Ivoire (Chanel) is one perfume that should be available today for all the vintage perfume lovers. It is an unknown and unspoken jewel. In the early 30's it was quite popular or at least considered important. Before smelling it I was able to find some short reviews in German magazines from 1933-1936 where it was seen as one of the best French perfumes of those years (Scandal, Arpège, En avion, etc).
Ivoire (Chanel) has a strong floral aldehydic (C11 + C9 aldehyde, among others) structure but it's more a woody sweet variation of Chanel No5 and what is characteristic of this perfume is the soft balsamic and powdery drydown.
The powdery orris-vetiver with the precious wood note reminds me a very famous base from Naef: Vetyrisia. The aromatic woody and very warm note is also typical for 2 Naef Bases - Arolia and Cedarome. The drydown of the perfume could be described as sweet opopanax-precious wood-vetiver-orris. I do not know precisely what bases were used but what is sure is that Ivoire has that typical mossy-precious wood note (vetiver-sandalwood) with an incense (resin + C12 MNA maybe) and sweet opopanax-ambery note.
The type of coumarine-opopanax note (different from the actual natural product) can be smelled in Emeraude (Coty) drydown. The vetyver-orris-incense idea can be smelled in Interdit (Givenchy).
The floral heart is quite similar to Chanel No5, with an emphasis on ylang and carnation plus jasmin-rose with quite little soapy effect. There is also an important violet-orris note brought by a certain type of methyl ionone. With all those ingredients there is also a Vol de Nuit feeling in the drydown (the small chypre effect).
Top- citrusy aldehidic: bergamot, neroli
Heart - floral: ylang-lilac-carnation + jasmin-rose
Drydown - sweet woody balsamic: vetiver, orris, iralia, sandalwood, opopanax, incense, vanilla-coumarin, musk (musk ambrette).
Later, Chanel would sell the Ivoire trademark to Balmain.
(those are the notes I wrote about Ivoire in 2008)
Did you enjoy my article? Sign up for updates about new fragrances, reviews of artistic perfumes and exceptional vintage masterpieces. I would be very happy if you would consider joining 1000 Fragrances, throughRSS feed,GoogleFriend connect, Facebook (more personal), or any other way that appeals to you.
Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art
