdrat (citron) and cèdre (cedar), both of which it contains. Whether one is more prominent than the other appears to be a matter for the weatherman to decide. On a cooler day -- if you want to call 90°F "cooler"! -- I found much more orange blossom filling the air around me. During a scorcher, the emphasis is on cedarwood. Either way, enchantée.
What can be said about Eau de Guerlain that could possibly further embellish its well-deserved reputation? In descriptive terms, one could call it a delicious lemon-creme and herbal eau de cologne, and stop right there. Who needs more?
Well, I do.
Having never really tried my hand at layering before, I enlisted the Guerlain eaux within the last week for a running experiment in this time-honored perfume practice. Impériale and Eau de Guerlain were close enough in temperament so as to seem destined to be together, while Fleurs de Cédrat -- while playing well with others -- did just as well on its own. I would like to say that nothing could beat the three eaux layered together, one on top of the other. But as it happened, a bottom layer of Tauer's Lonestar Memories propelled the trio into a new and unexpected paradise. (Who knew that Guerlain could benefit from a touch of the dude ranch?)
Sabina, maybe. At the close of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, she too has migrated toward the setting sun-- settling fitfully on the West Coast, where she continues to create despite the alien quality of life around her. Upon learning of Tomas' and Tereza's demise, she writes a will stipulating that her cremated ashes be dispersed to the four winds, so that she may "die under the sign of lightness".
As she has lived, so Sabina will live on-- faithless, free, and true to her inner nature. She would, says Kundera, be lighter than air.
It came to me recently why fragrances containing grapefruit notes pose such difficulties for me: without fail, they remind me of dieting.
Armed with a horror of plumpness left over from their own girdle-bound maidenhoods, our mothers ruthlessly surveyed us for signs of unruly growth. As we blossomed, they pinched us back. Impatient sighs issued forth whenever we ate ice cream (or licked our fingers); frazzled copies of the Pritikin and Scarsdale Diets magically appeared in our paths. Finally the offer came: wouldn't we like to share Mom's "special" meals? We gamely ate soft-boiled eggs (no butter!), dry squares of wheat toast (no jam!), carefully-measured half-cups of low-fat cottage cheese cradled by leaves of lettuce (iceberg only-- fewer calories than romaine). And if we still wanted dessert after all that… enter the grapefruit.
Halved and served without sugar or garnish, the grapefruit proclaimed the proverbial 'strait gate' traveled by the would-be slender girl. Who else would eat something so acerbic, so biting, so reluctant to give up its contents? The fact that it had its own custom tools of extraction declared its challenging nature-- we had to really work to eat it, and for our pains, we'd more often than not receive a mouthful of bitter pips or a painful squirt-in-the-eye. To prevent the exercise from seeming overly punitive, we could choose a "fancy" pink or red grapefruit over the everyday "white" variety… but a maraschino cherry for decoration?! Are you crazy? Those things are seven calories apiece!
Today I am a grownup, in charge of my dinner plate along with my destiny. While I've come to enjoy grapefruit, I rarely buy them at the store or order them in restaurants. I simply can't shake the opinion that they're the housewife's "austerity measure"-- an edible form of self-punishment for secretly wanting a sloppy ice-cream sundae. Their very scent is a guilt-provoking jolt-- and that's why I've largely avoided that note in perfume.
Why spoil one of life's most wonderful indulgences with the bitter smell of penance?
Tastes change, as do opinions. Little by little I've talked myself into sampling without shuddering. For the most part, the compositions which work best for me cast grapefruit as a supporting player rather than the center of attention. I'm not fond of it swizzled with caramel, but I will take it paired with sea breezes and fresh flowers. And if I'm in the mood for a confection to make up for all those skipped desserts years ago, I sniff Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune (grapefruit sorbet) followed by Lavanila Vanilla Grapefruit (grapefruit panna cotta).
The point is, I've gradually come to terms with the persnickety pamplemousse. If I feel any guilt now, it's because I didn't give this note the chance it deserved.
Here are a couple of Citrus x paradisi fragrances that I credit for talking me around:
Citron de Vigne (Fresh)
A bright, true pink grapefruit essence whose astringent character is encouraged by tannic tea and red wine notes, this comes closest of all to the scent of a fresh grapefruit in hand. Imagine laboriously working a thumbnail under the pliant peel… the stickiness of the peel essence on your palm, followed by the sting of juice… the cottony texture of the bitter pith… the pink inner flesh veiled but visible… Now pour yourself a garnet glass of Pinot Noir and get ready for a refreshing, mouth-puckering treat.
Oyédo (Diptyque)
For this grapefruit maceration, substitute a half-and-half mix of kiddie grape juice and Jarritos Tamarindo for the red wine, and throw in a bunch of fresh thyme. It sounds like it could be a mess, but somehow it achieves a crazy balance. I prefer the savory drydown to the supersweet opening, but patience being a virtue, the wait is well-justified.
Recently (and for the fourth or fifth time, I admit) I watched Catherine Breillat's breathtaking film Une Vieille Maîtresse (An Aging Mistress, misleadingly translated as The Last Mistress for American audiences who find finality more palatable than age). Based on Barbey d'Aurevilly's scandalous 1851 romance, Une Vieille Maîtresse concerns a ten-year liaison between a young Parisian rake and a Spanish divorcee some years his senior. If you suspect that this is Chéri all over again, think twice. The love (if you can call it that) between Ryno de Marigny and La Vellini is, as she herself puts it, une liaison singulaire.
Described by one lover as "a capricious flamenca who can outstare the sun", Vellini is neither young, beautiful, nor especially personable-- but she certainly is singular. When Ryno is first introduced to her at a masquerade party, she is dressed in a frivolous costume at odds with her sober expression. When asked, "Are you dressed as a she-devil?" the artless Vellini doesn't miss a beat. "No," she replies. "THE Devil."
The cinematic convention of the meet cute -- in which future lovers start out on the wrong foot with one another but slowly fall into step -- has no place in Une Vieille Maîtresse. Ryno dismisses Vellini as an "ugly mutt", then falls hopelessly in love with her. She instigates a duel between her husband and Ryno, then realizes that her spouse is superfluous, since she and Ryno can easily carry out their feud without a middleman. For ten years, the pair remain steadfastly by each other's sides and at each other's throats. Not even Ryno's betrothal to a fresh young heiress can put them asunder. Betrayal just adds an extra soupçon of pathos to their frequent, erotic "final" goodbyes. Theirs is an eternal combat without a clear winner, and no truce in sight.
Vellini may pretend to roll with the changes, but her easy arrogance conceals a deep, melancholy, and self-sacrificial fatalism. True, she despises Ryno before, during, and after their affair (with good reason, as he appears to confuse making love with making her miserable). But as he is her fate, she refuses to abandon him. He can come and go as he pleases; she'll always be his-- for worse if not for better.
The bond between Ryno and La Vellini is a strange one, based more on mutual anguish than delight. Yet every so often, Ryno manages to bring a smile to the edges of Vellini's mouth, transforming her eyes into supernovas of celestial light and her storm clouds into very heaven. In these moments, there is no doubt in my mind which perfume La Vellini personifies.
How do I know? Perhaps it's that succession of gigantic rose peonies with which Vellini adorns her jet-black hair-- neon pinks and reds radiating the intensity of a desert sunset. Or the combination of vulnerability and bravado that broadcasts itself through the eccentricity of her dress (Vellini switches from jaunty men's breeches to Levantine harem-wear to black lace mantillas faster than her mood can swing, which is pretty bloody fast). She smokes cigars, plays cards, and rides horses like a man… but she breaks, as the song goes, just like a little girl.
That's why I believe that Andy Tauer's Lonestar Memories is right on Vellini's wavelength. Take L'Air du Désert Marocain and whittle it down to its base of labdanum, jasmine, cedar, and vetiver. (Works best if you're chewing on a stalk of sweetgrass.) Swap out its coriander and cumin for sagebrush and carrotseed; then substitute geranium and birch tar for its petitgrain and ambergris. Bookend it on one side with smoky phenols, and on the other with a dusky carnation of deepest cerise. Now beam the whole thing right smack into the middle of the pampas, where it will lounge by the campfire with a flower between its teeth beneath the starry night sky. Cue Pete Seeger yodeling "Way Out There"-- and you realize that never did a human voice sound so plaintive, so lonesome, echoing in all that endless space.
Petulant, tender, melancholy, fearless, the Señora and this scent both get me right in the throat. And they can make bold with my heart all they want to: I'll stay faithful to the bitter end.
In a 1938 photograph taken by Roger Schall, the great French novelist Colette sits at a rustic dining table buttering a slice of bread. To be more precise, she's solidly paving it with thick shingles of fresh butter-- and quite a job she has ahead of her, too, since the slice she holds is itself the length of a house brick. An expression of intense concentration dominates her face; she caresses the rough-textured surface of the bread with both her eyes and the rounded point of the knife, seeming to note with rapacious delight each place where she might first choose to sink her teeth.
Yes, Colette surely knew on which side her bread was buttered… because she wouldn't dream of delegating that task to anyone else. But Colette did not just eat her good buttered bread. She also thought about it-- and wrote on the subject at length.
La mère et le fils venaient de prendre ensemble leur petit déjeuner et Chéri avait daigné saluer de quelques blasphèmes flatteurs son “café au lait de concierge”, un café au lait gras, blond et sucré que l’on confiait une seconde fois à un feu doux de braise, après y avoir rompu des tartines grillées et beurrées qui recuisaient à loisir et masquaient le café d’une croûte succulente. (Mother and son had just finished breakfasting together, and Chéri had condescended to praise with an oath his cup of 'housemaid's coffee', made with creamy milk, well-sugared, with buttered toast crumbled into it and browned till it formed a succulent crust.)
--CHÉRI (1920); translated from the French by Roger Senhouse (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1951)
There is in Chéri a reference to a “café au lait de concierge” that has aroused -- and I choose my words advisedly -- a hungry curiosity, which I have until now left unsatisfied. A concierge once gave me this recipe for a breakfast guaranteed to dispel the shivers on winter mornings.
Take a small soup tureen -- the individual soup tureen you would use for a soupe gratinée -- or a sturdy bowl in fire-proof china. Pour in your milky coffee, prepared and sugared according to taste. Cut some hearty slices of bread -- use household bread, refined white will not do -- butter them lavishly and lay them on the coffee, ensuring that they are not submerged. Then all you have to do is place the whole thing in the oven and leave it there until your breakfast is browned and crusty, with fat, buttery bubbles sizzling here and there on the surface.
Before breaking your raft of roasted bread, sprinkle on some salt. Salt counteracting the sugar, sugar with a faint taste of salt, that is one of the great principles of cooking that is neglected in a number of Parisian puddings and pastries, which taste bland simply because they lack a pinch of salt.
--Article authored by Colette for Marie-Claire, January 27, 1939; excerpted in Colette: A Passion For Life by Genevieve Dormann (Abbeville Press, 1985); translated from the French by David Macey
Serge Lutens has also thought about bread a good deal-- not to mention the lait gras that best accompanies it. In Jeux de Peau ("skin games"), he and Christopher Sheldrake have wedded together notes of creamy comfort and roasted warmth to recreate Colette's café au lait de concierge for the wrists rather than for the breakfast table.
Though a yeasty, sweet quickbread loaded with toasted pecans is the main dish here, I can't overemphasize how great an effect this fragrance's milky element has on me. If the first thing you learned as a kid in the kitchen was how to properly scald milk for béchamel, then you know well the curiously maternal aspects of this process-- tending the flame with an anxious eye, taking the milk's temperature as solicitously as one would a child's (except that in this case, a fever of 180°F is considered no cause for alarm).
Then, of course, there is the skin-- a thin film of protein which collects on the surface of heated milk. Known as kajmak throughout Eurasia, paneer or malai in Southeast Asia, Devonshire or clotted cream in Great Britain, and natas de leche among the Basques of Spain, it possesses an intriguing texture and sweet, creamy flavor worthy of its round-the-world following. Serge Lutens surely is teasing us with his knowledge of this unique treat. In fact, amongst the children of the above cultures, it's agreed the best destination for it is -- what else? -- a slice of toasted bread.
If you are looking for spiritual nourishment (or simply a barrier against winter's chills and ills), I suggest you avail yourself of some Jeux de Peau. Spray it on your wrists and wear your sleeves long. When needed, lower your nose into the protected warmth of your cuff and breathe in the golden scent of succor.
Who's the homme? Well, I can tell you who he's not: Mouchoir de Monsieur. That pampered pretty boy has never worked a day in his life. Sitting in the back of the limousine, pursing his lips, being driven here and dropped off there-- what does he know? Pour un Homme's the one with his hands on Jicky's wheel.
Our man's looking sharp in his chauffeur's uniform, kept stored in lavender and pressed with the hottest of hot irons. During downtime, while Madame et le p'tit M'sieur dine at Maxim's or take in the Trocadéro, he sits in the car, smokes Egyptian cigarettes, chews L'Anis de Flavigny and stares stony-eyed into the middle distance. He keeps a sprig of rosemary from his mother's garden tucked inside his jacket-- not that he's soft or a mama's boy, you understand; only because Marseilles smells so much better than damned rotten Paris...
Madame likes the rosemary, too. Occasionally she looks sidelong at him and sighs, "If I'd known you earlier and had better sense, I'd have chosen you instead of… well…" But Pour un Homme never bats an eye. He simply moves his toothpick to the other side of his mouth and mutters, "You gave me the keys, didn't you?"
There's really not much to say about Mouchoir de Monsieur that hasn't been said -- loud and clear and for 121 years -- by Jicky. Being a blatant retread launched fifteen years after its more famous sibling, one could almost call Mouchoir de Monsieur a Jicky flanker. Or "Jicky pour l'homme"… if only l'homme hadn't already been hitting Jicky for years.
But each new wave scorns the shibboleths of the previous generation; the vanity of youth demands fresh tributes of its own. One imagines an army of arrogant young things, bored with their parents' fusty old fragrances, clamoring for a signature scent-- something new, edgy, just for us! And what did Jacques Guerlain do? Supremely indulgent, he handed them the exact same juice in a different bottle. New boss, meet the old boss!
When two perfumes share so many of the same traits, one must look for clues to tell them apart. Both Jicky and MdM hang their Belle Époque finery on an identical lavender-vanilla armature with a unisex silhouette. But much as one can tell a man's coat by the positioning of the buttons, certain subtle details act as fragrance shorthand for gender. A double-dose of civet and an emphasis on bergamot over lemon or neroli helps to situate MdM firmly on the masculine side of the scale, rendering it less floral, less rococo, drier and more leathery than its sister scent. As for Jicky's weird, compelling animal note, MdM amps it up to the fragrance equivalent of a tomcat's yowl-- hitting the bullseye between sexy and aggressive to which he-men have aspired for centuries.
Why, then, does feminine Jicky still come off as the more virile of the two perfumes?
The answer may be a matter of… well, cumulative life experience. Jicky's been around the block so many times, she can't help radiating placid self-confidence from top to bottom. If Mouchoir de Monsieur radiates anything, it's the fitful, uncertain energy of the adolescent. Frankly speaking, there's an obvious parallel to be drawn between MdM and your average male twentysomething: both come on strong, but fizzle out quick. In the immortal words of Nick Lowe, here comes the 20th century's latest scam: half a boy and half a man.
If Jicky is Léa de Lonval, it stands to reason that Mouchoir de Monsieur is Chéri-- that petulant prettyboy with the heart of darkness. As frivolous as a kitten, as decorative as a doll, Chéri possesses exactly as much beauty as he lacks manners. (In an early scene, he informs Léa that she ought to give him her pearls since they look so much better on him. Saucer of cream, table one!) His tongue is expert at spite, but true love renders him mute; he has an instinctive grasp of luxury and fashion, but is clueless about his own heart. Snotty, sullen, callow, vain -- and in spite of it all, deeply appealing -- Chéri is Léa's exact match and perfect mate, a twin soul born years too late.
So what truly differentiates Mouchoir de Monsieur from Jicky, besides fifteen years' difference in age? A faint five o'clock shadow? The tiniest punk-rock snarl? These might count for something when he's preening in front of the mirror… but one sniff of her perfume, and fifteen years are no more than a heartbeat…
Léa de Lonval -- the wise heroine of Colette's 1920 novel Chéri -- had this to say about the primacy of style over propriety: "Naked, if need be… but squalid, never!" Being a celebrated courtesan, Léa knew quite a lot about being naked. And that she wore Guerlain's Jicky is a given-- for Jicky is her beloved Belle Époque in liquid form.
There is plenty that's naked about Jicky, but certainly nothing squalid. It is neither mad, bad, nor dangerous to know, despite the company it has kept. Colette elle-même; Sarah Bernhardt; Anita Ekberg and Brigitte Bardot; not one but two 007's (Sean Connery and Roger Moore). Jane Birkin wore Jicky before switching to L'Air de Rien, which amounts to a step down in the world for Jane. And Jacqueline Kennedy dabbed it behind her lovely ears, which may be construed as a step up for Jicky.
We cannot know if Alice Keppel -- Edward VII's discreet and congenial maîtresse déclarée -- ever tried Jicky. In Diana Souhami's biography Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter, Sonia Keppel is quoted as saying that her mother exuded 'a certain elusive smell, like fresh green sap, that came from herself'. She did not say (as Virginia Woolf did of Katherine Mansfield) that her mother reeked 'like a civet cat that had taken to street walking'. If she had, Jicky would have undoubtedly been to blame.
Still, Jicky has more in common with Mrs. Keppel than a first glance might tell. Like "La Favorita", it's the perfect mistress, at once frankly suggestive and marvellously well-behaved. Assertive, heady, and rich, its comportment on skin suggests years of tutelage amidst the best society... and nights whiled away between the finest silk sheets. Finally, in its capacity to charm perfume-wearers of all genders, ages, and classes, Jicky employs the same "gift of happiness" attributed to Mrs. Keppel: "She resembled a Christmas tree laden with presents for everyone."
Jicky begins with a thousand acres of Provençal lavender concentrated into one crystalline drop. It stays there for exactly sixty seconds before transforming into the most remarkable olfactory hologram of a lover's body this side of-- well, the bed. Here is the intimate aroma of the one you adore. He or she is the person with whom you share your life, your heart, your secret inner self; you sleep together every night and reach for one another first thing every morning. With them, your secrets are safe as houses-- and before them, to paraphrase Millay, you are at liberty to "spread like a chart your little wicked ways".
The warm, animalic phase of Jicky's development is due largely to the generous amount of civet with which Aimé Guerlain anchored this composition of sparkling citrus, leather, and herbs. The result is a sinuous beast, delicate and decorous, who enters the room on tiny feet, lashing its tail. Close behind it comes its master -- a jovial, barrel-chested shaving-soap accord, rich with birch tar and vanilla -- who promptly pulls up a chair and offers you a piece of his mind. While he dominates the conversation (and a scintillating one it is, too), our civet sits silent and attentive, every so often yawning or giving its glossy fur a nonchalant lick. It never begs for attention, but it also never quits its master's side. Caught in the nexus between filthy and clean, you sense that you're the victim of a formidable tag team-- and you marvel at their effortless powers of persuasion.
Despite its embrace by the so-called "souls" of that age, Jicky did not debut during the fast-and-loose Edwardian era. It is solidly a product of Victoria's reign, a fact which turns the entire concept of Victorian prudery on its ear. The Queen herself, though straitlaced as any monarch must be, is said to have adored perfume-- particularly Houbigant and Creed, from whom she commissioned Royal Scottish Lavender in honor of her beloved Highlands. The only thing separating Royal Scottish Lavender from Jicky is the sensual frisson of civet, a distinction which also sums up the fundamental differences in character and taste between the duty-minded Queen and her sybaritic eldest son. In short: same genes, but considerably more sex.
If, while sporting Jicky, you likewise experience an uptick in "action", do not be surprised. By the same token, do not believe for an instant that by accepting said "action", your standards have been lowered by one jot. Wearing Jicky does not diminish one's dignity; nor does it deny one's essential pleasure-loving nature. It merely clothes the mammal with art.
Whatever else you choose to wear -- or not wear -- is entirely your own business.
Some roses smell pink and pretty. Some roses smell rich and velvety. Some roses smell honeyed and intoxicating. Some smell vinegar-sour. Some smell like black pepper. Some smell like red wine. And some smell -- I'm sorry, but it has to be said -- like the toilet bowl cleaner used in cheap freeway motels.
This one smells like a hothouse tomato.
Not that that's a crime! Nahéma isn't the first tomato rose I've come across, and I wouldn't call it the worst. When you hail from the Garden State, such distinctions take on particular significance. After all, both our tomatoes and our roses have a reputation to uphold.
Though a bit dry and lacking in nectar, the flesh of Nahéma's tomato is firm and salmon-pink. It stays in one piece when you slice it; it doesn't fall apart or turn to grainy mush. More acid than sweet, more vegetable than fruit, it was clearly plucked while still green and did time in a refrigerated freight car on its journey east from a California megafarm. It can't stand up to one of New Jersey's incomparable vine tomatoes, ripening in the sun like a living ruby. It wouldn't dare to show its face on an antipasto platter, pillowed on the milky bosom of homemade mozzarella or heroically garlanded with wreaths of fresh basil. Let's say it's good enough to end up on a Jersey diner burger deluxe, and leave it at that.
For a tomato, not too shabby. But for a rose…?
The more I smell Nahéma, the more it seems to me that its problem is not rose, but passionfruit. The word "passionfruit" doubtlessly adds interest to a brief (imagine how lilikoi - its native name - would fascinate buyers!). But I would not put the actual passionfruit into a perfume any more than I'd put papaya or durian or a dozen other tropical curiosities. Real-life passionfruit are mouth-searingly acidic. This accounts for Nahéma's biting quality, but whatever good might have come from Nahéma's rose is cancelled out by the weirdness of the note chosen as its conveyance. Less would have been more-- and novelty, while appealing to the imagination, is not always appealing to the nose. Or (for that matter) to the rose.
What is left? Luckily, a lot. After the whole tomato phase dies away, Nahéma gives in to a smooth and buttery floral-suede accord that lends it a lowkey virile sportswoman feel. (I'm reminded of a snippet I read about Elisabeth, Austria's high-strung, horse-obsessed Empress, who loved to wear skintight doeskin rider's leggings under her überfemme crinolined skirts.)
This may sound strange, but for me, Nahéma truly does make a mark-- only for all the wrong reasons. It's the first perfume I've ever worn in which I could absolutely, positively do without everything except the drydown. If that alone could be bottled (and maybe it already has, somewhere, somehow) I'd be one hundred percent on board. Until then, it's simply a matter of scheduling: if I apply Nahéma approximately an hour before I really want to smell it, all I have to do is sit, hold my breath, and wait.
Iris seems to come in two forms: rich, bready and warm or raw, watery and cold. Though I haven't nearly explored the full range of available iris perfumes, I can safely say that I prefer the full-fat version to the pale, low-calorie tincture any day of the week. Between the two, a link must exist-- some sort of connector between earth and raincloud.
Why not lightning?
Iris Silver Mist (great name, seemingly arrived at via some sort of collaborative word-game, like "Miranda Sex Garden") is an ozonic take on iris to which La Myrrhe clearly owes a stylistic debt. I knew La Myrrhe could not have sprung whole from the head of Osiris; it had to have an antecedent, a source point from which its eerie DNA descended. Iris Silver Mist is that source. Neither as sepulchral nor as soulless as its cousin of one year later, it nevertheless is a bit of a cold fish-- placing it, at least nominally, in the 'tincture' category of iris fragrances. What saves Iris Silver Mist from primordial chill is its sense of suggestive friction-- rather like the ghostly electric crackle that sheer nylon stockings produce when the wearer crosses her legs. The skin underneath may be alabaster-pale and chilly, but the blood coursing deeper down is reliably hot.
I imagine that Iris Silver Mist would leave me cold in March, with the temperature barely cresting 40°F under the bitter bite of the wind. But in the heat of high summer, it's a treat-- and when the flicker of lightning heralds the advance of storm clouds, she will lay her cool hands on my forehead, and I will feel content in her presence.
There is an unknown land full of strange flowers and subtle perfumes, a land of which it is joy of all joys to dream, a land where all things are perfect and poisonous.
--Oscar Wilde, letter to Harry Marillier, 1885
Fantabulosa is beautiful, but he won't let me say so. He -- this weirdly, wonderfully uncompromising creature -- flat-out forbids it.
But I'm only trying to compliment you, I protest-- to which he coolly replies, You mean pigeonhole me in a nice safe little box? Honey, you're supposed to bury me after I'm dead.
This is a standoff I'll never win. The criterion of beauty to which I, a mere mortal, must fall back on is too terrestrial for Fantabulosa's taste. Clearly he would much rather be called ugly than have to wear so mundane and gentrified a label as beautiful.
Violets? Where? Maybe Fantabulosa is sitting on them. He'd love that-- holding court on a bed of petals. Doubtless we'll discover them later, crushed under skin-tight velvet, clinging desperately to the backs of those whippet-thin supermodel thighs. (Do you think His Majesty will ask us to brush them off for him? Oh please say yes.)
Chamomile? Could that be the bitter and prickly element in Fantabulosa's personality, or is it something buried deep in his shady past? He's not talking, though the way he smokes a cigarette -- with quick, purse-lipped inhales like a series of angry kisses interspersed with narrow-eyed, smoke-obscured glares -- belies a deep impatience with convention. (Don't ask; it will only get him started.)
Banana? Yes, of course. Fresh? Depends on how you define the word. Let's just say it's been around the farmer's market a few times. A few venomous detractors have gone so far as call this fragrance's banana note "rotten", but everyone knows that the closer it pushes the envelope toward decay, the sweeter a banana gets. When it interacts with the chamomile, you get this strange, bitter, ghost-of-cuminseed accord that slices through the cloying fruity sweetness like a old-fashioned stiletto letter opener in the hands of a disgruntled personal assistant. (Not that I'm complaining, Mister Lady Ma'am. I live to serve!)
Seaweed absolute? A trace of odor as saline and funky as-- Hush your mouth!
Look, if speaking the word "beautiful" aloud would mean banishment from the Imperial Presence, I'll keep it safely locked in my head. I'll put up with the sullen looks, the catty comments, all the times I have to fetch and carry and bail him out of jail. I'll sign his name on stacks of 8x10 glossies and never breathe a word of where he disappears to after midnight.
Just let me go on worshiping this lovely space oddity… forked tongue and all.
Today (August 7th) is the birthday of Margaretha Geertruida Zelle MacLeod-- the dancer, sex symbol, and spy better known as Mata Hari. What scent best suits the occasion? Perhaps the ghost of the guest of honor will guide my hand...
First, a bit about Margaretha. Forcibly transplanted to colonial Java by a philandering husband, this young Dutch-born mail-order bride found comfort in studying traditional Indonesian dance. A local dance troupe proved supportive-- as did one of her husband's fellow Army officers, with whom she absconded from her marital prison. In 1897, she renamed herself "The Eye of the Day" and freed herself from domestic bondage for once and for all.
Today, we remember Mata Hari as an infamous World War I double agent whose life ended in front of a firing squad. But in her heyday, she - alongside Isadora Duncan, Loïe Fuller, and Ruth Saint Denis - ushered in an era of "sacred dance", which incorporated tribal, ceremonial, and contemporary movement, fusing East and West.
In fact, it's this sense of emerging from one matrix to immerse oneself in another that makes Mata Hari and Guerlain's Elixir Charnel Oriental Brûlant a heavenly match. At once simple and sumptuous, Oriental Brûlant excels at bridging cultures through scent as deftly as its namesake did through dance.
It begins with a dense sweet top note that says "vanilla" in as many languages as it can. As it progresses, it becomes more transparent, ascending from deepest plum to the aforementioned misty mauve, where it seems to pause and hold its breath. There it remains for hours and hours-- comforting, reassuring, never cloying or annoying, a mystical scent meditation.
Inasmuch as Spanish jijona turrón, Italian torrone, French nougat, German marzipan, Czech turecký med, Israeli halvah, Turkish loukhoum, Indian halwa, Japanese yōkan, and American fudge all lie on the same confectionary spectrum, one can trace the path of a single idea spurred by common hunger across a hundred national boundaries in its quest for manifestation. And actually, candy isn't a bad metaphor for Oriental Brûlant, which smells like an imported sweet concocted from honey, orangeflower water, and almond paste layered between fragile sheets of rice paper. It's an uncommon dessert of the high-calorie variety. It may be an acquired taste for some, but not me-- I was charmed by it from the first.
A side note: Oriental Brûlant is tinted pale mauve, a hue historically associated with a number of contradictory social conventions. Invented in 1856 by Sir William Henry Perkin, "mauveine" dye became popular as a half-mourning color for women in transition from a state of bereavement. By the Gay Nineties -- dubbed the "Mauve Decade" by social essayist Thomas Beer -- the color had amassed a following among artists, poets, and mystics whose social and sexual mores ran counter to those of the establishment. Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Aleister Crowley… and of course Mata Hari.
____________
In my perfume travels, I have found to my dismay that all saffron perfumes smell alike in the end. What seemed extraordinarily novel the first time I encountered it (in Olivia Giacobetti's Safran Troublant, to which I remain imperishably hooked) now seems as uniform as if die-stamped by machine.
Time and again, saffron is paired off with the same old partners -- rose, cardamom, steamed milk, sandalwood -- only to end up carrying them all on her broad back. I'm certain she gets weary of these arrangements, but is too mild-mannered to say so. Like a superhero recruited not to some global justice league but the local PTA, she gamely offers to run the next bake sale, knowing full well she'll end up saving the world.
What if saffron took a holiday?
Histoires de Parfums' 1876 Mata Hari is one of the best saffron perfumes I've ever smelled... only it doesn't have a lick of saffron in it. All of her usual dance partners have gathered in one place to scratch their heads at the saffron-shaped vacancy in their midst. Where is she? they're thinking. Not me: I'm getting too big of a kick out of watching the gang sweat bullets at the prospect of doing all the heavy lifting.
Luckily, everyone pitches in and gets this baby off the ground. Rose and sandalwood know all the steps, and lychee provides the fresh perspective of a newcomer to the scene. Substitute cumin for cardamom? Yes, please-- it makes for a slightly more ballsy drydown in place of the usual oeufs à la neige. All together, 1876's components do such a good job of filling in for the missing piece that you'd swear she was present and accounted-for the whole time.
If Guerlain's Oriental Brûlant is our antiheroine all dressed up in her stage costume (beads dripping, headdress sparkling), I'd have to say that 1876 is Mata Hari in civilian clothes. To be sure, they are beautifully cut, perfectly proportioned, and wildly expensive as befits the wardrobe of a demimondaine-- but they are unobtrusive enough to allow her to pass through society without attracting too much attention. So skillful is 1876's air of olfactory misdirection that, applied with a light touch, it could make the wearer damn near invisible.
But perhaps that is exactly what you want. After all, a good spy does well to remain incognito.
My younger sister and I always cultivated more thorns than roses between us. Since childhood, our relationship was fraught with ongoing rivalry. We tried and tried to meet in the middle of the vast ocean separating us-- but we always ended up on the rocks.
During our mid-twenties, I had this grand idea of presenting her with a gift, one that would simultaneously express all my unspoken admiration and heal the scars of our past. I knew what that gift would be the day I happened across a tiny, cluttered downtown shopfront that housed a bespoke perfumer.
Inside sat my miracle worker-- a bird-boned elderly woman dressed all in black, wearily doling out essential oils into tiny bottles, drop by precious drop. Here was the person who would convert my difficult emotions into legible form, who would facilitate communication between two warring sisters using the peace offering of scent.
Leaning back in her chair, she fixed me with tired, bloodshot eyes and commanded me to describe my sister in five words or less. "Feminine…. confident…. artistic…." I stalled. Then, out of nowhere, the last two words leapt to my lips: "Anaïs Anaïs!"
As a teenager, I explained, my younger sister pledged herself to this perfume so thoroughly that even her bedroom color scheme -- apricot, sage, and forest green -- mirrored the Anaïs Anaïs package design. This might have smacked of safe conformity during the 1970's, but for a high-school girl in the late 1980's, it amounted to a revolutionary manifesto. While all her friends subscribed to the horrid, clean-cut, sporty stylings of Bennetton, she shimmered in a cloud of archaic sandalwood and vintage powdery rose, all the while managing to stay safely conventional. It was an interesting form of social camouflage that hid a slightly subversive heart.
The perfumer rolled her eyes as though she'd heard it all before. "Thirty dollars. Come back in a week," she said.
The finished scent came bottled in the pretty pressed-glass phial I'd picked out. It contained many of the elements of Anaïs Anaïs (rose, neroli, vanilla, ylang ylang) but smelled somehow bloodless-- soapy, safe, devoid of counterculture. I felt disappointed, less in the perfume than in myself. I'd had this one chance to express how I felt about my sister, and like so many times before, it hadn't come out right. And whatever ambivalence the perfumer had picked up on, she'd poured it right into this bottle.
My sister gave her bespoke perfume one sniff, restoppered the bottle, and never touched it again. So profoundly indifferent was she to its olfactory message that when she moved out of my parents' house, she pointedly left the bottle behind.
A few years later, I found the bespoke perfume still sitting on the abandoned dresser in my sister's old apricot-and-green bedroom. My well-meant gesture, my peace offering-- unwanted, unclaimed, grimed with dust. If I didn't take it, it would be thrown away. I decided on the spot to rescue it. It stayed with me through three separate moves, packed and unpacked and occasionally opened for a quick sniff. Each time I tried to imagine what unforgivable insult my sister had detected in this otherwise inoffensive perfume. As with our relationship, I could never quite tell how I'd gone wrong-- but I knew, with sinking heart, that I had.
Every so often I come across a half-used bottle of Anaïs Anaïs in a thrift store. I twist off the cap and take a sniff; invariably, I smell melancholy. There's something in there I can't put my finger on, and maybe I never will be able to. Just like my relationship with my sister, maybe I just have to accept Anaïs Anaïs for what it is-- sweet but imperfect, hopeful yet flawed, its welcome long worn out.
You would think a fragrance containing the fabled ingredient spikenard (Nardostachys jatamansi) would stick around as long on skin as it has in human memory. After all, spikenard is a member of the Valerianaceae tribe of plants, the most prominent member of which is (natch) valerian-- a tall plant with showy pink blossoms and roots that reek to high heaven, which explains its nickname according to the Greeks: phu.
Spikenard is similar to valerian in structure and appearance, but instead of a foetid stink, it produces the approximate scent of paradise. Musician, artist, and amateur perfumer Brian Eno cited his first encounter with this transcendent fragrance as a significant moment in his love affair with scent. "(A) woman I met in Ibiza gave me a minute bottle containing just one drop of an utterly heavenly material called nardo…" he once wrote; even in eight-point magazine typeface, his awe and gratitude were evident.
Long used in traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine as a remedy for persistent pain and grief, spikenard has also been identified as the "costly oil" with which Mary Magdalene anointed Christ as he rested in the house of Lazarus. According to the Gospel, Judas Iscariot argued that the perfume (being "of great price") could have been sold, and the funds distributed amongst the poor. At that time, one pound of pure oil of nard cost roughly 300 silver denarii. To put this price into perspective, one denarius represented a single day's wages for the common Roman soldier. Mary Magdalen therefore blew the equivalent of a healthy trust fund on a single vessel of perfume. Needless to say, this makes me feel a whole lot better about my own fragrance budget.
If you manage to find any quantity of the now-discontinued L'Eau de Jatamansi by L'Artisan Parfumeur, it might set you back as much as Mary Magdalen's scent du jour. Your wad of cash would get you a product containing only natural essential oils from certified organic sources-- no synthetics. But you'd also be paying through the nose (pun intended) for an eau de toilette whose scent life is shockingly brief, requiring frequent reapplications to keep it alive on skin. As extravagantly as you're meant to splash it on, you eventually might find that it has cost you the modern equivalent of 300 denarii.
Worth it? That first splash will decide you.
L'Eau de Jatamansi kicks off with a wonderful top note of spikenard and black pepper which segues into the scent of fresh carnations -- not the boutonniere variety, whose fragrance has given up the ghost in some florist's refrigerator case, but the tiny "pinks" that grow half-wild in tangled garden beds. When warmed by the sun, these blossoms send up a piquant odor that is a perfect triangulation between raw celery, powdered cloves, and dimestore candy hearts.
Sadly, this lovely phase is tragically cut short by an overpunctual drydown reminiscent of old-fashioned perfumed bath powder, which comes as a dry surprise after Jatamansi's juicy green heart. And just as you're coming to terms with it, even the drydown fades too soon-- does nothing about this perfume want to stick around?
If perfumer Karine Vinchon ever revisited her creation and rectified the persistence problem, and if L'Artisan ever re-released it as an EDP "extrême", sure. I'd try it. But buy it? For my reluctance to fully commit to so fickle a scent -- regardless of how breathtakingly lovely -- I hope, like Mary Magdalene, to be forgiven.
The joys of the cinema are legion; surprises of all sizes abound. I like mine on the wee side -- under five foot six -- and green-eyed, thank you kindly.
In the 1998 Scottish indie film An Urban Ghost Story, a family living in a Glasgow housing project copes with two unwanted entities: the poltergeist that haunts their tiny flat, and the loan shark who menaces them for monies owed. The latter is played by Scottish actor Billy Boyd, best known as Pippin Took in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. If you have only ever seen him as a harmless little hobbit, Boyd's performance here will chill you in an unexpectedly big way.
Tersely described in the screenplay as "a small young man in an expensive suit", the Shark is a titan of rage held in check only by impeccable bespoke tailoring. His personal deficiencies (he's short, he stutters, he can't seem to shake this vexing head cold) are balanced by an inimitable fashion sense and a comprehensive lack of human emotion which renders him the ideal man for this line of work.
And that voice! Soft, compelling, caressing the ear like a freshly-honed straight razor sheathed in velvet… Even as the Shark instructs his henchmen to "chuck the wee bitch off the fucking balcony", I'm transfixed. What poltergeist on earth could possibly outdo the menace of this tightly-wound little man?
None. It takes a perfume to get the job done.
While reaching for metaphors to describe Or Black, I found that the Shark kept coming to mind. Far bigger heavies abound in cinematic iconography -- Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men), Victor the Cleaner (La Femme Nikita), Beatrix Kiddo (Kill Bill), almost all of the Inglorious Basterds. But only the Shark -- remote, concentrated, unreadable -- seemed fit to personify this saturnine scent.
In their common use of scent elements such as bergamot and oakmoss, chypres and fougères straddle the same fence-- but the side on which they choose to touch ground makes all the difference. On one side, it's the enchanted forest, moist and cool and dappled with dew; on the other, harsh and arid badlands stretching as far as the eye can see. If Or Black had wished to take up residence in the former territory, it might have incorporated some soothing lavender or verdant spruce. Instead, it opts for black leather, drier-than-dry vetiver and sage, and an oakmoss so bitter and caustic it practically dessicates one's sinuses to powder. After a good long stretch of this -- during which the less hearty may find themselves begging for mercy -- a smooth, shaving-soap tonka accord with vanillic overtones provides a kind of consolation prize.
The Or Black man may be a distant cousin of that masterpiece of iconoclasm, the Yatagan man-- only smooth-shaven and obsessively clean. Rather than inhabit the sere desert, it inhabits him, deep inside where his soul used to be. His weapon is a sardonic smile-- or, even more powerful, the calculated withholding of it. Yet for all he leaves one feeling bruised and ill-used, one cannot help but come back for more.
Why? Perhaps it's that eternal, perverse infatuation so succinctly captured by Sylvia Plath: Every woman adores a Fascist/The boot in the face, the brute/Brute heart of a brute like you.
Today, it's going to be a sultry day in the mid-'90's-- not the type of weather for which heavy perfumes could be considered advisable. But the last drops of Tauer's L'Air du Désert Marocain are about to evaporate from the bottom of my spray vial, and I would rather carry them on my person than allow them to dissipate ignominiously into the void.
Something this precious cannot be squandered-- its sweetness wasted on the desert air, as it were.
L'Air du Désert Marocain was the very first perfume sample I ever purchased. It came to me alone, since I was not yet confident enough to place a larger, more adventurous multi-perfume order. I remember first spraying it on snippet of handmade paper left over from an art project because I felt too intimidated to wear it. I slept with that piece of paper next to my pillow for two nights before I felt my courage rise. I found its aroma entrancing, transcendent, but I wondered if I was worthy of it. At length I decided I was, and then our love affair began.
L'Air du Désert Marocain was also the first perfume I wrote about, though it wasn't the first entry I dared to publish. Fully fourteen reviews of other perfumes had to pass before I felt that I could declare my love for this one to the world. I wanted to hold it inside of myself for as long as I could, fine-tune the words, perfect my declaration before exposing it to others' eyes.
For millenia, humans have recognized the power of scent to free the higher consciousness. Nothing seems to resolve the dichotomy between high and low, "inner" and "outer", mortal and immortal, than a beautiful smell. This smell need not even have an earthly origin: in Roman Catholicism, the "odour of sanctity" present at a saint's deathbed is perceived both as an ontological state of perfection and a real perfume-- one so heavenly it causes onlookers to fall to their knees.
For those who keep less exalted company, incense provides the equivalent in mystical atmosphere in a form more readily attainable than sainthood. From Japanese nerikō (kneaded incense), which incorporates dozens of ingredients precisely chosen and apportioned, to the simple sweetgrass braid or sage wand of the Plains, incense infuses any occasion with an air of religious solemnity.
As a perfume element, however, incense can often prove difficult. What smells magical rising into air in a ribbon of smoke may translate as heavy and cloying on one's person. Compound this with the fact that the human limbic system is wired to sit up in alarm at the first hint of something burning. Incense is smoke, and smoke (to the primitive portion of our brains) equals danger. Only a fine line separates fire that lights, warms, and sustains from fire that destroys and kills.
The incense-maker's genius, therefore, is to actually lead us dancing along that line-- and the skill of the perfumer must amount to double that of the incense-maker in order to produce that most elusive thing: a wearable form of smoke.
It was not until I tried L'Air du Désert Marocain that I felt any satisfaction in my quest. Even before I had an opportunity to sample it, I felt drawn to the adjectives that kept cropping up in reviews. Purifying. Peaceful. Mystical. Divine. Ancient. Healing. Holy. L'Air is all of these things, and yet when I finally obtained some for myself, I found these human adjectives almost too heavy and earthbound for so transcendental a fragrance.
Your entrance into heaven is announced with an angelic three-part-harmony of petitgrain, coriander, and cumin-- three dry, slightly biting scents that awaken the senses and heighten the general sense of anticipation. As the perfume develops on skin, the heat begins to intensify, rippling and expanding upward and outward. Though frankincense is not listed among the scent elements, it certainly seems present, a slight blue haze reminiscent of woodsmoke hanging in the air on a still, clear, winter night. Somewhere in the darkness there is unseen shelter; all of its heat, light, comfort and welcome are encapsulated in L'Air du Désert Marocain's heart of pure cedarwood, which sheds its ruddy glow over several rapturous hours of drydown.
In her 2000 novel, The Tale of Murasaki, Liza Dalby describes an incense competition held between the ladies of the Heian imperial court. Each noblewomen has prepared her own variations on a selection of traditional nerikō blends which, having been permitted to age, are now ready to burn. We see the day of the competition through Murasaki Shikibu's eyes: "The chill air was still and held the burning scents as if caught in syrup." One of Murasaki's blends takes the top prize, but even more valuable to her than the contest stakes are the simple words of accolade by which the judges praise her winning scent: "tranquil… enviably so".
This describes L'Air du Désert Marocain precisely. Weightless, it rises, and you rise with it.
It is gone for now. But I know that I will seek this perfume out again. Other fragrances may come and go, play the role of the passing fancy and then take their bows on the stage. Not this one. This one's for life.
