Fragrance Fantasias
Shalimar, Emeraude, Chanel No. 5 (1920–1929)
Luxe and decadent with a hint of the disreputable, the feminine fragrances of the 1920s join the Eros of floral notes with the Thanatos of animal-sourced notes, along with tobacco notes evoking the woman of questionable morality who smoked. In short, they redefined femininity outside of the innocent floral. This was the decade of Lanvin’s My Sin; Molinard’s Habanita, originally made to perfume cigarettes; and the groundbreaking Chanel No. 5, created so that women could smell “like women,” and not roses.
A 1920s advertisement for Un Air Embaumé (“Balmy Air”), by Rigaud
Chanel No. 5 by Chanel (1921)
“A woman must smell like a woman, and not a rose.”
—COCO CHANEL
Perfumer: Ernest Beaux
Perfumer Ernest Beaux got many directives from Coco Chanel for the design house’s first fragrance. Among the qualities Chanel No. 5 was to have: tenacity, versatility, and abstraction. “On a woman,” Chanel said, “a natural scent smells artificial. Perhaps a natural perfume must be created artificially.”
For the other requirement—that it should be a perfume no other perfumer could copy—Beaux complied by using ingredients so expensive that few could have copied them even if they had wanted to; for example, jasmine from Grasse, France; Rose de Mai; and superior ylang-ylang.
What marks Chanel No. 5 as a landmark perfume, however, is its 1 percent overdose of aliphatic aldehydes, the chemical that lends sparkle to fragrances and has been described as fatty, watery, tallowy, like the scent of a snuffed candle. Beaux wanted to use such a strong dose of aldehydes “to let all that richness fly a little.”
Bathed in the golden light of musk and civet, with the crisp edge of aldehydes like the faintest touch of cinnamon or burnt caramel, the florals in Chanel No. 5 come alive, alternately spicy, gourmand, and sensual. Vintage Chanel No. 5 is draped in fur: feminine elegance and restraint plus an animalic extremity. Who knew that an animal lurked beneath its elegant exterior? (See Rallet No. 1 on page 35 to read about its influence on Chanel No. 5.)
Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, lemon, neroli
Heart notes: Jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, orris, ylang-ylang
Base notes: Vetiver, sandalwood, cedar, vanilla, amber, civet, musk
Emeraude by Coty (1921)
Perfumer: François Coty
This drugstore classic is considered by many to be the inspiration for Guerlain’s Shalimar. Initially sharp, aldehydic, and citrusy-resinous, this comforting and haunting fragrance mellows out into a creamy amber/vanilla drydown with a hint of civet.
Top notes: Orange, bergamot, tarragon
Heart notes: Jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose, rosewood
Base notes: Amber, sandalwood, patchouli, opopanax, benzoin, vanilla
Habanita by Molinard (1921)
Originally marketed in 1921 to perfume cigarettes, Habanita came in two forms: scented sachets made to tuck into a pack of cigarettes, or as a liquid you could apply to your cigarettes with a glass rod, to “perfume the smoke with a delicious, lasting aroma.” By 1924, Molinard had turned their scent into a perfume to be worn rather than smoked, but the decadent connotations remained.
Smoky, fruity, and floral notes rest on a base of vanillic, creamy benzoin and leather, making Habanita a complexly comforting scent of sweetness and warmth. A haze of tobacco smoke and the earthiness of leather tie together what starts out sharp (vetiver), gliding later into a jammy sweetness. As the perfume dries down, it smells like the foil that lines a pack of cigarettes.
An advertising trade card for Habanita and a catalog featuring Habanita perfume for cigarettes. Originally marketed in 1921 to perfume cigarettes, Habanita later became a perfume to be worn rather than smoked. (Courtesy of The Farnsworth Collection)
What might at first sniff seem like sensuality in Habanita comes across instead as gourmand, and the tobacco smoke and leather suggest powderiness rather than roughness. So instead of being the dangerous perfume a femme fatale would wear, Habanita signifies comfort—like being stuck in a cafe in Paris on a cold day, comfortably trapped in a room filled with cigarette smoke, an old lady’s violet-scented dusting powder, and the aroma of buttery baked goods.
Top notes: Vetiver, peach, strawberry, orange blossom
Heart notes: Rose orientale, ylang-ylang, orris, lilac
Base notes: Leather, vanilla, cedarwood, benzoin
Chanel No. 22 by Chanel (1922)
Perfumer: Ernest Beaux
Fizzy, bubbly, and fresh, Chanel No. 22 has the character of a popped bottle of champagne. A precursor to Madame Rochas and White Linen, Chanel No. 22 is one of the best aldehydic florals, those motivational speakers of the perfume world unclouded by darkness and with nary a bad thing to say about anyone.
But this doesn’t mean Chanel No. 22 is uninteresting. Clean, white florals feel overexposed like the whites of surrealist photographer Man Ray’s solarized black-and–white photographs. They are met with scratchy vetiver and incense to give their freshness character, while vanilla warms it all up in the base.
Top notes: Aldehydes
Heart notes: Jasmine, tuberose, ylang-ylang, rose
Base notes: Vetiver, vanilla, incense
Nuit de Noël by Caron (1922)
Perfumer: Ernest Daltroff
Perhaps because Nuit de Noël is a perfume that is supposed to evoke the comforts of Christmas, it is one of the few Ernest Daltroff perfumes that doesn’t smell like it needs to go to reform school. Nuit de Noël starts out with a sharp and intense ylang-ylang note, moves into a cinnamony-rose and jasmine heart, and dries down to a spicy comfort scent that evokes mulling spices and the warmth of a room indoors on a wintry day.
Notes: Rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, sandalwood, moss, musk
Rallet No. 1 by A. Rallet & Co. (1923),
previously Bouquet of Catherine by A. Rallet & Co. (1913)
Perfumer: Ernest Beaux
Few people know that Chanel No. 5 is a palimpsest—that is, a text that has been reused or altered, which still carries traces of its earlier incarnation. For perfume historians Philip Kraft, Christine Ledard, and Philip Goutell (as they argue in an article for Perfume & Flavorist magazine), Chanel No. 5 is a retweaked version of Ernest Beaux’s earlier Rallet No. 1, which just also happens to be his Bouquet de Catherine (1913) by another name. In a landmark article published in Perfume & Flavorist magazine, they concluded that their research showed that the formulas for Rallet No. 1 and Chanel No. 5—both composed by Ernest Beaux—were strikingly similar.
The story behind these multiple renamings and reformulations involves wars, histories, Gabrielle (aka Coco) Chanel’s love life, some royalty, and the inevitable mythologizing and cover-up that makes the idea of Truth with a capital T recede further into the distance.
Before Ernest Beaux was Chanel’s perfumer, he was the perfumer for A. Rallet & Co., a Russian perfumery founded in Moscow in 1843. In 1896 it was bought by Antoine Chiris of Grasse, France, who moved its operations to Paris in 1917, when Russia nationalized its assets. Rallet catered to wealthy Russians, many of whom would come to Paris to shop. To celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the Romanov dynasty’s rule in Russia, Rallet had Beaux create his first perfume using aldehydes—Bouquet of Catherine (1913)—inspired by Robert Bienamé’s 1912 floral aldehyde, Quelques Fleurs. Unfortunately, war broke out in Europe the next year, and Beaux enlisted with the French army and was conscripted until 1919.
It’s unclear at what point Bouquet of Catherine was rechristened Rallet No. 1, but it was released with that name in 1923. When the Bolsheviks did away with the Imperial Russia that was in power, the Russian market that had purchased Rallet could no longer afford these perfumes, and Beaux had to hawk Rallet No. 1 elsewhere. First stop: Coty. Denied. Then, a fateful introduction between Beaux and Gabrielle Chanel was made through her purported lover, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, an exile from Imperial Russia, and the Chanel No. 5 we know now, with its over-the-top, expensive jasmine, rose, and ylang-ylang, was born as a high-end reformulation of Rallet No. 1.
A wonderful reader gave me a sample from an original Rallet No. 1 bottle. Sniffing it is like recognizing a movie star’s familiar, if less dazzling, sibling.
A promise of the Orient via Un Air Embaumé from Rigaud
Cuir de Russie (or Russia Leather) by Chanel (1924)
With Russia Leather (also known as Cuir de Russie),Chanel combines a luxurious balsamic creaminess and spice with the animalic smell of leather in a collision this 1941 ad calls paradoxical.
Perfumer: Ernest Beaux
In this legendary leather perfume, flora and fauna are locked in an erotic embrace, a swirl of floral notes fattened by rich balsams and dirtied by animalic leather. I’m not sure that there’s any vintage perfume that telegraphs opulence and elegant languor quite like Cuir de Russie, once called Russia Leather for the American market. Smoke, leather, and bitter birch tar take the floral notes in Cuir de Russie into a dark, erotic place, but then when the darkness subsides, a decadent ylang-ylang, without its characteristic sharpness but with all its richness, blooms with amber and vanilla. As the vintage dries down, Cuir de Russie toggles between creamy balsamic notes with the undeniable animal of fur and hides. Swoon-worthy.
Top notes: Orange blossom, bergamot, lemon, mandarin, clary sage
Heart notes: Orris, carnation, rose, ylang-ylang, jasmine, cedarwood, vetiver
Base notes: Leather, amber, opopanax, styrax, heliotrope, vanilla
Knize Ten by Knize (1924)
Perfumers: François Coty and Vincent Roubert
Started in 1858 by a Czech military man named Joseph Knize, Knize is a Viennese bespoke tailor/men’s clothing house that’s still kicking today. The “ten” in Knize Ten represents the highest handicap in polo, the chic sport whose images Knize used in its advertising.
Knize Ten starts with a hot blast of birch tarry-leather, petit grain, and rosemary that tops its bright notes of bergamot/orange/lemon. Soon after, the woody-powdery center takes the perfume into a desert of dryness, while subtle aromatic cinnamon and spicy carnation provide a bridge to Knize Ten’s smoky-leathery drydown. A touch of vanilla, amber, and a menthol note (is this the resiny, mentholated facet from cedarwood?) intervenes occasionally, but throughout, from top to bottom, a tough, tarry, smoky, rubbery leather is ever-present and my favorite part of this gorgeous leather classic. The reformulation is less dry and leathery.
Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, orange, petit grain, rosemary
Heart notes: Geranium, cedarwood, rose, orris, carnation, cinnamon, sandalwood
Base notes: Leather, musk, moss, amber, castoreum, vanilla
My Sin by Lanvin (1924)
This 1960s ad captures the 1924 perfume’s animal magnetism.
Perfumer: possibly Madame Zed
With the narcotic sweetness of neroli, ylang-ylang, and jasmine, initially pushed in a green, fresh direction by its sharp top notes, My Sin quickly drops it like it’s hot in the base notes, with a lascivious and warm civet-led balsamic drydown.
My Sin’s notes have converged to create a sexual flower, one that is at its most fragrant, from a meadow in full bloom on the hottest spring day, visited by the horniest, healthiest bees at the height of health. It smells lush, overripe, and decadent. This is one of those readily available vintage perfumes that might convince you that the difference between modern and vintage perfumery is akin to the difference between polyester and velvet, a two-dimensional photograph and a 3-D hologram, or digital and analog. Luscious.
Top notes: Aldehydes, lemon, bergamot, clary sage
Heart notes: Neroli, jasmine, clove, rose, muguet (lily of the valley), jonquil, ylang-ylang, lilac
Base notes: Vetiver, vanilla, musk, woods, tolu, styrax, civet
Toujours Moi by Corday (1924)
Masks are a haunting signature icon in Corday’s beautifully surreal ads. This one for Toujours Moi is from the 1940s.
The love child of Tabu and Habanita, Toujours Moi (“Forever Me”) is a must-have for lovers of perfume in the Oriental category. It has the vanillic sensuality of Shalimar, a hint of Tabu’s eroticism, and a comforting whisper of Habanita’s smoky tobacco.
There have been several Toujours Moi formulas, and I’ve had the pleasure of smelling two versions—one from the 1950s and one from the 1960s. (The ’60s box features line drawings of maidens and unicorns, a result of Max Factor buying Corday and moving production to New York.) A reader sent me the ’50s version, which I would describe as rounder, more powdery and amber-vanillic warm than the later version, which leaves a stronger tobacco/incense impression in the drydown. Its woody, balsamic finish hours into the drydown is my favorite part.
Notes: Orange blossom, lavender, jasmine, lilac, vetiver, musk, incense
Crêpe de Chine by F. Millot (1925)
Crêpe de Chine’s floral bouquet is blended so well that only the brightest and sharpest notes—ylang-ylang, lilac, and jasmine—poke their petals out, looking for attention. Its floral come-on is followed by reserve and elegance—it is a chypre, after all—telling you that in spite of its outward friendliness, you should not get too familiar with it. This floral chypre has a nice balance of sweetness and spice, sparkle and depth, friendliness and reserve.
Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, orange, neroli, fruit note
Heart notes: Carnation, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, lilac
Base notes: Oakmoss, vetiver, labdanum, benzoin, patchouli, musk
A 1937 ad for F. Millot’s Crepe de Chine
Le Dandy by D’Orsay (1925)
Because of its boozy, leathery scent and its gender trouble-causing name, which refers to the nineteenth-century male fashion plate, Le Dandy has often been mistaken as a men’s fragrance. This 1944 ad makes clear that it was made for women to turn heads.
A precursor to both Lanvin’s Rumeur and Rochas’s Femme, Le Dandy by D’Orsay causes some gender trouble for the researcher even now, nearly ninety years after its creation, begging the question: Why worry about gender at all in perfume?
First, the name refers to that foppish, musk-wearing nineteenth-century clotheshorse whose goal was to turn his life into a work of art. You know—a guy in fancy clothes, a walking stick, and a top hat, throwing out barbs like Oscar Wilde. Then there’s the scent: a fruity, boozy tobacco/leather that could be mistaken (especially with a name like that) for a men’s scent, with accords that are now conventionally masculine.
But when you look at the ads of the time, they often feature men watching a beautiful woman whose intrigue comes, in part, from Le Dandy’s sillage, the trail of scent left by perfume. “Someone lovely has just passed by,” reads one 1937 ad for Le Dandy, “and her loveliness was exquisitely accented by the rare fragrance—Le Dandy.”
Fruity and boozy in its opening—like its contemporary, Rumeur, and the subsequent Femme (1944), but without their restraint—Le Dandy dries down to a decadent vanilla-warmed leather scent with hints of tobacco and musk. A true “huffer”—my term for a scent so good you want to huff it like paint fumes to get high.
Notes: Aldehydes, spicy woods, clove, musks, soapy patchouli, balsams, coumarin
(Notes from Yann Vasnier.)
A photorealistic eye covetously peers through a hole in the wall at Envie perfume on the other side in this surreal 1947 ad by J. Duplan.
Le Numéro Cinq (Le Parfum Connu) by Molyneux (1925)
Like Dana’s Tabu on a particularly drunk and amorous night, Le Numéro Cinq (“The Number Five”) smells like stewed fruit and rich flowers resting on a vanillic and ambery-spicy base kissed with orris. This is Chanel No. 5’s darker, more-complex cousin—the one who went to art school while Chanel No. 5 went to finishing school.
Le Numéro Cinq is often called “the other number 5.” Lore has it that Edward Molyneux (1891–1974), an English fashion designer who started the Molyneux couture house in Paris, made a pact with Coco Chanel in 1921 to make a “Number 5” perfume. As both perfumes launched, so the story goes, they would see which one became more successful. Nigel Groom, in The Perfume Handbook, says that Molyneux named his perfumes after his different addresses: 3, 14, and 5.
Whichever story is correct, we all know which perfume became successful, and which one had to change its name. Ironically enough, Le Numéro Cinq became Le Parfum Connu (“The Known Perfume”), and then languished in obscurity. It was discontinued in the late 1960s or early ’70s.
Notes not available.
Que Sais-Je? by Jean Patou (1925)
Perfumer: Henri Alméras
Although he is best known for Joy, the Depression-era perfume dubbed “the costliest perfume in the world,” Jean Patou also released Ma Collection, twelve perfumes originally launched between 1925 and 1964, and rereleased in 1984 using the original formulas by in-house perfumer Jean Kerléo (1967–97).
The first three perfumes in Ma Collection released in 1925 were inspired by the different stages of falling in love. Amour, Amour (“Love, Love”) is self-explanatory. Que Sais-Je? (“What Do I Know?”) represents the devil-may-care attitude of those who live by their hearts and not their heads. Adieu Sagesse (“Farewell, Wisdom”) means she’s in deep, and there’s no going back. Que Sais-Je? was marketed for brunettes; Amour, Amour for blondes; Adieu Sagesse for redheads.
So what does a perfume called Que Sais-Je? smell like? The first thing that hit me was an intense, honeyed, peachy-suede-leather accord that reminded me of Jacques Fath’s Iris Gris and Courrèges’s Empreinte, both complex peachy affairs. Unlike Iris Gris, which smells monumentally strange (like peach-scented pastry dough, according to some), and Empreinte, which is a more delicate and refined peach-melon leather chypre, Que Sais-Je? is a more straightforwardly fruity-spicy chypre.There is a marzipan-like richness to Que Sais-Je? that perhaps comes from either a hazelnut or almond accord.
Like Colony, another Ma Collection perfume and a strange pineapple-chypre combo, the strong chypre base creates an interesting dissonance with the syrupy sweetness of its beginning. Perhaps like the woman who has given in to love—to hell with the consequences—Que Sais-Je? asks us to think of her as strong and daring as well as girlishly impetuous. The more I sit with Que Sais-Je?, the more I respect its translation into perfume notes of what plunging headlong into love is like, which apparently is a combination of syrupy sweetness and fiery passion.
And if such things sway you, consider this: Indie perfumer Andy Tauer lists Que Sais-Je? as one of the top ten perfumes you should try before you die.
Notes: Peach, honey, hazelnut
Shalimar by Guerlain (1925)
In this 1938 advertisement, Shalimar is this brunette’s type—or is it the other way around?
Perfumer: Jacques Guerlain
Like Picasso’s portrait of Dora Maar, with three colors masterfully representing not only different planes on the subject’s face, but also her exquisite emotions, Shalimar juxtaposes the bracing zest of bergamot, the warmth of sensual vanilla, and the naughty raunch of civet. These should clash, just as those three colors in Maar’s portrait shouldn’t be able to create such an expressive face, and yet they combine to form something both striking and comforting.
Shalimar telegraphs opulence, comfort, and decadence, with a hint of the disreputable from the civet. What is it about civet? It lurks, it jumps out unexpectedly, it emits a low growl, adding mystery to every perfume it’s in. If Shalimar were a gemstone, bergamot, vanilla, and civet would be the facets always hit by the light.
Lore has it that Jacques Guerlain was so taken with the newly available synthetic vanillin that he poured some into Jicky and their beautiful child was Shalimar. The “Guerlinade” found in Shalimar dries down to smell like skin—well, skin that is graced with orris and a hint of heavenly vanilla! As Chanel perfumer Ernest Beaux joked, there’s “crème anglaise” vanilla, and then there’s Guerlain vanilla. (Guerlinade is the name of the secret-formula accord of iris and tonka bean, give or take a few notes, which formed the base that constitutes Guerlain’s early, confectionary signature.) If Jicky is the jolie laide (“ugly beautiful”) of Guerlain scents, Shalimar is her easier-on-the-nose sister.
Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, mandarin, rosewood
Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, orris, vetiver, patchouli
Base notes: Opopanax, vanilla, civet, Peru balsam, benzoin, coumarin (tonka bean), leather
Bois des Îles by Chanel (1926)
Perfumer: Ernest Beaux
Floral notes of jasmine and rose peek out of the thick scent of sandalwood that dominates Bois des Îles’ balsamic forest, with the the not-so-subtle spice of cinnamon from fallen tonka beans blanketing its forest floor, spreading a vanilla-ambery sweetness in its wake. The reformulated and denuded forest that is called Bois des Îles is a lovely light floral with almost no relation to its predecessor.
Notes: Jasmine, damask rose, ylang-ylang, bitter almond, gingerbread, vanilla, tonka bean, sandalwood, vetiver
Djedi by Guerlain (1926)
Djedi was an ancient Egyptian soothsayer and magician famed for being able to make the dead come back to life. Quite a name for a perfume, but then again, Djedi isn’t just any perfume. Described as “the driest perfume of all time” (Roja Dove) and a “tremendous animalic vetiver” (Luca Turin), Djedi, like Chanel No. 19, creates a disquieting atmosphere as soon as you put it on. Vetiver is attended by a hint of clove and vanilla (not in the official list of notes), after which the comforting rank of civet darts around in the back like the actual animal. The rest of the Djedi rests on a chypre leather base.
The magic in Djedi is its ability to be both dramatic and quiet about it, like a secret pagan ritual going on under cover of darkness, with little fanfare. We don’t see Djedi performing his magic rituals, but we note the curling smoke, the burning incense, the fragrant oils, the portent of something heavy and dark. We sense this as if we were intruders on an unseen and unseeable act of alchemy, something happening behind a curtain, just outside our purview.
If Djedi were on a color wheel, there would be nothing bright, but everything rich and deep: chartreuse, saffron, sable brown, inky black. I think of the forest in Guillermo del Toro’s film, Pan’s Labyrinth, filled with creatures that are beautiful, terrifying, and remote, in a fairy-tale land we can only fantasize about.
Notes from Fragrantica.com: Rose, vetiver, musk, oakmoss, leather, civet, patchouli
Arpège by Lanvin (1927)
Perfumers: André Fraysse and Paul Vacher
Arpège is sensual beauty, slightly corrupted, at the end of a night of dining and dancing in stilettos, silk, and furs. The flowers are wilting on the table, sitting next to the fur coat that has absorbed the post-dinner cigarette smoke. This peach-led floral is enriched and fattened and rounded by ambrein, the primary molecule in ambergris, and its contrast of fresh peach with an erotic base make Arpège a classic vintage fragrance that nods both to the good girl and the bad.
Top notes: Bergamot, neroli, aldehydes, peach
Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang
Base notes: Sandalwood, ambrein, vetiver, musk
L’Aimant by Coty (1927)
A 1943 advertisement for Coty’s L’Aimant
Perfumers: Vincent Roubert and François Coty
Inspired by Chanel No. 5, L’Aimant (“Loving Her,” or “The Magnet”) is warm and sweet, like cut plums sautéed in butter and brandy and sprinkled with candied violets.
The powderiness in L’Aimant is saved from being too old-fashioned by the round, buttery, and sensual dark fruit and balsamic notes that underly the perfume, like bright oil colors on a dark velvet canvas. Jacques Guerlain’s wife loved L’Aimant so much, it is said that she even preferred it to her husband’s perfumes.
Notes not available.
Bellodgia by Caron (1927)
Caron Perfumes, 1956
Perfumer: Ernest Daltroff
I first approached Bellodgia before I could recognize the “color” of carnation, like a color-blind person looking at one of those visual tests and not being able to distinguish one colored dot in a sea of other colored dots. Now it seems so clear to me, having tried the more-intense carnation scents like Caron’s Poivre, Floris’s Malmaison, and the super-intense Roger & Gallet Blue Carnation. I no longer just smell a stew of cloying florals, and can appreciate, even if I could never wear, the lovely, and well-balanced Bellodgia.
With a bright bergamot/lemon opening, almost immediately warmed and rounded from nutmeg and vanilla, Bellodgia launches into a bouquet of sweet florals spiced with clove-faceted carnation. Musk, sandalwood, and vetiver give the base some carnal heft, but it’s the spicy floral heart that truly makes Bellodgia, the balance between sweetness with spice.
I like to think of perfumes going to the Ernest Daltroff finishing school, but instead of coming out ready to be debutantes and society ladies, they are ready to be ladies of the night or femme fatales. Bellodgia could have just been a well-behaved floral, but Daltroff’s addition of clovey-carnation spice becomes a mark, like an olfactory Scarlet Letter.
Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, nutmeg, pimento berries
Heart notes: Carnation, ylang-ylang, rose, jasmine, orris
Base notes: Vetiver, vanilla, sandalwood, nitromusks
Evening in Paris by Bourjois (1928)
Perfumer: Ernest Beaux
With its luscious bergamot, apricot, and peach opening, a rich rose/jasmine heart greened and lightened by lily of the valley, and a spicy balsamic base, it’s easy to see why Evening in Paris was a hit, described as “The Most Popular Fragrance in the World.” Its opening soars with glamour and joy, like taking a ride down the Champs-Élysées for the first time and seeing the bright lights of Paris, illuminated water fountains, and the feeling of budding romance. In the drydown, an almost coconut sweetness bursts in. (This description is for vintage; the notes below are most likely for the 1991 reformulation.)
Top notes: Bergamot, apricot and peach, green notes and violet
Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, heliotrope, ylang-ylang, lily of the valley, and orris
Base notes: Amber, musk, sandalwood, vanilla
Zibeline by Weil (1928)
This 1928 French advertisement showcases two Weil fragrances created specifically to harmonize with fur.
Seeing as we’re living in an age in which furs are frowned upon and perfume is being regulated out of existence, it’s hard to imagine anything more decadent or anachronistic than “parfum des fourrures” (fur perfumes), but Zibeline was in fact such a perfume. Named after the sable Martes zibellina, Zibeline was once advertised as “strictly an odor for furs,” made to keep furs from smelling musty without damaging them. (The Weil brothers were furriers before they became perfumers.) Spicy, sweet, and balsamic-powdery, Zibeline has a pronounced heliotrope-like almond-cherry note from tonka that recalls Serge Lutens’s ode to Turkish Delight candy, Rahat Lakhoum, which shares Zibeline’s hawthorn, rose, and tonka notes. While it initially smells overwhelmingly of the cherry-almond heliotrope note at the beginning, its drydown brings out its multifaceted glory, with that accord radiating from the center of spice, powder, and balsamic warmth.
Notes from 1964 Dictionnaires de Parfums de France: Neroli, hawthorn, linden, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, incense, opopanax, oakmoss, vetiver, tonka bean, and civet
Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, lemon, coriander, tarragon
Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang, orris, gardenia
Base notes: Vetiver, civet, sandal, amber, musk, honey, tonka
Liù by Guerlain (1929)
Are you Liù’s type? Maybe if you’re a redhead, implies this 1938 advertisement.
Perfumer: Jacques Guerlain
If Chanel No. 5 and Shalimar had a baby, Liù would be their love child: An aldehydic floral based around jasmine and rose, Liù is powdery, sumptuous, and comforting, with a deep amber-vanilla base. Often described as Chanel No. 5 without the musk, Liù’s subtly fresh neroli note keeps the entire perfume from sinking into a decadent stupor, but not by much.
Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, neroli
Heart notes: Jasmine, rose, orris
Base notes: Woody notes, vanilla, amber