Perfumes I've Loved - Part One

II est de forts parfums pour qui toute matière

Est poreuse. On dirait qu'ils pénètrent le verre.

Baudelaire

(There are strong perfumes for which all matter

Is porous. One would say they go through glass.)

Some of my favourites.

I've loved so many perfumes, but especially vintage scents. In fact I probably get as much pleasure from perfumes as I do from reading. But perhaps it's just that, as a writer, I love stories, and so many fragrances have a tale to tell that - like all the best stories - reveals itself slowly. 

My go-to site for finding out about scents and their history is Fragrantica, and I link to it often on this post, but there are plenty of serious perfume blogs out there, if you care to look for them.

The first perfume I really became aware of was Lentheric's Tweed - in its original formulation, which dates from the 1930s. The later reformulation was a thin imitation, but my mum wore the original, sparingly because money was tight. 

Every Christmas my dad would buy her a bottle of the 'eau de parfum', beautifully packaged, in a little bottle with its characteristic 1950s wooden top. I remember the excitement of going with him to buy it, a day or two before Christmas. I have a few old bottles of it still, acquired here and there online, and although vintage scents like this can take a while to settle down on your skin, give it time and the true scent emerges. It reminds me of my pretty mum. After she died, all her best clothes still had a faint scent of Tweed. A woody, earthy, oakmossy, spicy scent and - yes - something of the scent of heather, which suited mum down to the ground.

Scents, loosely, fall into two categories - those in which chypres predominate (Tweed is one of them) and floral. So many modern fragrances, especially those to which celebrities lend their names, tend to be flowery. No bad thing if they're made with genuine flower oils and essences, but chypres are a lot more grown up! My aunt, whom I loved, wore Coty's Chypre back then, and as soon as I could, I begged or borrowed a bottle and dabbed it on too - another warm, dry, woody, mossy scent and not too expensive in the 1950s and 60s. 

I would just love to get my hands (and my nose) on one of those beautiful old bottles of Coty's Chypre because I know the scent would not just go through glass, but through time as well, carrying me back to my childhood and teenage years - but this rare vintage scent is fiendishly expensive. Even the empty bottles are little works of art. 

That's the thing about good elderly scents - even though they may smell a bit odd at first, those are just the so called 'top notes'. Most old scents, made with precious ingredients, will survive. Give them time and most of them will reveal their true selves, the scents of the past. As a historical novelist, I think that's another reason why I like them so much. 

During my twenties, I spent money I could ill afford on perfumes. 

I acquired - I've no idea how - a bottle of something called Fleurs de Rocaille, launched in 1934, but although I was intrigued by it, it didn't suit me - far too sophisticated for the person I was back then. I also loved Je Reviens by Worth - another old scent, a floral this time, but with a glamorous musky base and once again, nothing like the miserable modern reformulation. But it was an unlucky scent for me. Every time I wore it, my love life went disastrously wrong, so I began to avoid it! 

Penhaligon's Bluebell was my favourite when I was a student, generally a prized birthday gift and not something I could afford to buy for myself. I have an old bottle in my collection and still splash it on from time to time in spring, but it's a springtime scent in more ways than one, and seems too young for me now. Still love its distinct fragrance of hyacinths though. Another scent my mother loved - a floral this time but a spicy one - was Blue Carnation by Roger & Gallet - a true clove carnation scent. I remember wearing it myself for a while, so it must have been affordable back then, or perhaps I borrowed mum's, but it is, alas, long gone and the few surviving bottles command truly eye watering prices these days, even on eBay. 

In my twenties and thirties, Guerlain's legendary Mitsouko - another chypre, fruity and delicious and mysterious - was a revelation. For a while I could appreciate it only by going into the perfume departments of expensive stores and dousing myself in it - then walking about and inhaling it. I still love it. It's a long lasting scent and even the cologne, liberally applied for an evening out, will be with you the following morning, a faint but evocative scent, like a memory of something wonderful. 

Later, I was lucky enough to acquire a big beautiful bottle of the eau de toilette on eBay and I'm still working my way through it. (The eau de parfum is even nicer if you can find the vintage version.) It never loses its potency. It is, I have to admit, rather too powerful a scent for everyday use - and those with allergies might not like it at all - which probably explains why I have quite a lot of it left.

I spend so much of my time sitting at a desk, working on a PC, inhabiting other worlds. Sometimes I just like to wear the scent that suits what I'm working on. Mostly, you see, I just wear it for me. Perfumes for which all matter is porous. What a wonderful, uncanny thought that is.

  

Vintage Lanvin

 

Next time, I'll write about L'Heure Bleu - my all time favourite. You may even get a poem as well.

PS All my content is free, and free of advertising. But if you like what I write, then maybe you would enjoy one of my books! There are links to most of them on here.