Perfume Journal

Three years ago, if you had asked me what I thought of Le Parfum de Thérèse, I would have pulled a face and said, “Miracle Whip salad dressing and basil.” I had no idea why so many perfume bloggers revered it; to my nose, it had the tangy, sweet and sour, oily-watery smell of that condiment, Miracle Whip, which is the most awful substitute for mayonnaise I can think of, yet enduringly popular in the United States. (My late mother-in-law and beloved grandmother were both devoted Miracle Whip fans, so I do feel a twinge of guilt about dissing it, which might account for why I have avoided writing about Le Parfum de Therese for so long.)

If you can imagine Miracle Whip spread on leaves of freshly picked basil, pungently herbal, but also with basil’s lightly spicy, cinnamon-like edge to it, you sort of get the idea of how Le Parfum de Thérèse registered to my newbie-perfumista nose. It reminded me of a strange woman I knew—a young woman, very pretty, very thin, who kept iguanas as pets in a big spare bedroom of her house, and who seemed intent on adopting their diet. She loved Miracle Whip, too—or maybe it was mayonnaise; she spread it between two leaves of Romaine lettuce and called it her “sandwich,” though that’s all it consisted of—no bread, no anything else. “More like a salad,” I said to her once, but she insisted that since she never ate more than one or two of these filling numbers at any given meal, she viewed them as sandwiches.

Consequently, I began thinking of Le Parfum de Thérèse as Le Parfum de K. (iguana girl), and I suppose that is the other reason I have resisted writing this journal post. It seems almost sacrilegious to write down these crazy thoughts in regard to a perfume that was created, with great reverence, by one of the world’s most talented perfumers as a gift to his wife. Edmond Roudnitska, the genius “nose” whose creations included the original Rochas Femme (1944), as well as Diorissimo (1956) and Diorella (1972) for the Christian Dior company, formulated the fragrance for his wife, Thérèse Roudnitska, in the 1950s, and the scent was hers, and hers alone, to wear until the year 2000, when Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle acquired the rights to produce it commercially.

Yet, sacrilegious as it seems, those were my initial impressions when I first smelled Le Parfum de Thérèse back in 2006, and I think it would be a disservice to my readers—particularly those who might be new to the perfume scene—if I didn’t report on them honestly. I really didn’t “get” Le Parfum de Thérèse back then, but I decided to hang on to my little 10-ml bottle of it because of the comments of another perfume blogger who basically said of this scent, “Don’t give up! Keep trying! You’ll ‘get it’ one day.” She wasn’t speaking directly to me, she was commenting in general at the site of a blog I was reading, but I took her to words to heart. I’m not sure why, as I was pretty certain at the time that one’s tastes were one’s tastes: if not exactly carved in stone, not easily altered, either. Yet perhaps because Le Parfum de Thérèse was so very odd to my nose—the associations that sprang to mind so weird—my interest was piqued, and I did want to keep revisiting it. Even when I thought I didn’t like it, there was something about it that I found as compelling as a siren song.

To truly revisit something, you have to go through a process where you forget about it, too. With Le Parfum de Thérèse, I tucked my bottle away for four and five months at a time, before bringing it out again, and in the meanwhile, I kept sniffing everything else that came down the pike—loads of samples—and expanding my wardrobe. Breathing in and out new scents, doing it consistently, is not unlike breathing in and out new words: before long, you acquire a new vocabulary, perhaps even a whole new language. And perhaps not surprisingly, one’s tastes do evolve and change in the process of all that learning. Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with two scents, in particular, that opened the door to my loving Le Parfum de Thérèse: the almost overripe, fruity-chypre scent of Amouage Jubilation 25, with its piquant lemon-tarragon top notes, and the spiced plums, leather and polished-wood smell of Guerlain Parure. Both scents have elements that I recognize in Le Parfum de Thérèse, and somehow they helped me to reframe the way I smell the fragrance. Or maybe, like new words, I simply liked the way those elements tasted, the more and more I breathed them in, until they became the very things I started to crave in fragrance.

I still perceive Le Parfum de Thérèse as being a fragrance composed of tangy, sweet and sour, oily and watery smells, with a spicy-herbal undercurrent. And my earlier association still roll around in my head—I can’t completely dismiss them, and I wouldn’t want to—only now they mix with newer associations: Le Parfum de Thérèse now smells to me like the residue of a fruit and herb garden on a woman’s leather glove (as if the mistress of the garden decided that a leather glove would be better than a garden glove to cut fruits and leaves from their prickly vines), deposited onto the counter of a sunny kitchen, where the pretty iguana girl is whipping up a batch of fresh mayonnaise.

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Le Parfum de Thérèse, from Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, has notes of tangerine, melon, rose, plum, cedar, vetiver and leather. It can be purchased from the Editions de Parfums website, or from Barneys.com, where a 50 ml bottle is currently priced at $150.

Posted by Suzanne Keller, 7/3/2009.
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Chanel Égoïste: Eau So Suave!

Because I love Chanel—and because I love rose scents on men—I decided to purchase (unsniffed) a bottle of Chanel Égoïste. Launched in 1990, Égoïste has top notes of mandarin, rosewood and coriander; heart notes of damask rose, carnation and cinnamon; and base notes of sandalwood, vanilla and ambrette seed. After testing it on my husband, and wearing it myself for four days in a row in humid weather, my only complaint about this fragrance is that it is exceedingly light in terms of its sillage (though it’s longevity is great; I can smell it on my skin for a good six or seven hours, so long as I press my nose right up against my skin). This rather surprised me, as 1) it’s a men’s fragrance—and even though it’s an eau de toilette, as most men’s scents are, this is decidedly softer than most men’s scents, which tend towards the robust; and 2) I read so many reviews on Basenotes.net that characterized it as being “strong” (and sometimes criticized for being “sweet,” which I also find not to be the case), I began to wonder if the bottle I got had been reformulated, as so many things have these days. However, despite the fact that I find the juice rather lightweight—as lightweight as some of Chanel’s more recent fragrances in its les exclusifs collection—I was pleased to find that, otherwise, it matched up nicely to the descriptions I’d read and was exactly what I was expecting: an elegant rose scent, lightly spiced and laced with wood.

A brief burst of barbershop (and who doesn’t like a bit of that?) is what I smell when this scent hits my skin: the standard opening salvo of gentlemen scents, an herbally citrus smell. Oh so very quickly, though, it is infiltrated by the rose—and here you must imagine an airy and natural smelling rose, not one that is dark, jammy or perfumey, but something on the order of the beach roses that grow along the sand dunes. This rose endures throughout the long wear of the scent, embracing subtle changes along the way: becoming more spicy as it exchanges kisses with clove-like carnation, and then more gourmand as it hugs the cinnamon, sandalwood, and vanilla in its ambery base. In its drydown, it reminds me a bit of an Indian dessert called kulfi, a frozen dessert similar to ice cream in the way it tastes (though not in the way it is made), which is prepared with a number of traditional flavorings, one of them being rosewater. This rose-kulfi aspect of the scent is very delicate, not at all what I would call overly sweet; it lends the fragrance a cosmopolitan air, a hint of the exotic. The scent of wood—like one might find from a precious objet d’art such as a chessboard or an expensive wardrobe—drifts in and out of this fragrance, too, from start to finish.

Because Égoïste couples this sophisticated assemblage of notes—not the sort of thing you’d find in a mainstream men’s scent—in a blending that is soft, that has this very breezy, nonchalant quality about it, the fragrance does smell very Chanel to me. With Chanel fragrances, there is often this aspect of elegance combined with a sense of aloofness. Nonchalance might actually be the word I’m searching for: a slightly haughty sense of “The world is my oyster and I don’t have a care in the world.” And with that in mind, I can’t help thinking that Égoïste would be the perfect scent for someone who wants to create a Jude Law sort of effect. (Granted, it would take a lot more than fragrance to create the Jude Law effect—but since genetic engineering is not a viable option, let’s start here.) Égoïste has Jude Law’s pretty-boy good looks, his flawless metrosexual appeal, as well as his easy charm. Like Jude, Égoïste has a slender and refined sexuality rather than a burly and brutish appeal. It’s a scent for the Vespa-riding Dickie Greenleaf (the character that Jude played in The Talented Mr. Ripley)—probably not something that would appeal to a rough-and-tumble Harley lover; but for those who are bowled over by suave manners and stylish good looks, Égoïste is one sexy playboy.

Chanel Égoïste (not to be confused with Chanel Égoïste Platinum, which isn't the same fragrance) is available from Chanel.com, $70 for 100 ml. Decants of Chanel Égoïste are available from my website, see perfume catalog for sizes and prices.

Images: actors Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law in a scene from the movie, The Talented Mr. Ripley, is from IMDB.com.

Posted by Suzanne Keller, 6/27/2009.
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CHANEL 31 RUE CAMBON: A SCENT OF GORGEOUS DICHOTOMY

“Her style was a synthesis of feminine softness and masculine ease, the gossamer and the tweedy."

--Judith Thurman, writing of Coco Chanel, in an article from The New Yorker

Chanel 31 Rue Cambon, launched in 2007 as part of Chanel’s les exclusifs series of fragrances, was reportedly inspired by the opulently decorated third-floor apartment that Coco Chanel maintained above her Paris boutique. To a degree, I understand how the apartment’s trappings—its quilted beige sofa, leather-bound books and glittering chandeliers—shaped the nature of this fragrance, as there’s definitely a whiff of “We’ll take our drinks in the library, Jeeves” (or in Mademoiselle Chanel’s case, her sitting room) inherent in the scent. The combination of leathery iris, resinous labdanum, and a gentlemanly-elegant patchouli is the olfactory evocation of books you’d find in the handsome library of a mansion or a men’s club (and how apropos, considering that Mademoiselle Chanel was the designer whose fashions took women out of their corsets and into the men’s club, in a manner of speaking).

Yet there is a striking lightness to this fragrance—a very modern, uncluttered sensibility—that seems in direct contrast to the weighty ornateness of the apartment (if you’ve not seen photos of this amazing pied-a-terre, you can click to see them here). As such, the juxtaposition of these elements—the sturdy and masculine smell of leather and polished wood in counterpoint to the sprightly fizz of the scent’s bergamot and pepper notes—reminds me less of the apartment at 31 Rue Cambon than it does of the clothes, sold two floors below, that made the address famous. The Chanel 31 Rue Cambon fragrance is as streamlined as a Chanel suit and possesses that same dichotomy of feminine fluidity and masculine crispness. How can one not think of Chanel’s black-and-white suits, as well as her trademark black-and-white logo, when you smell this scent? It says “class” with the deftest palette—and the fewest strokes—possible. And like Chanel’s suits, this is the kind of fragrance you can wear to the workplace and then trot out for dinner and a night on the town later. You can easily dress it up or down, because it has the kind of quiet elegance that is equal parts discretion and luxury.

I’d venture to say that if more people wore scents like 31 Rue Cambon in the workplace, less people would complain about being sensitive to fragrance. The sillage on this one hugs the body like the lightweight jersey fabric Mademoiselle Chanel favored for her sportswear. Some people find it too light—and while I would agree with that assessment in regard to some of the other fragrances in the exclusifs collection, 31 Rue Cambon is nicely detectable and lasting on my skin. As it wears, the iris undergoes its natural segue from leather into light powder, and in the final drydown, the creamy underpinning of sandalwood becomes evident. At this point, the scent reminds me of a line in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, where the lovely Daisy Buchanan, with her moneyed voice, is on a tour of Gatsby’s house when she spies a cloud outside his window—and she tells him she would like to put him in the cloud and push him around in it.

The list of notes for Chanel 31 Rue Cambon includes: bergamot, black pepper, patchouli, cistus labdanum and iris. In the past, you could only purchase it from the Chanel boutiques, Bergdorf Goodman and Saks (because it was considered part of “les exclusifs” collections—and thus not available just anywhere-you-please on the Internet!). Now, however, the Chanel company has made all of these fragrances available for sale on its website, CHANEL.com, and it’s worth mentioning that from now until June 21, 2009, the company is offering free standard shipping (as part of their Father’s day promotion) on any purchase. For $200, you can get a 200-ml bottle of Chanel 31 Rue Cambon—or any of the other les exclusifs fragrances—which is enough scent to last a lifetime, making it a rare dichotomy in another sense too: that of luxury bargain.

Image of actress Audrey Tautou as Coco Chanel, reclining on the beige sofa in the sitting room of her apartment at 31 Rue Cambon,. Coco Chanel used the apartment for work and entertaining only (it did not have a bedroom) as she lived in a suite at the Ritz Hotel in Paris.

Posted by Suzanne Keller, 6/19/2009.
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In case you’d been wondering if I dropped off the face of the Earth, I wanted to let you know I’m still here, but May and June have been extremely busy with family doings—the most recent being a visit from family members in Florida and California, who came up to attend the high school graduation of my niece, Megan.

As you can probably tell by this photo, Megan is one of the lights of my life…the child I never had. She’s a charming young woman and a complex individual: a faculty scholar with a sweet laugh; a mean-throwing varsity softball pitcher who led her team to back-to-back district championships; a tiny little bundle of muscle who rides dirt bikes and raises goats, dairy and beef cattle on her family farm; and, at the end of the day, a girl who “cleans up nice” as they say here in the boonies of Pennsylvania. For all of her mental and physical toughness, she is a girly-girl at heart—a lover of finger nail polish, makeup, and—the only fragrance she has ever asked me for—Frederic Malle Carnal Flower.

There is something about a graduation ceremony that is especially poignant, as it makes you acutely aware that life is a journey, a spiraling path that we all travel together, but at the same time, separately, because we are all at different places on the path. Because it is full of stops and starts—and places to rest along the way—we are occasionally able to meet up with each other, or to cast a backwards glance at our fellow travelers and say, “I passed that way before: it’s an uphill trudge, but you’ll make it!” (Or, conversely, to offer an “enjoy the ride” affirmation and encouragement. As my stepdad said to Megan, who is scheduled to attend college this fall, “You’re about to enter four years of fun!”) Watching her reach this most recent plateau on life’s journey made me feel more connected to the world. It reminded me that, at the same moment she was graduating, elsewhere on the planet someone was being born and someone else was dying; someone was getting married and someone else was starting over; someone was beginning a new career and someone else was retiring—and on and on and on.

So anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to, and now that my family is departing from their visit here, I’ll try to focus on writing an actual perfume post this week. Until then, thanks for stopping by!

Image of me putting a bear-hug on Megan was taken by my sister. (Thanks, Barb!)

Posted by Suzanne Keller, 6/16/2009.