1000fragrances: September 2010

Thursday, September 30

Asparagus Urine Odor - Your body and the scent of food

Does your urine have that unusual "Marcel Proust" scent? This time it's not his delicious madeleine but the asparagus he evokes in Du côté de chez Swann where he links urine, perfume and asperges (and only Marcel knows if it's for their shape or their scent).

The Monell Center did an unusual study combining smell and genetics about the asparagus odour found in human urine.

"Most people detect a distinct sulfurous odor in their urine shortly after eating asparagus. However, there are some who seemingly do not notice the unpleasant odor. Up until now, it has been unclear whether this is because these individuals do not produce the odor or because they cannot smell it. Addressing this mystery from several angles, scientists from the Monell Center first used sophisticated sensory testing techniques to show that both explanations apply: approximately eight percent of the subjects tested did not produce the odorous substance, while six percent were unable to smell the odor. One person both did not produce the odor and was unable to smell it. [...] Specifically, we have learned that changes in an olfactory receptor gene can have a large effect on a person’s ability to smell certain sulfurous compounds. Other such compounds include mercaptan, the chemical used to add odor to natural gas so that people are able to detect it."

The rest of the article is here.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Midnight in Paris (Van Cleef & Arpels) - new fragrance review

While Bvlgari has (almost) discontinued the very original Bvlgari Black, one of the few original creations of the "transparent" era, Van Cleef & Arpels is actually relaunching it under the name Midnight in Paris. This perfume is pure beauty with an excellent smoothness, remarkable refinement and a very linear evolution. It is night, the sky embraces the earth with its profound darkness and the shapes slowly disappear into the infinite. The silence is deep and profound like the heavy smoke of incense in an oriental temple, near a guaiac wood statue. There is no beginning and no end in this perfume, the structure is linear, like a dense smoke surrounding everything in the sensual embrace of black cashmere with its precious incense accent. A dark flower blooms inside this perfume with an unexpected light gourmand facet.
The name of the perfume evokes the famous Soir de Paris (Bourjois), but it is also the name of a Van Cleef & Arpels watch. The perfume is launched right in time with the movie Midnight in Paris (2011), directed by Woody Allen, with Marion Cotillard.

This new creation from Van Cleef & Arpels gives a new life to a 1998 perfume that became quite hard to find. It is Bvlgari Black with a twist, like a new floral accord combined with a very soft leathery orris note. Like Dior Homme, it is a perfume without a gender - no aromatic notes, no recognizable masculine odor, except the soft spiciness.

First, there was Canoe (Dana) and Brut (Fabergé) and though these creations belong to very different eras, they shared some important similarities. They were aromatic, sweet balsamic and very musky. Unlike the original fougère accord, the accent was not on the lavender coumarine facet and not very much on the geranium heart. They emphasized a particular sweet note combined with a soft balsamic molecule. Brut gave Le Mâle (Gaultier), a modern and original interpretation that was totally opposed to the extreme testosterone aromatic facet that previously gave Azzaro pour Homme. The fougère family was split in two. But Bvlgari Black, this most unusual, highly original and exquisite creation of the 90's with a styrax burnt facet, went back in time and took an original sweet balsamic accord found in both Canoe and the very elaborated Je Reviens. This small note, wrapped in balsams, woods, very sweet vanillic notes, musk and the distinctive smoky burnt note, was the lost link between the fougère, the oriental and the leather family. It also brought something that was neither feminine nor masculine, but not fresh.

Midnight in Paris (Van Cleef & Arpels) has more power and tenacity than the original Bvlgari perfume (a beautiful but quite ephemeral creation), with an accent on the woody notes. The softness of cedar, the powdery delicate touch of orris, the milky undertones of sandalwood and the raw sweetness of tonka evoke the smoothness of another beautiful perfume. This is "Dior Homme Black", where the powdery facet of orris was wrapped in sweet oriental notes and black tea. Another perfume of the same type is Body Kouros, an excellent interpretation of the smoky sweet sensual theme, contrasted with a very clean note and a liquorice / anis facet, where the floral heart becomes an unusual lilac.

Midnight in Paris (Van Cleef & Arpels) keeps the darkness of Bvlgari Black but it is wrapped in soft powdery notes. It is benzoin, baby powder and the illusion of mimosa, in an ocean of burnt and woody notes. Unlike Bvlgari, the drydown of the perfume is more vanillic-tonka and it is similar in style with a perfume launched in their exclusive collection. The new interpretation of coumarine or "black tonka", can be found in several masculine creations launched in 2009-2010 but Midnight in Paris (Van Cleef & Arpels) gave the full expression of this idea, leaving away the lavender and other aromatic notes. Even the bergamot-lemon top, suggesting an "abstract black Shalimar" when combined with the sweet vanilla tonka facet, is less important in this perfume, presented in a beautiful "Eau de Merveilles" like bottle.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Wednesday, September 29

Belle d'Opium (Yves Saint Laurent) - new fragrance review

Is Firmenich loosing its top perfumers? Is there an unusual influenza affecting the most famous noses in the world? The new perfume from Yves Saint Laurent qualifies for the worst perfume since 1895 when the Swiss company Chuit Naef was founded. The problem with this "non -perfume" is that it has little volume and even less tenacity. It doesn't qualify under any basic technical requirements for fine fragrances. It barely smells on the skin even with a generous splash, after 30 minutes is almost gone. It doesn't bloom, doesn't diffuse and doesn't perfume you at all. Its power, when it still smells on the skin cannot be compared with regular body sprays. It's weaker. But after all, is l'Oréal cheating the foolish client with an EDP concentrated at 1% instead of at least 10%? This wouldn't be a surprise after all because the current owner of YSL is well known for its unethical practices. If Belle d'Opium can be considered either a technically very bad fine fragrance or a decent body lotion composition bottled in an extremely beautiful bottle, something even more alarming can be said about the scent itself. This composition is the perfect expression of plagiarism in fragrance, the tough word for the contemporary marketing brief. Take Allure Sensuelle EDP (Chanel) with less vanilla and mix it with a touch of the patchouli spicy sweet note from Si Lolita (Lolita Lempicka) or take a very recent Guerlain and simplify it reducing its rich baroque notes and you will get this modern chypre oriental. Of course, it's not a copy of those perfumes because they smell and have very good tenacity. Belle d'Opium is what the worst fake No5 is to Chanel - it smells very close but it doesn't last at all. The scent is very obvious and you have smelled it many times before because this is an over-used and abused accord, but this copy-cat approach is not unusual for the big cosmetic group. Again, there is a mass market perfume in France, from another Yves that shares too many similarities with Belle d'Opium, but …. was launched almost a year before and has a great tenacity on skin.

Belle d'Opium bears no relation to the original Opium (YSL), a perfume that was already mutilated by l'Oréal through a merciless reformulation when they have recently changed the packaging, as they started to do with other YSL perfumes. Now, when the great French couturier has passed away, the same can be said about the perfume company. There is no hope for YSL perfumes, for the quality, richness and strong personality of one of the most important fragrance company of the past century. "Smelling" what happens now to YSL and the new creations they put on the market, I firmly believe that under these circumstances the company will simply disappear in several years as happened before with so many other brands sold to the wrong group.

If there is little hope from l'Oréal, what shocks me here is Firmenich. How is it possible to sign a perfume that is so bad, like an unfinished dress? The simplest explanation is that nobody does tests the perfume on skin anymore and very few care about the quality when the marketing is able to find enough foolish women.

Sometime I can understand perfume that are too inspired by I cannot stand bad formulation.

French actress Mélanie Thierry is dancing on a choreography created by Akram Khan in the commercial directed by Romain Gavras. This is in vain because Belle d'Opium fails to be an YSL perfume. L'Oréal is a successful image maker but to this day the company fails to create true fragrances. You buy a desirable image, a dream, a makeup, a photo, a beautiful packaging, but certainly not a real perfume and sadly this is true in 2010 for all their brands (from Lancôme to Armani).

Perfumer Honorine Blanc from Firmenich speaks about Belle d'Opium

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Tuesday, September 28

The perfume secrecy

From all the human activities, the fragrance industry is the most obsessed with secrecy and that's why its own culture and history are under threat. Can you imagine that until the late 60's the name of the suppliers was not mentioned when a new product was introduced and presented in trade journals? Today it seems absurd to present a product intended for sale without giving all the details. This image is from an article about new raw materials from a German trade magazine. I have hundreds examples like this since 1900's. Guessing the names 30 years after and establishing a list with raw materials and specialties is a never-ending research work for me. I do not add that for many important products nobody knows the creator and many of them are lost for olfaction. The only thing we know is the name of several chemists when they published their works. But the number of unpublished reports is greater than the patents. H&R and Dragoco produced hundreds of molecules and specialties in the 50's and 60's but did not patent them. Many products are not in catalogues but appear in formulae. Molecules, their history and their first applications in bases or perfumes are lost today unless a miracle happens. I often say that Egyptology is easier than the history of perfumes in the XXth century.
Click for better image.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Christophe Laudamiel, a "Filthy" Fragrance and John Waters

Think Tank has an article today about the perfumer Christophe Laudamiel and a fragrance idea for John Waters, the self-proclaimed "Pope of Filth." Its unusual appeal "lies not in its stink, but in its exaltation of ingredients that have been frowned upon by the fine fragrance industry. "

"I would not go as far as saying that it would be toxic, but something impossible at the day of today to sell on the market.Full of real natural rose oil—yes natural rose oil is in an aberration; we can use only very little in commercial fragrances because of the excessive safety rules that the industry imposes, oak moss, and an overdose of some molecules that are also limited, like safranal, the main component in Saffron."
You read it well, pure rose oil from 1001 nights is almost a forbidden scent today. The absurd safety rules doesn't allow you to sell pure perfume in Europe and this happens 1000 years after the Crusades, when Europeans discovered the rose water and the rose oil. What was once introduced in Europe and became a cultural heritage will be "expelled" by Bruxelles, as it happens right now with the jasmine. I wonder how Bulgarians, now EU members, can sell their rose oil to tourists as a perfume souvenir to be worn.

Read the whole article on ThinkTank

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Fleurs de Tabac (Chiris) - vintage perfume base review

Almost 200 years of perfume heritage disappeared in the 1960's when the fragrance house Antoine Chiris, supplier of essential oils and bases, was bought. It was not the only house with a glorious past that disappeared leaving no trace. Fragrance industry is about secrecy and people (even today) are not open to questions about their art. Precisely because of that, the culture and the knowledge acquired since the XIXth century are 90% lost. Technology, fragrance formulae and a lot of "secrets" simply vanished when Chiris was bought. The documents related to the art of perfume cannot be found and worse, the products (bottles with raw materials / bases) are very hard to find. For a historic brand like Piver or Houbigant you do not necessarily need the formulae when bottles with pure perfumes are still on sale somewhere on earth. But this is not true for Chiris, deLaire, Roure, Flora, Schimmel, and so on. Heritage, cultural knowledge are simply buried with those who once created them and even their name is lost. Chiris, the company that once supplied Coty, Rallet and Caron with products that made the masterpieces of the 8th Art, is like the lost city of Atlantis.

I had the privilege this summer, thanks to a reader of my blog, to experience 2 lost creations from Chiris.

Fleurs de Tabac is a lost member of an extinct family - the tobacco. The current classification of perfumes from SFP puts tobacco and leather in the same group. But there was a time, long before the first official taxonomy had appeared, when tobacco note was a distinct group with its own characteristics.

The story starts in 1492 when the conquistadores learn of tobacco. Very soon, the seeds are introduced in Europe, the plantations are established in Santo Domingo, Cuba, Mexico but also all around the world, from China to Russia, Africa and Constantinople. The Aztecs mixed the tobacco leaf with vanilla, resins, flowers, and a spice, among the most important elements of the original preparations. The perfumes used to scent the tobacco will appear very soon in Europe, before this will become the job of the flavorist in the new tobacco industry. The most known perfume with a distinctive sweet tobacco note is Tabac Blond launched in 1919. In the early 20's some perfumes had even their tobacco version (perfume vials to scent the fashionable cigarettes).

The tobacco family was the missing link between orientals, chypre and hay (a type of fougère) while the burnt note of some types of tobacco provided the link to the leather family. The tobacco notes have an unusual and special place on the Scent Map, they are key note between many other "things" and are extremely addictive. The main subfamilies were:

- the tobacco flower, with its sweet spicy jasmine facet related to the intoxicating Queen of the Night flower;

- the Havana note with its very dry woody aromatic note;

- the pipe tobacco with its sweet vanilla, dried fruits, honey and spicy facets (there are many types of blends);

- the smoked tobacco with its distinctive burnt, tar and almost an incense note;

Tobacco is both sweet and dry, fresh aromatic and very deep, almost animalic. Because tobacco shares many elements with those families, the creation of the first tobacco note was not easy, until the perfumers found several very distinctive molecules / rare essential oils that would make the clear difference. Like Leather, Tobacco is a complex note that results from the interaction of several types of odor.

Tobacco leaf was extracted very early but it was not often used. Its smell is very beautiful, but it is more useful in the reproduction of other "hard-to-obtain" notes. The tobacco note needed the art of the perfumer to bloom in its true complexity.

Fleurs de Tabac was the interpretation given by Chiris to this particular scent. It is not very much related to Tabac Blond. The burnt smoky note is not the theme in this prototype.

The scent is very complex combining the following facets:

- very fresh (bergamot, rosewood, linalool)

- very aromatic and herbal (clary sage, lavender maybe thyme and basil)

- deep woody (vetiver, cedar, orris and a soft patchouli)

- very spicy (clove, bay)

- very sweet (coumarine, vanilla, benzoin)

- soft powdery musky and delicate honey

- light floral (geranium, jasmine, violet) with a pungent green note

After these main elements, there are the small ingredients providing the links with the chypre, fougère, orchid and woody dry notes and those that underline the strong tobacco note (with a celery touch?).

This "Fleur de Tabac" is closer to l'Origan and l'Heure Bleue, like a woody dry aromatic version but it also close to a very famous deLaire base, also based on tobacco, but less liatrix and more floral.

Fleur de Tabac (Chiris) has a very nice and extremely long evolution, with an amazing tenacity on the blotter from the bitter herbal, aromatic and fresh clary sage note to the powdery spicy heart that precedes a dry and deep drydown with a very beautiful nitro musk note. Something suggests even an aldehydic touch exquisitely wrapped by the light floral bouquet. The drydown suggests the powdery balsamic "end" of Soir de Paris.

This product from Antoine Chiris, already a perfume, was certainly amazing in luxury fragrances, combined with woody and chypre notes, providing that amazing texture and depth found in classic perfumes.

The product is deteriorated on top but I can seize its former glory when the dry note over a sweet powdery drydown had a special cachet. It combines the richness of Jacques Guerlain with the softness of Ernest Beaux (who was actually trained at Chiris). Once, several perfumers enchanted the world with their inspiring creations but today even their name is lost.

PS: I decided to illustrate this article with the 1001 Nights of Virginia Frances Sterrett (1900-1931) because the life of this amazing illustrator was fragile like the most delicate perfume.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Monday, September 27

Fan di Fendi - new fragrance review

I was not a fan of Fendi and the new fragrance recently introduced in Paris showed me that I didn't lost anything. Fan di Fendi is a fruity floral that smells like other 150 perfumes launched in the recent years. It bears that unmistakable scent that floats in front of Sephora or Marionnaud shops in Paris, when a light floral perfume meets a fruit and a soft patchouli note. It smells like everything fresh, floral, peach, light rose-jasmine with undertones of sandalwood, chypre-patchouli, musk, vanilla that slowly comes after the violent freshness. It has everything from Chanel to Cacharel in an extremely generic interpretation where again, François Demachy shares with us a formula from his former employer (this is really very obvious on the drydown). Nothing new, nothing surprising, nothing personal, nothing to say "I want this perfume now!".

Fan di Fendi is about making Fun di Fragrance and those who truly believe in this art.

Fan di Fendi | New Fragrance | Karmen Pedaru, Anja Rubik and Abbey Lee Kershaw |

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Sunday, September 26

Once upon a time (Kenzo) - new fragrance review (pour femme & pour homme)

Once upon a time there was a very beautiful red rose. She had an unhappy "cold" Idylle and from her tears emerged a clean musky ocean where finally she found her tragic end.

The new feminine perfume from Kenzo, called Once upon a time pour femme, starts with a very beautiful and rich rose oil note, underlined with fresh and cold spices. It evokes the "oriental rose" perfumes created with a very deep sandalwood-oud drydown but, unlike those heavy creations, this is rather airy and delicate, with touches of red fruits, raspberry and cassis. There are some similarities with a recent Cartier perfume from Les Heures, created over a "mûre et musc" accord, but the Kenzo creation has less contrast and personality. Sadly, this beautiful "rose essentielle" note is not well balanced and shortly the perfume turns into a conventional soft musky base with a hint of vanilla and raspberry, diluted into a transparent rose-peony accord, very common.

Once upon a time pour homme is a very conventional cold&sweet fougère like Armani Code with a spicy metallic and woody facet, found in perfumes with something blue on the packaging. There is a very clean and cold lily of the valley-watery freesia inside with a distinctive soapy note, specific to several Bvlgari fragrances. The perfume is of little interest as its cousin in nutmeg-ginger called Bleu de Chanel (a little bit more sophisticated).

Once upon a time (Kenzo) celebrates the 40th anniversary of the brand this year and is a limited edition. Why did they choose these perfumes is a mystery to me.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Saturday, September 25

DelRae Coup de Foudre - new fragrance review

Have you ever been in a Rose field when the may roses are picked up and transformed into the precious liquid, one of the most refined essences ever? During my ISIPCA studies I visited the Chanel rose field just in time when the roses where prepared for the extraction. We literally jumped into the big Chanel extractor being covered with rose petals and this was a very unusual experience we immortalized in pictures. That's how Coup de Foudre smells - like the first meeting with a divine rose in the morning when the dew is actually a rain of fresh petals. It is "Love at first sight" at Granville in the exquisite Monsieur Dior personal garden and house where the freshness of flowers is taken by the cold breeze. This rose is refined and delicate, tender and shy, musky and innocent. It is not the opulent and majestic rose found in Annick Goutal perfumes, but a rose that blooms in the early morning in a romantic garden. Coup de Foudre is the scent of dawn when the sky is "rose-dust" pink, the air is cold and the petals still retain their morning dew. It is a type of scent much related to the skin odour of very young european women and this idea was already present in the unusual Mythique (DelRae). The perfume starts with a sharp green, bitter lemony and almost spicy note offering the fresh resinous sweet facets of pink pepper. This combination evoke a verbena-mint French tisane served with rose confiture. It also smells of mint (a common facet in several roses given by a specific molecule found in rose extracts) and green grass. It suggests clearly some beautiful peonies with their camphor freshness. A pure pleasure of "herba fresca" precedes the profusion of roses, softly underlined by the coldness of a lily of the valley. But this lemon-petaly rose-muguet is also the heart of a white magnolia, a flower of an unusual sensual freshness. The special may rose used in this perfume created by Yann Vasnier brings a very vibrant facet to the petals. It is the Orpur quality of Givaudan, a CO2 extraction that preserves the entire freshness of the raw material for a greater than life effect in luxury fragrances. On the top of Coup de Foudre you can feel the sensation of crushing fresh rose petals with your fingers. It is an airy transparent interpretation, like the petals of the flower in the wind when the scent is taken by spirals elsewhere. This incredible cold bitter freshness is contrasted with a very soft velvety drydown, almost powdery but very musky with even a faint woody-mossy accent. There are also some honeyed-fruity facets specific to rose oils and even a very small green white jasmine (more the bud than the sensual flower). All these notes suggests to me a rose of a pale pink color, almost a white magnolia shade, quite different from the opulent dark red rose. This type of natural fresh rose found also other interpretations in fragrances like the modern Chloé, Stella, Idylle, but unlike these examples, Coup de Foudre is pure "rose de mai" with almost a vintage feeling. It is not the Creed Rose nor Rose Absolue (Annick Goutal), a creation based on the scent of the rose absolute and rose concrete. Coup de Foudre from DelRae is the rose in the garden, unique, ephemeral and delicate with hundreds of petals like the stolen kisses of the first love. Again, I wish this perfume was more tenacious, the same thing we always complain about romantic love. I wouldn't mind more sensual passion in "Love at first sight" at 8 o'clock in the morning.
Coup de foudre was also the name of a forgotten perfume made by Paul Poiret. It was a devastating aldehydic jasmine fragrance.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Friday, September 24

La Symphonie des Odeurs - conference about music and perfumes in Paris

Last night, the SFP (Société Française des Parfumeurs) hosted a conference devoted to the aesthetic affinities between perfumers and musicians - "La Symphonie des odeurs", presented by musicologist Marie-Anouch SARKISSIAN, Annick LE GUERRER and Dominique ROPION.

Historian Annick LE GUERRER presented an introduction to the very old relation between music and fragrance evoking the Egyptian goddess Hathor and later the apparition of "synthetic" notes in perfume and music during the XIXth century. She also spoke about the paradox of Edmond Roudnitska who tried to take a distance from music when he explored the aesthetics of fragrance, but often returned to it for the examples. The fragrance vocabulary inspired by music was briefly presented. Musicologist Marie-Anouch SARKISSIAN presented several crossroads between music and perfume while she entertained the audience playing several piano works that had a possible connection with the 8th art, composed by Debussy (Feuilles mortes, Bruyères, Ondine). Debussy was considered by Garcia Lorca "musicien des parfums et de l'irisation". The relation between music and perfume, as it was perceived by writers, was evoked like the case of George Sand. During her speech, the musicologist made references to Joris-Karl Huysmans, Aldous Huxley but also Septimus Piesse, the perfumer who in the XIXth century compared perfumes to music and even proposed a scale. The notion of harmony, as understood by musicians, was briefly presented. She insisted on emotions as fundamental to both arts. Another theme was the notion of water. During the concerto we were given blotters with Geranium pour Monsieur, New West for Her (Aramis) now discontinued but specially reconstructed by its author Yves Tanguy, and Escape (Calvin Klein). Dominique Ropion read a short presentation about the watery theme in perfume, starting with the camphoraceous rosemary note of Eau de la Reine de Hongrie, the freshness of citrus note that represented the first Eaux and he insisted on the lily of the valley note (a flower that is neither fruity nor sweet vanillic) as the base for modern transparency after the arrival of Calone, the marine molecule. The success of this theme in the 90's was based on the desire for purity, in a figurative or impressionist interpretation. He concluded that, after all, the water has no real smell and the perfumer can use any material to express his poetic idea. It is a dream water ("eau rêvée"). When the audience started to ask questions, it was pointed out that sadness and melancholia, often found in music, are not really a theme in perfumery where all briefs speak about joy and happiness. Musician Laurent Assoulen also had a short intervention, presenting his previous work with perfumer Guillaume Flavigny for a jazz concerto and explaining how Résonances was constructed - a structure between high and low pitched notes without the usual heart elements of a perfume.

Several personal comments:

I believe that a solid theoretical basis about art, perfumes and philosophy is needed when discussing about aesthetic affinities between music and fragrances. "What is art", "what is not art", "what is emotion and its relation to art" are subjects that were widely explored in the last century and any argument cannot avoid them. Aesthetics is a subject more complex than "it moves me, I like it, it is an art" and certainly people should read more than Roudnitska's book. Like I previously said in the article about "olfacto auditory works of art", I do not believe in simple associations, and definitely not on those based solely on the title of a work. Exploration of the past will not reveal other than what we know quite well: senses were presented everywhere since thousands of years because we do not separate and isolate our senses. You will find music and scent (or image and scent) in the same phrase since the earliest examples of literature and this is natural. But these small examples do not say other than "we perceive through our all senses and connecting things is natural for our knowledge". What 2010 should bring is a new reflection and an advanced thinking system where the exploration of senses is not a natural coincidence ("I hear Chopin, I think of a particular scent!"). This type of crossovers cannot avoid the discussion of perfume structure (like I did previously with "sonata shape", Bach, rythm and other elements from music than can be transposed in composition). Also, repeating the example of Septimus Piesse is not a healthy attitude without questioning its origin. Was he really thinking of music, or was it just just a "visualization" tool to explain perfume because music was known and performed by any cultivated people in the XIXth century? Why his perfume formulae are based on anything but his scales? Is his notion of harmony related to music or alchemy?

I also play music but when I light scented candles on my XIXth century vienese piano I do not feel that I approach Art. This is ambient and mood and of course, emotions.

But in some situations, music and perfumes can share unquestionable aesthetic affinities. This is the case of Debussy and several early Jacques Guerlain masterpieces like "Après l'ondée" (and lately l'Heure bleue among other 10 creations), based on the same "irisation" concept but also born from the same aesthetic "vibe" of an era that believed in "Gesamtkunstwerk" (from Wagner to the Arts of 1900's).

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Thursday, September 23

M / MINK by Byredo - new fragrance review

The surprise of this fall comes from Byredo and the very unusual creation recently launched in Paris. After 2 very bad previous launches, where the notion of perfumery + quality were washed out in a repulsive chemical freshness, M / MINK by Byredo took me like a storm. The perfume is highly original with the unexpected contrast between mineral ink, animalic notes and a strong aldehydic touch. It smells of many things but my first reaction was of a mythical furry beast flying in the metallic Antarctic breeze. It's honey and ice in a sublime contrast between the cold marine note of an aldehyde (adoxal) and the warm note of a spice. The perfume is suspended in a cloud of incense notes, floating above a forest of cedar and pine and above a river of amber (a molecule, not the sweet accord). You feel the resin, its warmth and its delicious sweetness flowing from the woody barks, but you also feel "the altitude", the air. M / MINK, with its combination of cedar, incense and an aldehyde, evokes the devastating note of a famous animalic base created many decades ago. It also evokes me several perfumes created last year where I felt this ozonic incense note worked with delicacy. But M / MINK gives us the full magnitude of this idea and the original note explodes. The mink note is under zoom and the fine hair becomes a forest. This tactile feeling recalls obviously the ink drawings where the brush creates the texture. The black spot is a condensed action while the brush stroke is recorded on paper through the density of the ink. Patchouli, soft leather and amber act like the shadow of a black drawing where no flower is growing. There is something that recalls a recent pine perfume from Lutens, but the accord is twisted in a very different direction - not the sweetness but the coldness of a "mineral" balm. The fragrance is worked with great strokes, the perfumer allows the overdose of several ingredients and has no fear in leaving "empty" spaces between the notes. This brutal approach of contrasts, where the dark honey animalic facet is the key note surrounded by a "breeze", is an excellent solution that perfectly fits the idea of a contemporary ink experiment. Ink + incense + fur + caviar - such a strange combination! For the first time in the history if Byredo, the idea is represented by the perfume. This woodiness, both strange and familiar, of a black forest, black fur or just the black ink brush, has something disturbing but beautiful. It ends with a soft ambery muskiness where the unusual cold incense reminds us that mysticism is not always synonym with sensuality.
With M / MINK by Byredo, Jérôme Epinette, author of other after less known and curious accords, is definitely the young star perfumer of Robertet.
( I wish the original notes were more worked at the end of the evaporation, there are still "unfinished" elements that I do not like at that stage, like the transparent woody musky facet).

M/Mink is a collaborative effort between Stockholm based fragrance house Byredo and creative partnership M/M (Paris). M/M are reusing existing images of photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin to develop a series of new artworks.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Wednesday, September 22

Olfacto-auditory works of art - crossovers in music and fragrance

Last week, the IFM (Institut Français de la Mode) hosted a conference on music and fragrance and olfacto-auditory works of art, presented by Marie-Annouk Sarkissian, musicologist at Université Paris IV, where she explores this type of aesthetic relations. During the presentation, 2 creations were presented.

The first is an "olfacto-auditory work of art" from 1989, a meeting between the perfumer Martin Gras and musician Louis Dunoyer de Segonzac, preceded by a "poem" about fragrances. This event was recorded on video tape and the perfume was now recreated by Givaudan. In fact it is a short piece of music composed after a perfume. Though this was presented in the 1989 movie as the first example of an olfacto-auditory work of art, this totally untrue from an historic point of view. The first examples go back to the 1940's USA, and even before, as I showed on this blog several years ago. But speaking of this creation, I was immediately impressed by the high quality of the perfume composed by Martin Gras (I believe he was at Dragoco). It is a creation from a different time, with a quality and refinement you will hardly find today. It shows an aesthetic vision that belongs to an era where composition and classic values had a high respect among perfumers. This creation evoked immediately the style of Ernest Beaux and the coriander aldehydic note mixed with a fresh bergamot top and something recalling basil made me think of a forgotten interpretation of Chanel No5 with a small fougère facet. But, unlike the contemporary version it was not the ylang-ylang nor the sweet coumarine that set the tone, but the smooth facet of jasmine absolute combined with the creamy vanilla, benzoin and a delicate carnation. The aldehydes were there, also a tender plum note and of course the peach-sandalwood accord over sensual powdery musks as found in No5 EDT. Extremely feminine, this Ernest Beaux touch came later because the top note was rather different, playing on a different chord (also fresh aldehydic), angular and sharp, opposed to the smooth drydown.

The second perfume was a creation of Guillaume Flavigny who transposed into scents a work of the musician Laurent Assoulen, called Résonance, presented in 2008 during a scented jazz concert. He captured with an unmistakable tenderness the nostalgic mood of the Cminor improvisation in a woody composition dominated by cedar, sandalwood, cold spices and musk. Woods, amber, a delicate fruity tobacco notes and an almost invisible sweetness create the illusion of a very fragile "Black Orchid" accord seen through the woody spiciness of Givenchy pour homme, all with a subtle suede note. This is contrasted with a very cold accord that suggests salty water, rain and tears and of course the modern metallic freshness found in Burberry Brit. It is a very beautiful interpretation of a modern masculine theme set in a tender universe, quite far from virile versions of the same woods, ending with a very elegant mossy vetiver note under an amber veil.

Unfortunately, the direct link between music and perfume was not presented, nor explained. It would have been interesting to see how a musical theme found its application in a perfume or how an idea inside a fragrance became "musical". These explanations are technical but their presence is vital in an art context. I'm one of those who firmly believes that the relation between music and perfume is something more than putting a nice fragrance in a room while composing or turning on the iPod while smelling blotters and writing a formula. Over the years I wrote many articles about this type of approaches and how music or other arts can inspire creative thinking in fragrance. One needs method, order, vision, explanation, demonstration and criticism. Otherwise the relation between fragrance and other arts is pure coincidence or an anecdote and this has little value for a true creator.

For this reason, every time an olfacto-auditory work of art is presented to the public (even by a musicologist) it should be accompanied by the "manual" - how did they work and why did they find this solution as the best expression, what did they borrow from each artistic field?

We should not take a backing / accompaniment for an authentic crossover and vice versa. This is a risk when the key of understanding is missing in an aesthetic exploration. What makes the performative experience valuable is the choice of a specific scent made by the artist and not the presence of any type of odor. An artist doesn't need a perfumer to scent a studio when he has Sephora near. The presence of a perfumer is something unique but this has to be explained in the context of pure creation that involves both an aesthetic and technical approach.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Tuesday, September 21

The 8 Wonders of Francis Kurkdjian

Last week Francis Kurkdjian has unveiled in his Parisian boutique several amazing fragrances he has composed in the past years for various artistic events, perfumes that were unavailable to the public. Unusual, exquisite and highly evocative, these 8 scented wonders illustrate a secret facet of the perfumer and his quest for unexpected but very beautiful scents in our universe. Fine fragrances or performative creations, personal adornment or magic scents bringing life to an object (similar with the role of ornament), they express the quest of Francis Kurkdjian of different type of artistic expressions and artistic mediums.

Sillage de la Reine, the much acclaimed fragrance based on historic research supplied by Elisabeth de Feydeau on Marie Antoinette's perfumes, is a creation of an unseen refinement. Orange flower, rose and jasmine extracts are depicted with their majestic presence, underlined by a sweet powdery and almost oriental ambery note. This creation, recalling the aesthetic of several early Guerlain creations, is an example of what is Beauty in Fragrance - eternal and universal when the perfumer achieves the perfect formula (the number of possible "beautiful" combinations from a limited number of ingredients is finite, as it is the number of new aesthetic forms you can generate from that range). The power of jasmine inside is something incredible and it cannot be compared with any perfume on the French market, where the tradition has been mutilated by IFRA-Bruxelles demonic instructions. This historic perfume, recreated several years ago at Versailles is the crown jewel of a world that has been brutally decapitated. Francis Kurkdjian's interpretation is one of the most beautiful works on natural jasmine and orange flower.

Pas de Deux, a perfume created for the National Opera to celebrate the 1904 "Entente Cordiale" is a creation of an amazing richness and delicacy. It evokes the power of sambac jasmine petals floating in the best tea, a concept already found in an historic Caron fragrance combined with the special rose note from Rose Barbare. The drydown, floral velvety and chypre with orris notes, is of an infinite tenderness. It is soft and velvety like the most tender skin, recalling the petals of osmanthus and dark rose, the forbidden texture of a white peach. The first accords, brutal in their uncompromised beauty, both green, floral and fresh, are softly transformed in a veil of an incredible smoothness. This transformation in tonality and texture recalls the poetic essence of the dance where the opposition of 2 different movements creates the story.

L'Odeur de l'argent is Francis Kurkdjian's interpretation of the most disputed "scent" in the world - the scent of money created for the artist Sophie Calle in 2003. With the arrival of "electronic money" we are less aware how the most treasured scent actually is. This interpretation is one of the most desirable combining the realistic representation with a subtle sense of desire and seduction. The perfume starts with a strongly animalic scent, both a beast protecting the "treasure" and the fine leather wallet with its unmistakable odor. It is the scent of a small money purse like the French "aumonière", decorated with fantastic animals. It smells strongly of castoreum, leather, grease, fur, but it is incredible sexual and beautiful. The perfume will slowly change to a metallic mossy note where a well known molecule evokes the scent of "mineral" coins. There is also a small oriental sweet-woody accord that recalls a contemporary masculine creation from Maison Francis Kurkdjian. Though the perfume was made for an artistic event, I'm sure that it could be reworked to evoke the Treasures of Byzantium or another lost empire (read my interpretation of Absolue pour le Soir).

Rose de Sèvres was created to scent the porcelain biscuit roses made for the 250 years anniversary of the Manufacture royale de Sèvres. It is a garden rose of an incredible freshness, combined with powdery notes, fruity-pear-litchi-raspberry-cassis accents on a soft musky velvety drydown. Francis Kurkdjian authored many rose perfumes in the past years and this creation should be seen in that context - the perpetual quest for a perfect flower. A modern rose of a similar type (but greener on top) is the recently launched Rose Splendide (Annick Goutal).

Numéro 13 is a collection of 4 performative fragrances created for a ballet by the artist Christian Rizzo in 2003-2004. Lilas is a tender and delicate interpretation of the lilac note that sits between mimosa and sweet lime blossoms. Lys is a violent spicy lily note, close to the lily accord used by Jacques Cavallier inside Eau d'Issey. The other 2 conventional interpretations are Rose (very spicy carnation) and Mimosa (very powdery close to the natural extract). The 4 perfumes were worn by the dancers (the costumes were "infused" with essence) and what the audience perceived was the combinations and their evolution during the dance.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Monday, September 20

Form Follows Fragrance - exhibition and conference in Paris

Last week several fragrant events took place in Paris during "Les Rives de la Beauté" and I followed them closely, in particular the conference on scents and perfumes given by Annick Le Guérer, the exhibition "Form follows Fragrance" and the conference devoted to the relation between music and fragrances at IFM.

"Form follows Fragrance", curated by Wouter Wiels, was an exhibition of ink drawings done by several designers and based on perfumes supplied by the creative team of Firmenich. The idea was to explore the potential of fragrance as inspiration during the artistic work and the spontaneous graphic expression mediated by odors. The title plays on the famous mantra "form follows function" inherited from architect Louis Sullivan. Firmenich provided a collection of perfumes created for this event, supposed to be the most abstract possible, in order to avoid the interference with familiar scents, emotions and what is called "la madeleine de Proust". Designers, usually working on computer, were facing now the white paper and black ink. It was something called in french "mise à nu". They were given one or several scents, but not names, no descriptions, no explanation of the odor and they did not meet the perfumers before. The idea was to provide a quick and spontaneous reaction based only on the perfume. Some generated the visual sign in less than 10 seconds. There was even one designer who drew with closed eyes and this was meant to cut his visual criticism that would change the form generated through smell. Later, the drawings and the perfumes were presented together.

"‘Form Follows Fragrance’ was inspired by coincidentally cross reading two recent scientific studies on the brain, dreams and perfumes. Starting from the idea that smells have an important influence on emotions and on the creative process in its most intuitive way, beyond any constraints, the designers were asked to react with ink on a white sheet in a spontaneous way."

One of the most particular scents was the creation of Annick Menardo, called "emanation résineuse et boisée à la profondeur mystique". The scent was indeed very profound and smoky, close to the oudh base from Firmenich, with notes of guaiac, incense, vetiver, all burning on an invisible altar of an ancient priestess. Another exquisite representation was "quintessence d'aldéhydes et musc" by Alberto Morillas, a pure soft white aldehydic scent based on several works he did on this theme, starting with an old Armani perfume and ending with his Narciso Rodriguez Essence.

The other scents, also based on contemporary perfumes produced by Firmenich, were created around spicy, green angelica, woody, sweet heliotrope or even the illusion of the famous pastry called Ispahan from Pierre Hermé (a gourmand scent at the limit between fragrance and flavor). The perfumes were presented in drop shaped ceramic bottles with a very long neck. Not all of them were available to be properly tested on blotter and this is a pity for Firmenich because I wanted to insist more on the perfumers and their work, precisely because what is lost for future generations is the scent. They will be able to see the drawings but not to smell or to read a detailed description as we do not know today if Marcel Duchamp's foutain was scented or not in 1917.

Seen together, these 12 drawings look almost like hieroglyphic text or pictorial images of basic signs, though this was not intended. Actually, today there is no specific notation system of odors, visually coded, something that would both transpose a given odor and would be intimately related to its olfactory shape. The GC is to a given scent what the sound spectrogram is to human voice. It says all, less the essential of speech. Alphabet and meaning are something very different than frequencies. When the raw materials of a perfumer will be encoded into "ideograms" (or a system similar to Chinese ideograms) and they will stop being isolate "sounds", this will be translated into the creation of a superior creative language, much similar to what the invention of writing is to literature. The purpose is not to communicate (or to be decoded) but simply to create more than basic associations of scents, through a powerful abstract thinking, expressed through visual signs. Most important of all, its scope is to organize all the molecules into a logic system, beyond the tricky synonyms or chemical names. This type of language and notation of odors will finally reveal the structure of a perfume and consequently protect the ideas.

Back to the idea of the artistic experiment "Form follows Fragrance" it is important to examine it from a pedagogical point of view. This is a type of experiment quite close to the study of forms in Bauhaus where the rhythm of music, the respiration and the rhythm of the body were used to generate visual shapes. It is an excellent exercise to teach the notion of shape and its universal meaning to students. The use of fragrances can be even a more powerful tool because the reaction is immediate and spontaneous. But teaching basic visual design through scents or scents through visual syntax is not enough if there is no method and explanation. Because the scent needs time and volume to express, the idea of a study is more appropriate than mere spontaneity, that reflects only the first approach and not the understanding. A fragrance can be compared to a polyhedron. You can draw it only if you look at it, understand its geometric construction, the number of facets and angles (I'll come back on that with more things on creative thinking and fragrance aesthetics).

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Sunday, September 19

Coeur de Vétiver Sacré - Artisan Parfumeur - new fragrance review

The new "mystical journey" called "Coeur de Vétiver Sacré" is a marvelous fragrance idea in an extremely bad "mise en scène". Actually, l'Artisan Parfumeur introduced atheism in perfumery and without any doubt the perfumer has never entered a church, a monastery or a temple. It's like praying to a god in front of the wrong statue and in an incomprehensible language. This perfume will never reach the heaven because the author did not respect several basic rules. How can you listen to the pray if this perfume has no volume at all, its tenacity is very poor (less than one hour on skin!) and the notes are so distorted going in all directions? Wasn't perfume supposed to carry a message to Gods? If it is not able to carry something to the humble nose of the wearer why should it be mystical?

Coeur de vétiver Sacré is actually a composition around the smoky facets of the vetiver (used in very small amounts) combined with the very special note of the black tea. This combination is sensational and there is even a small "cuir de russie" facet, very particular and refined, underlined by peppery notes. But, unfortunately, this is actually a sketch, a "collage" and not at all a perfume. There are 2 notes that completely destroy the refined accord because they are overdosed and not balanced. First, there is a dried fruit note recalling davana and brandy on top that is almost overwhelming on blotter but almost absent on skin. This is because the ingredient used is more volatile and it isn't linked with anything in the drydown (basic formulation technique, apparently unfamiliar to the perfumer). Then, there is too much vanilla-musk-semi oriental accord on the drydown (quite tenacious) that kills the idea of the perfume (its quintessence), leaving a very well known gourmand note on the skin. It evokes the illusion of womanity during the "mystical experience" of Kenzo Amour with amber, sandalwood, vanilla, incense and maybe a faint illusion of immortelle and violet-heliotrope. Spices are there but nobody understands why. The "fragrance" is what happens between these 2 mistakes, with a faint vetiver note and one recalling the herbal smoky facet of calamus plus the vanilla excess to cover the mistakes. To my knowledge this is not composition but "le fruit du hasard" and something that doesn't last and doesn't have some minimal technical qualities should not be bought. The vetiver note is less important here or the perfumer wanted to demonstrate us that name, idea and interpretation should not convergent. There are too many things inside (even saffron) and not a central key. It's rather atonal and maybe that's why it doesn't work at all. What I consider the biggest mistake of the perfume is how it works on the skin. Artisan parfumeur, supposed to care about the "arts and crafts" of perfumery should give a great importance to this because people buy expensive perfumes precisely for that. It is not possible that a perfume created around the vetiver doesn't smell of vetiver on the skin totally betraying the original idea. This is not about skin chemistry but a case of a very bad formulation.
I want to give an exquisite example of what truly artistic perfumery is in terms of inspiration and technical requirements. This is La trezième heure from Mathilde Laurent (Cartier) with a similar idea - smoky maté tea. The Artisan Parfumeur team should study this creation day and night to learn basic elements of aesthetics and formulation: great idea, coherent composition, amazing sillage, an impeccable evaporation curve.
I want to insist on the fact that the original idea inside this perfume is very good. It simply needs a perfumer to rework the formula and express this beautiful accord of vetiver, black tea and what is reminiscent of Dzing (but also the beautiful Dzongkha), leaving the "borrowed" Sycomore notes and vanilla outside and focusing on the essence and the coherence of the fragrance.

Niche brands, supposed to express artistic values, should reflect in 2011 about launching less perfumes. Masterpieces do not appear every day but I'm extremely sad to notice bad formulation and too many borrowed accords from other sources.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Saturday, September 18

Love and Tears Surrender by Kilian - new fragrance review

Calice Becker is one of those perfumers who has been endowed with an unusual gift. Sublime and effortless grace characterizes her major creations and a profound understanding of floral scents and their delicacy. Her floral accords have the serene harmony of someone who has probably discovered a secret code of beauty in nature and this sense of equilibrium in line is similar to Raphael paintings. She doesn't create dramatic works or compositions shocking by the strangeness of their beauty. Love and Tears is a jasmine perfume that moves by the elegant interpretation of a very known flower without being at all a groundbreaking vision of the classic note. It's the delicacy and maybe a certain familiarity that makes this perfume beautiful. Very silky and smooth, not opulent and intoxicating, Love and Tears belongs to a time when the perfumery was looking for delicate and innocent fragrances with a classic elegance. This is the late 1970's and the airy combination of jasmine, green galbanum notes and hyacinth reminds at least 2 great creations - Anais Anais (Cacharel) and Givenchy III. Calice Becker gives us a retro interpretation of that era with fluid silk dresses and elegant floral perfumes, with a touch of galbanum on top and soft mosses on the drydown. The perfume is a combination of many types of jasmine notes (sambac, headspace, watery) but the focus is on the light, green and delicate petals in the morning. This is a jasmine with morning dew on it, shy but sensual, with a touch of insolent mock orange, quite opposed to the opulent evening type (often rich in dramatic sweet spicy and animalic notes). The top note of the perfume is very alluring and original with a small note that recalls the violent green animalic facet of jonquil and narcissus. This is Aurora, goddess of the dawn, who renews herself every morning. She flies across the sky, opening the gates and announcing the arrival of the Sun in its chariot with petals of Sambac jasmine. Here comes the unusual hay & horse note, delicate but with a certain violence, much like in the original top note of Le De (Givenchy).

The top note of Love and Tears evokes the fresh buds of sambac jasmine with a faint exotic note found in white tropical flowers. There is something recalling the soft sandalwood - lily of the valley note from J'adore, wrapped in sensual musks and a very delicate fruity note, and something almost champaca. It smells like the petal of flowers with its soft texture and like the bud that opens revealing for several seconds both a very green and a very animalic note. The petals of the flower created by Calice Becker, much like Anais Anais, are velvety but also powdery with a very delicate and refined woody note and a mossy accent.

Because the fresh white jasmine note is very much used in soaps and lotions you might notice this effect in Love and Tears but the perfumer gracefully avoids the bad sides. Her perfume is actually extremely feminine, maybe accentuated by a delicate tuberose/ honey jonquil or genêt note. It perfectly blends with the skin of some women as if it was their natural skinscent. Somehow the perfumer has reworked her favorites notes giving us an exceptional example of a high quality fragrance with an exquisite familiarity. In a room it has the unusual quality of a "living" perfume - its smell immediately evokes a presence both innocent and sensual. It is not the headspace of jasmine but the headspace of feminine grace that Calice Becker had captured in Love and Tears.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Friday, September 17

Jubilee Bouquet - Penhaligon's - new fragrance review

There is something bizarre going on at Penhaligon's. After the very beautiful Amaranthine, which seemed to open the way to a new life to this traditional brand, we go backwards with 2 unhappy launches. According to the legend, Jubilee Bouquet was launched in 1977 in the honor of Queen Elisabeth’s Silver Jubilee but the 2010 perfume is quite far from any royal quality standards. There is an overall harshness of the composition and the feeling of a perfume that could not afford good quality ingredients. It evokes the floral rose-jasmine-violet accord of several aldehydic French perfumes popular in the 60's (like those from Nina Ricci) where the expensive rose oil, ylang-ylang and other expensive extracts have been replaced gradually by a very synthetic green hyacinth. This is not the high standard perfume, like those produced decades ago, but more the mass market version of a popular theme, as it was produced in the same period by Avon (like Elegance) or Yardley, or the fragrances used in the very popular UK aerosols (concentrated perfumes). It has little volume and is not excellent on skin though it's actually more a soap perfume than a fine fragrance. Maybe a reorchestrated version with the right ingredients would do justice to the original idea. If the past was not so great it's better to keep it under lock and let the modern perfumer create the fragrances of our times.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Thursday, September 16

Zizonia - Penhaligon's - new fragrance review

Zizonia, the last introduction in the Anthology collection from Penhaligon's is claimed to be "a mysterious and nomadic oriental from the 1930's". But it's rather a perfume from the collection of formulae borrowed from Symrise where Jean Claude Ellena worked before Hermès. In fact, Zizonia is a bad attempt to imitate Declaration (Cartier) with its unmistakable spicy facet cumin and cardamom over a woody base. It smells as if the perfumer tried to produce a feminine version based on an original perfume that never existed, but he was unlucky. First, the perfume is too close to Jean Claude Ellena's masterpiece, and this is unacceptable from a brand supposed to be niche, artistic, exclusive, special. Second, the perfume becomes very discordant with a spicy metallic freshness that is bad like a burning "Azzaro pour homme" aftershave on your face. Maybe Penhaligon's should think twice before launching perfumes like Zizonia or should think to hire a competent artistic director to guide the perfumer and to avoid common technical mistakes and intellectual property issues.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Wednesday, September 15

A rose like no other rose - from Antoine Chiris

Several weeks ago, just before I left Paris, I had one of the most special surprises of this summer. A reader has gracefully sent me a vial with a precious golden liquid and the essence took possession of my house immediately. This was the enchanted charm from when Sleeping Beauty wakes up in the bed of roses from the forgotten castle and the magic was a Chiris rose, produced by the famous supplier of raw materials, more than half a century ago.

Antoine Chiris was one of the oldest producer of raw materials in Grasse and a specialist in exquisite high quality ingredients. The company dates back to the XVIIIth century (1768) and at the end of the XIXth century their chemists invented a special extraction method to obtain the floral absolutes (PNSC). It was because of Chiris natural products that we had the beautiful perfumes from Rallet (a subsidiary of Chiris), Coty, Caron and Chanel. The father of Henri Robert, the creator of Chanel 19, was the technical director of Chiris in the 20's. The labs were very advanced and the technical knowledge of their perfumers was amazing in the first part of the XXth century. Like many other companies, Chiris slowly disappeared with the arrival of synthetics and the new vision of perfumery. The company was bought in the 60's and the knowledge was lost because in the next decades nobody needed expensive naturals.

Smelling now this rose product from Chiris I can almost feel the beautiful rose note from Chanel 19 with its spectacular velvety diffusion. The Chiris product is actually a rose composition dominated by an exquisite selection of rose essences and underlined by several synthetics. Today the rose is a very expensive product and very few perfumes contain the true material, usually in small amounts. But 70 years ago, there was not one, but an entire selection of rose products with different olfactory qualities and amazing scents. Selecting the rose was a job. The rose was always something like a "haute couture" product and producers made their efforts to obtain the best possible essences in the world. The rose oil/concrete/absolute has its own history and in the first part of the century this quest for perfection in tonality represented the credo of the perfume industry. This rose by Chiris is unusual by its power and tenacity sharing the qualities of the Bulgarian rose oil and those of the rose de mai absolute. It has an incredible freshness as if it was produced yesterday. It is more powerful, diffusive and tenacious than all natural roses sold today (but richer than any rose base) and I performed several tests to see that. The product sits between the rose rouge and rose wardia type and is a composition of several rose products (the best quality), rose molecules, some unusual essential oils and several synthetics. It was probably used as a "rose coupage" or "rose extender", to be mixed with the very expensive naturals inside luxury perfumes. It smells almost like Joy extract without the jasmine, with a delicious green pungent note (leafy green hyacinth), a bitter lemony aldehydic facet (C8-C9) over a very soft warm drydown with delicate sweet honey shades. It has the incredible beauty of rose buttons crushed in the hand and warmed by the sun when they slowly begin to scent the skin with a golden nectar "tattooed" like an oriental ornament in our memory. What is amazing with this product is not just the smell but the technical qualities. It is very diffusive, with a slow and linear evaporation. Its warmth is similar to the rose accords used by Sophia Grosjman in her perfumes - it smells like the heart of Paris, without the violet and the additional notes or like the rose note inside N'aimez que Moi (Caron). It is a nostalgic powdery "hug me" rose from a forgotten era and I am grateful I was blessed with the chance to find so much beauty in a precious drop.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Tuesday, September 14

Absolue pour le Soir - Maison Francis Kurkdjian

There is a certain sense of darkness, ambiguity and primitive feelings in several creations of Francis Kurkdjian and when I was analyzing the first fragrances of his Maison I made a parallel with French painter Delacroix. The Romanticism of the perfumer twists the oriental inspiration creating profound (and sometime unpolished) images with an unmistakable violence of the notes. It's not a pretty ornament, a sensual arabesque, an oriental dessert. Something feared lies inside his fragrances, a dark beast is kept under control by the broad brushstrokes of orange flowers, rose or very sweet notes, but you can feel its presence much like in the painting Death of Sardanapalus. The author's soul is revealed through every olfactory step.

Absolue pour le Soir is a similar type of oriental fairy tale where demons starts to cast their shade and claim their right. This perfume, an intense expression of the beautiful Cologne pour le Soir, is not the comfortable scent you would put on the pillow (Eau du Lit), nor the seductive elixir for the night huntress. It is a warning! Inside this sweet powdery oriental perfume lies a terrible beast, a naked civet warmed with amber and musk. Unlikely other animalic perfumes, Absolue pour le Soir starts with an unmistakable animalic note and the perfumer has completely reversed the natural order of things. What you smell in the first seconds is something of a terrible erotic power, much like the drydown note of French Can Can (Caron). Francis Kurkdjian used cumin notes to recreate this wild beast breath but he avoids the spicy facet. This human - animalic composition surrounded by delicious loukoum roses and tones of sweet ambery notes has something almost archaic in the representation. It is like the illusion, for several seconds, of a magical creature. The very old book called Physiologus, written in Greek in Alexandria (cca 140 - 410 CE), speaks about the panther’s sweet odor that draws all the other animals, sweeter and stronger than every perfume. Absolue pour le Soir is almost a literal interpretation of this concept - it smells animalic, but it is very sweet like honey as if the feared beast becomes mild and tender. Unlike classic animalic perfumes from the 1930's (based on Civettone, Animalis, Ambrarome, Muscone and some unusual pyridines) Absolue du Soir doesn't keep this theme until the end of the perfume. The note appears and disappears in the first and middle stages of the perfume, being more like an ornament or motive than the theme of the creation. The released beast with its seductive powers is a ghost that haunts the composition, in a similar approach to romantic creations. But there is another aspect, far more interesting and alluring in the perfume - the sweet ambery facet rich like a Byzantine textile. Here the approach is again very antique because the elements, though modern, are arranged in a similar way to some compositions created 2000 years ago. Absolue pour le Soir operates a symbolic dissolution of time and we are back in Alexandria or in the Parthian Empire. This could be very well a 2010 version of Ambre Antique, both the original perfume and the Coty interpretation. The olfactory configuration of the facets is almost the same (except the cinnamon). But unlike both, Absolue pour le Soir is not so deep, and not so textured with that amazing density of Lumière Noire. It is more like a veil of silk with golden ylang ornaments that unveils a beautiful rose on a sandalwood bed with cedar ornaments. It is balsamic, vanillic and very powdery musky on the end. There is a big contrast in attitude between the top (wild beast) and the drydown (sweet sandalwood) as if the perfumer actually had released a night demon from the bottle (the wooden cage) - the panther and her sweet narcotic smell like "a voile d'ambre". This is for the prey and not to pray in delicious fumes of sweet balms!

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Monday, September 13

Kiss me tender - Patricia de Nicolai - new fragrance review

With her new creation, Patricia de Nicolai takes us by surprise with an aesthetic vision that we might have completely forgotten. The guardian angel of the Osmotheque secrets (she is the president) turns the clock back to the end of XIXth century, the beginning of modern perfumery and the discovery of new molecules that have re invented nature. She demonstrates us that nothing is outdated in the hands of a master perfumer using the best available ingredients. The name of the new creation, Kiss me tender, is maybe a "clin d'oeil" to a forgotten but cherished perfume called Kiss Me Quick launched around 1880 by Wright. It had also a companion called Kiss Me Sweetly and the perfumes were prized by collectors because of their bottle and label. Both refer to forgotten songs and flowers of the Victorian era and there is an irresistible charm in those cliché images.

Kiss me tender, is a modern interpretation of the heliotrope note but it offers a nostalgic and poetic image of the forgotten flower and a very refined interpretation of the theme. It is not the strong purple shade, so fashionable in the late Victorian era when Perkin had discovered the aniline dyes (and the world became mauve!) but the delicate shade, almost a pastel, as it was made popular by Jacques Doucet in 1900's Paris salons. This change in the subtlety of the shade is parallel with the interpretation of the heliotrope note and we have some major examples at Guerlain. What was once crude and almost violent with pure heliotropine plus an accent of crude synthetic almond oil became soft, subtle, natural with many shades. Kiss me tender is also the story of a non european scent that changed our tastes. In the mid XVIIIth century Heliotropium peruvianum was introduced in France and with its strong colour and delicious scent this plant seduced the elegant salons. 100 years later in 1869, heliotropine was discovered and 10 years later it was produced an industrial scale. Since then, heliotropine is everywhere but the heliotrop perfumes have slowly disappeared from the market.

The perfume of Patricia de Nicolai is the poetic interpretation of the natural scent of heliotrope flowers, those that hypnotized me in the Jardin des Plantes. The perfume depicts with accuracy the sweet almond note, the balsamic underdone, the light floral note, but also the green pungent accents of the plant. Her creation is the artistic and elevated interpretation of gourmandise - the pastry notes like meringue or guimauve are suggested and not overloaded, it is not the caramel bomb nor the candies of the hyper caloric diet proposed by the mainstream brands. There is even a suggestion of the whipped cream served with a silver spoon because the perfume plays on contrasts that enrich the natural floral note. In a brilliant interpretation, Patricia Nicolai did better that some contemporary Guerlain perfumes, too much infused with flavors than real perfume.

But Kiss Me Tender is also a delicate interpretation of the vanilla scent with its mesmerizing sweetness, a note than can be found in several tropical orchids where the delicious desert becomes airy surrounded by fresh and green notes and sometime spicy, peperry (like candied ginger). Here the floral note is ylang ylang and jasmine with small accents of orange flower, just to make the perfect balance between citrusy and more honeyed sweet notes. In this perfume, the heliotrope is served with a lemony note and this combination of contrasts (bitter acid vs. sweet) creates the illusion of a candied flower that melts into a divine nectar.

The heliotrope flower becomes a purple loukoum of an irresistible charm. This exquisite effect reminds me one of the most fabulous products of old perfumery - a solid of an uncertain color and divine smell called Heliotropine amorphe. That's how the cherubim from rococo paintings used to smell in real life when they cleaned their wings from powdered sugar.
Image: one of the most famous ragtime piano melodies composed in 1907 by Louis Chauvin and Scott Joplin.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Sunday, September 12

Le Male terrible (Jean Paul Gaultier) - new fragrance review

Over the past years I feared that something has happened to Le Male. There was something completely unpleasant in the top note, the lavender aromatic note smelled cheap like a Le Male copycat and the overall tenacity was poor. I did not like at all to smell it around me because it became something different. With Le Male Terrible, the fragrance wins its "titre de noblesse" and though a flanker, this is an exquisite interpretation. Le Male becomes a Titan and the perfume is a clash of everything good from the previous versions and other Gaultier perfumes. It is not just an improved version but a creation that perfectly reorganize the essence of the original fragrance. It's more Male than Le Male! All characteristic notes like the lavender facet, the sweet hay and honey note, the woody cedar elements, the sweet musky and the ambery facet and even the small leather element were overloaded. This perfume is extreme, strong, beautiful with intermediary notes that enrich the first idea. There is some pink pepper and grapefruit on top but this doesn't change very much the theme. It's just a good contrast that shows better the sensual sweet power of the perfume. Le Male terrible is in 2010 a sophisticated version of Brut (Fabergé) when the "gladiator" shopping guy in a super market becomes the gentlemen with an impeccable suit. In the top middle notes, Le Male terrible shares some aspects with Le Bleu de Chanel like the metallic freshness + spices but it turns out that the Gaultier perfume offers a more interesting and elegant solution. There is something in this perfume that is almost a conventional note, not to say very mature. The fougère aspect makes it a very decent office perfume while the overall sweetness (now closer to the vanilla ambery facet of PI Givenchy) becomes irresistible and sensual.

La Male Terrible in Paris - the terrible french kiss on streets campaign

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Saturday, September 11

Chloé Love (2010) - new perfume review

What Lipstick Rose is to "rouge à lèvres", Love Chloé is to "face powder and blush". An exquisite creation inspired by those "humble" products that turn every woman in a goddess and transform every sinful thought in a virtue - the Holy Grail of Vanity. It is the perfume of tenderness and love in front of a mirror when the swan puff powders the air with desires and emotions mixed with the hope of love.

With Love, Chloé turns another beautiful page in the Book of Roses, creating a tender, delicate and very fragile bouquet. It could be also considered a contemporary interpretation of Paris, without the dashing extravaganza where the rose was the Primadonna Assoluta and the contrasts of notes made its appearance dramatic. Love is shy and dewy, sensual by its subdued innocence.

The perfume starts with a green violet note that recalls the freshness of Balenciaga but very soon it becomes a soft whisper where white and pink roses are underlined by a delicate carnation and maybe a peony-lilac note with sweet accents of neroli. The scent becomes soft and airy like a breeze over a bush of moss roses with some powdery accents. It has something nostalgic like the scent of a stolen kiss under a veil of muslin from a Jane Austen's novel or like a beautiful powder box. There is nothing dramatic, exuberant, strong, tenacious or too sensual inside. The floral bouquet shares some aspects with a forgotten masterpiece - Fleurs de rocaille (Caron) but this is a very modern interpretation with the scent of violet leaves, watery hyacinth and fresh roses. It is a perfume of an infinite delicacy and a very personal allure. Orris, rice notes, heliotropine and musks suggest a perfume inspired by lotions, creams and makeup but this time the result is exquisite. It is the scent of ribbon or a lace, being more a "lingerie scent" that ends with the freshness of musks, transparent woods and some white mosses. Extremely poetic, evocative and personal (little volume and tenacity), this perfume suggests the rose without creating a strong pictorial representation. It is more a watercolor with blurred shapes close to an abstraction image. It is like an XVIIIth century rose garden seen from a Chantilly veil under the cloud of pink powder. Time is suspended between the fingers of a woman applying gently the powder. Unfortunately it is very ephemeral.
Unlike the opening from Dangerous Liaisons, there is nothing provocative in this delicate creation with pure powder and rose ashes. I wish there was an elixir version of Love Chloé, the italian type of powder, also famous and feared in France.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Sunday, September 5

The 8th ART - Huitieme Art and Pierre Guillaume

Last week I had the most touching surprise of this year and it came from a perfumer that I admire very much. He has a very fertile imagination and a constant desire to reinvent his aesthetic codes. Pierre Guillame, author of several unusual and beautiful perfumes like Musc Maori, Papyrus Cyane, Bois Naufragé, has decided to launch a new line at Pitti Fragrance called Huitième Art. It is a discreet and touching homage to the phrase that can be read on my blog since several years: Fragrance is the 8th Art / Le Parfum est le 8ème Art. This is a phrase of my own invention and an "ornament" on my red bottle with an octagon stopper. Several years ago, before moving to Paris, I started my ph-D thesis and its theme was "the artistry of fragrances" where I wanted to explore the relation of perfume with the other arts and to integrate the fragrance in the classic system of arts. Some ideas were presented and developed on this blog. But my research needed something personal, like a phrase, a motto or like a slogan in modern advertising. I came up from nowhere with that phrase because it was a very subjective choice related to my name (Octavian comes from 8 in Latin). But there was also a much more objective reason considering Hegel's system of five ancient arts as expressed in Lectures on Aesthetics. Cinema is considered the 7th art and this label was given in 1919 by Ricciotto Canudo who published in 1923 the book "Reflections on the Seventh Art", after many other writings, starting with "The Birth of the Sixth Art" in 1911. I considered that perfume and movies had many things to share as modern artistic expressions. They also gave their best examples about the same period. They also share many similarities, from the studio concept to the distribution or the idea of "art for masses". Of course, perfume is much older, but the self awareness, the invention of the artist replacing the craftsman is rather a new concept. It slowly starts in the XVIIIth century with several minor examples, has a greater development in the XIXth century with the "invention" of some very important olfactory forms and the first examples of abstract thinking, but blooms in the XXth century when some important theoretical articles were printed, already in the 1910's-1920's.

The five classic arts are Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, Poetry and we can see here rhythms of space (the visual arts) and rhythms of time (music, poetry). Dance is another rhythmic art while Cinema is a synthesis of the Rhythms of Space and Time. That's how Canudo saw the arts before the cinema. "Fragrance is the 8th art" came to me naturally because it is also a synthesis, but on a very different level - the micro cosmos and the "invisible" universe. I would say that this is the ultimate expression of Art because it happens deeply inside us, it is the art where Form becomes Meaning. This transformation (or transmutation material-immaterial-meaning) represents the inner nature of a perfume. In ancient Mesopotamia some ziggurats had 7 stairs because the number 8 was already heaven. The number 8 was not used in ancient systems of classification (from the liberal arts to more modern systems) and I thought that the expression "fragrance is the 8th Art" could represent both a conclusion to our world (with 7 days, 7 sins and 7 virtues) and a new beginning. Our century is so different! From "the Word" our universe emerged, but with the scent we quit the "visible" outside and enter the "silent" inside. Fragrance has a unique position because it has not the dichotomy - formal vs. content. Like the Word (the first sparkle of the universe) the scent is pure content and has all the characteristic of a universal language, but I will detail that another time.

This precious homage of Pierre Guillaume, a perfumer who is fully entitled to use my expression, represents a strong manifesto of somebody who strongly believes in his art. He is not alone in this new vision because many other contemporary perfumers started to serve this beautiful art. I'm very curious about the interpretation given by Pierre Guillaume to the miracles of nature and magic of art through his 8 perfumes that will be presented next week in Italy.

The 8th wonder of the world is the invisible Temple built by perfumers and its foundations were built many years ago. Perfume is the sanctuary of the soul and the gate to the infinite Beauty. It is the magic drop that gives life to the previous Arts.

You can read a presentation of the new fragrance line on Extrait.

Pierre Guillaume was recently interviewed by Michelyn Camen for Ca Fleure Bon: "Huitième Art Parfums is an evolution that heralds the 21st century as an age of both artistic and technological discovery…" - read the exclusive interview about the new line of fragrances.

Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

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