The Bold and the Beautiful

Intimate, Cabochard, Youth Dew (1950–1959)

In the 1950s, perfume was all about “friendly-sexy.” If aggressive 1980s perfumes wore olfactory shoulder pads, as perfume writer Susan Irvine suggests in her book, Perfume Guide, then picture 1950s perfumes wearing those dresses with rounded shoulders and poofy skirts. “Friendly-sexy” was exemplified by Marilyn Monroe’s soft, downward-curving, and rounded eyes, full lips, and pillowy body. Her look screamed sex—but with a smile.

Perfume in the 1950s, represented by Revlon’s Intimate or Robert Piguet’s Baghari, is also steeped in musky sensuality. Intimate’s animalic ballast—castoreum, civet, and musk—is about as subtle as a bullet bra, and Baghari sinks you into a musky vanilla reverie that is heavy and rich. The good girl / bad girl dichotomy was in rare form in 1950s perfumes, exemplified in the Max Factor ad for Primitif, which asks the question, “Why not let your perfume say the things you would not dare to?” Poivre by Caron reminds us that not all 1950s perfumes were addressing the women who would be Marilyn; with its aggressive pepper and clove notes, one is reminded that Sylvia Plath, Diane Arbus, and Anne Sexton inhabited—and set fire to—that decade as well.

Baghari by Robert Piguet (1950)

Perfumer: Francis Fabron

The mark of a beautiful perfume is that even though it may not be your type, it pulls you in anyway. Such is the power of Baghari. Soft, floral, even tropical, Baghari has a lushness, like fur, that has to be experienced to be understood. It smells like fur scented with flowers—animalic and sophisticated yet unintimidating.

Baghari was the first vintage perfume that showed me that vintage perfumes can have a depth—a volume, as some people say—a way of unfolding through time that even complex, modern fragrances don’t have. Baghari’s appeal was its roundness, for lack of a better word, something 3-D and physical about it that I haven’t really encountered in any modern fragrances.

I gave perfumer Yann Vasnier a sample of Baghari, and he smelled aldehydes; orange flower; orris; jasmine; rose; clove; hay; musk; and Animalis, a perfume base by Synarome that contains civet, castoreum, musk, and perhaps costus. Thanks to the depth and boozy richness that come from its animal base, Baghari, like vintage Chanel No. 5, is practically a touchstone for animalic perfumes.

Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, orange blossom, lemon

Heart notes: Rose, lilac, ylang-ylang, lily of the valley, jasmine, bourbon vetiver

Base notes: Benzoin, musk, amber, vanilla

(Thanks to Denyse Beaulieu of the blog Grain de Musc for the information on Animalis.)

Eau d’Hermès (1951)

Perfumer: Edmond Roudnitska

Perfumer Edmond Roudnitska said of Eau d’Hermès that it was “the interior of a Hermès bag in which wafted the aroma of a perfume … A note of fine leather, wrapped in a slightly spicy citrus.” And actual wearers of the stuff? “Sweaty balls may be the most accurate description of the scent,” writes one irreverent wag on a perfume forum.

My first impression was somewhere between the haute leather impregnated with spicy citrus and abject bodily smells: I smelled cuminy lemon with a dose of animalic civet, backed up by herbs and spices such as lavender, clove cinnamon, and coriander. Clean shot through with something not exactly dirty, but rather, alive. (Cumin is not listed in the official notes, but it’s unmistakably present.)

Notes: Lavender, lemon, clove, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, geranium leaf

Poivre by Caron (1951)

In this 1955 ad for Caron’s Poivre (“Pepper”), a red dragon wrapped around the Caron bottle evokes China and the spice trade. The eau de toilette version, Coup de Fouet (“Crack of the Whip”), is lighter, but still spicy.

Perfumer: Michel Morsetti

Many fragrances from the 1950s helped women to express their erotic selves through carnal, animalic perfume notes, or, as the Max Factor Primitif ad put it, these perfumes helped “say the things” that women “would not dare to.” But this is a familiar trope in perfume. Sniffing Caron’s Poivre and thinking about all the metaphors of fire and explosives in its ads and descriptions, I began thinking about how many perfumes express violence and danger in their notes, perfume signifiers not entirely subsumed by sexuality?

Well, Caron’s Poivre, for one. Apparently, Caron’s creative director Félicie Wanpouille, who had collaborated with Caron perfumer Ernest Daltroff on the drop-dead sexy Narcisse Noir, wanted to buck the trend of 1950s well-mannered, ladylike florals, so she asked Caron’s then-perfumer Michel Morsetti to create something fierce and wild.

Caron’s Poivre extrait starts off with a fiery and earthy spark of crushed black pepper and sharp florals (you really smell the ylang-ylang). Then, like a slow-motion olfactive explosion, it unfurls carnation’s clovey facets, weaving together floral and spice, with sweet warmth from clove and opopanax. To add fuel to the fire, so to speak, it turns out that pepper is not the only note that signifies darkness and danger in Poivre: There’s also carnation. Not only has the American carnation largely lost its characteristic spicy smell, but it also appears that we don’t have the dark associations with carnations/cloves that Europeans do. In France, for example, cloves have been considered bad luck for centuries.

Notes: Red and black pepper, clove, carnation, ylang-ylang, jasmine, opopanax, cedar, sandalwood, vetiver, oakmoss, musk

Fille d’Ève by Nina Ricci (1952)

Perfumers: Michel Hy and Jacques Bercia

The word animalic as a perfume descriptor refers to base notes sourced from animal bodies—civet, castoreum, and musk, for example. But sometimes, plant-derived ingredients such as costus root, the dried root of the Saussurea lappa, can also provide the eros and warmth that evokes the human animal.

Fille d’Ève (“Eve’s Daughter”) starts off very brightly, with an herby, citrusy, sweet floral note that is sparkling and feminine. The perfume exists for me in the drydown, when the costus root note rises up like the bed-head scent of a well-washed beauty on her third day without bathing. According to perfume historian Octavian Coifan, costus root references sebum, the smell of dirty hair, and it has a “slightly resinic note, like myrrh, elemi or opopanax.” If you have, as I do, a fetish for hair that smells slightly dirty and greasy—particularly if you can still smell traces of the shampoo from the last wash—then Fille d’Ève is for you.

As the clean, white flowers fade, the velvety sebum takes over, and Fille d’Ève becomes a gorgeous skin scent, a scent someone would have to lean in close to get a whiff of. There’s something very sexy to me about the idea that you’d wear a perfume not to mask your own gorgeous dirty smells with aldehydic flowers, but to enhance them.

The 1964 Dictionnaire des Parfums de France describes Fille d’Ève as “An original chypre subdued by fruity notes … an endearing fragrance combining freshness and seduction.”

Notes from 1964 Dictionnaire des Parfums de France: Oak absolute, jasmine, bouvardia, cistus, bergamot, clove, patchouli, pinang

Snob by Galion (1952)

The rose in Snob is raised an octave by green narcissus, light hyacinth, and a tuberose/jasmine duo that injects Snob with an oomph that momentarily quotes the perfume Joy’s richness. Maybe Snob is Joy’s nouveau riche cousin who’s bragging about being related to Joy? Whatever the case, there’s a family resemblance—and it’s intoxicatingly beautiful. The 1964 Dictionnaire des Parfums de France describes Snob as “a floral aldehyde … [i]deal for society events, cruises and sunny days.”

Notes from 1964 Dictionnaire des Parfums de France: Aldehydes, narcissus, hyacinth, rose, jasmine, tuberose

Youth Dew by Estée Lauder (1952)

Perfumer: Josephine Catapano with Ernest Shiftan

Neither youthful nor dewy, Estée Lauder’s first fragrance, Youth Dew, was initially marketed as a scented bath oil so that women would buy it for themselves. (Men were supposed to buy women perfume and jewlery.) I know it’s a beautifully composed fragrance, and I can even appreciate its beauty in a technical, cerebral way. But its sweet, amber/vanillic heaviness and mossy-spicy-bitter herbaceousness are two great tastes that for me, anyway, don’t taste great together. Hours into it, though, the drydown is fantastic—soft, a little funky, and ambery warm.

Top notes: Orange, spice note, bergamot, peach, aldehydes

Heart notes: Clove, rose, ylang-ylang, cinnamon, cassie, jasmine, orchid

Base notes: Amber, tolu, patchouli, olibanum, oakmoss, Peru balsam, benzoin, vanilla

Eau Fraîche by Christian Dior (1953)

Perfumer: Edmond Roudnitska

A simple, herbal/anisic chypre that Edmond Roudnitska described at the time as “the only true chypre on the market.” To a modern nose, it might come across as a little too lemony.

Top notes: Mandarin, orange, lemon

Heart notes: Rosewood

Base notes: Vanilla, oak moss

Jolie Madame by Pierre Balmain (1953)

This elegant 1950s leather chypre is advertised as a party-girl fragrance … in Playboy.

Perfumer: Germaine Cellier

Perfumer Germaine Cellier often played with olfactory gender conventions in her perfumes, femme-ing up Fracas into a floral so over-the-top it was almost a parody of a feminine fragrance (or at least its campy version), and butching up Bandit into a green leather chypre with a buzz cut and a leather jacket.

In Jolie Madame, masculine and feminine notes coexist in contrast without ever resolving themselves, exposing how arbitrary gender in perfume is, and perhaps also reflecting how complex gender codes were for the 1950s woman.The almost cloying floral notes are undercut with the tough notes of leather, musk, castoreum, and civet, demonstrating in perfume form that a ’50s woman may have appeared all smiles and pleasantness, but underneath she could be the toughest person around, or, to be less literal, more complex than those florals would suggest.

Top notes: Gardenia, artemisia, bergamot, coriander, neroli

Heart notes: Jasmine, tuberose, rose, orris, jonquil

Base notes: Patchouli, oakmoss, vetiver, musk, castoreum, leather, civet

Ambush by Dana (1955)

If 1940s and ’50s perfume ads are any indication, trapping—or in this case, Ambushing—a man was a full-time job. Perfume, as shown here, is apparently one of a woman’s man-trapping tools.

Perfumer: Jean Carles

In one of the many wonderful 1950s ads for Ambush, a woman giving the viewer a cheeky sidelong glance holds a bottle of perfume in which a hapless man is trapped. What’s interesting about this is that Ambush really reads to this modern sniffer as a masculine perfume. It’s a fougère, after all, with pronounced lavender and tonka (coumarin) notes, two of the three notes that characterize that masculine category.

Whatever the arbitrary gender of Ambush, it’s as interesting as all perfumes by Jean Carles, who seemed to love simple formulas with complex outcomes. The herbaceous, citrus top immediately collides with the warm, sweet, practically gourmand base with a touch of powder, anise, and maybe even civet. Flirty, fresh, and comforting.

Top notes: Lavender, bergamot, lemon, clary sage

Heart notes: Geranium, rose, carnation

Base notes: Vanilla, heliotrope, tonka, sandalwood

Princess fantasies, anyone? Before it was a brand, we’re told, Prince Matchabelli really was a prince who indulged in perfume-making as a hobby. (Ad from 1957)

Flambeau by Fabergé (1955)

An ad (c. 1966) for Fabergé’s Flambeau

Like a cross between Baghari (1950) and Intimate (1955), but with more spice and fewer inhibitions, Flambeau (“Torch”) is a candied floral chypre/Oriental with facets of burnt sugar and a spicy, creamy-vanilla, gourmand drydown. Delicious.

Notes: Aldehydes, rose, jasmine, peach, lily of the valley, vetiver, sandalwood, amber, oakmoss, orris

Notes from Yann Vasnier: Jasmine, narcissus, rose, vetiver, aldehydic, metallic spicy

Gin Fizz by Lubin (1955)

In this 1955 ad for three Lubin perfumes, a gloved cat burglar manages to snag one.

Perfumer: Henri Giboulet

In the same way that the vintage cocktail cuts the sharpness and sourness of gin and lemon with the softness of egg white, Lubin’s gorgeous Gin Fizz softens lemon and green notes with a base enriched by balsamic notes.

Lemony-rose hits you first, followed by the mellowest drydown of moss, amber, woods, and benzoin. The 1982 Dictionnaire des Parfums et des Lignes Pour Hommes mentions an herbal aspect. (Thyme? Tarragon? Something that recalls the juniper of gin?) “Gin Fizz is a green, peppery and herbal fragrance … It is a light, fresh and charming eau de toilette for active and sportive youth.” (According to my awesome translator Guy Bertrand, “There is no gender specified in the French. I suppose it is a unisex fragrance, which was quite daring for 1955.”)

Notes from 1982 Dictionnaire des Parfums et des Lignes Pour Hommes: Lemon, iris, ylang-ylang, rose, vetiver, oakmoss, Mysore sandalwood, Siamese benzoin, amber

Intimate by Revlon (1955)

Displaying a bit of an American inferiority complex, this 1956 Intimate ad boasts that “even French women are talking about it!”

This floral/animalic chypre flew out of its 1950s-era bottle like I Dream of Jeannie’s genie from her pink satin-lined abode, hips swaying rhythmically to a cha-cha beat.

Crystal-clear aldehydes clear the way for sensual florals, but their impression is made even more overtly sexual by animal notes that give the perfume immediate libidinal heft. Sandalwood, cedar, patchouli, and coriander add a wonderful, intervening spicy/woody counterpoint, and orris transforms all of Intimate’s angles into a creamy, powdery softness.

Intimate is the perfume that promises sex—and delivers. It’s not fooling around. But there’s something good-natured and happy about its opening floral sparkle—something very American, rather than French.

Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, rose, gardenia, coriander

Heart notes: Jasmine, orris, patchouli, sandalwood, cedarwood

Base notes: Amber, castoreum, civet, oakmoss, musk

La Folie de Minuit by Lanier (1955)

With a lavender-prominent bergamot and citrus opening, to an ambery-powdery and spicy drydown, La Folie de Minuit (“Midnight’s Folly”) is categorized or “typed” in the Nips Perfume Guide as a “forest blend,” meaning that these perfumes are “woody, mossy-leafy or resinous … or they stand out alone with aromatic notes of an individual nature.”

Notes not available.

Diorissimo by Christian Dior (1956)

Perfumer: Edmond Roudnitska

Unlike Coty’s Muguet des Bois, the sheer and naturalistic lily-of-the-valley fragrance Roudnitska admired, Diorissimo plunges the innocent lily note into a sensual, narcotic world of creamy jasmine, ylang-ylang, and boronia, the flower from an Australian plant that has a musky, woody-violet scent.

Lily of the valley must be re-created in perfume; extractions from the flower simply don’t hold up. Roudnitska could have tried to give Coty’s Muguet des Bois a run for its money by outdoing the naturalism of that scent. Instead, he decided to dress up the delicate green lily—an ingénue of a flower, really—and take her out for a night on the town. Stunning.

Top notes: Muguet (lily of the valley), ylang-ylang

Heart notes: Amaryllis, boronia

Base notes: Jasmine

Primitif by Max Factor (1956)

Like the cover of a pulp novel whose heroine is a good girl gone bad, this 1956 ad for Primitif tells you, in case you couldn’t figure it out on your own, that the perfume “said the things you did not dare to.” A classic trope—that perfume was a subliminal language speaking forbidden desires.

With a roar of sharp aldehydes, Primitif announces its not-so-innocent intentions. Within seconds, a rich animalic accord of buttery peach flanked by musky civet saunters in, swiveling its hips down to a spicy, mossy base.

In perfumes like vintage Chanel, Baghari, and Intimate, nitromusks curl, crackle, and fatten up the perfumes they’re in. You have to smell this added dimension to understand what I mean, but the best analogy I can think of is the difference between a dish with butter or without it. Musks provide an olfactory “mouth feel.”

Notes from Yann Vasnier: An “oily” accord, powdery accord, aldehydes, green chypre, patchouli, civet

By depicting daydreaming women sitting in front of images of Dana’s iconic kissing couple, these 1950s-era Tabu ads directly addressed perfume’s relationship to fantasy. They didn’t promise women that men would fall over themselves if women wore it; they did something more interesting. They invited women to have a relationship with their own desire, to dream and fantasize about romance and sex. Perhaps the taboo of Tabu is for a woman to have a relationship with her own erotic fantasies, however conventional they may be.

L’Interdit by Givenchy (1957)

With Audrey Hepburn’s expressive, elegant face dominating this 1960s ad for L’Interdit, the equivalence is made between Hepburn’s and the perfume’s chic sensibility. After all, the perfume was first made exclusively for her.

Perfumer: Francis Fabron

L’Interdit (“Forbidden”) was designed exclusively for Audrey Hepburn by French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy, who struck up a lifelong friendship with the gamine actress on the set of Sabrina and considered her his muse. Poised between sensual and girlish like Audrey Hepburn herself, L’Interdit’s lightly sweet and floral notes perfectly balance with its musky and warm base.

Subtle fruit notes join with elegant, fresh florals. As L’Interdit dries down, a surprising sensuality envelops the atmosphere of the perfume’s initial, ingénue-like scent impression. Creamy balsamic notes pair up with sandalwood, adding both a sensuality and an earthiness that seems a fitting olfactory tribute to the beloved actress. Like Audrey Hepburn herself, L’Interdit perfume is fresh, playful, and understated, with its own je ne sais quoi chic.

Top notes: Aldehyde accord, bergamot, mandarin, peach, strawberry

Heart notes: Rose, jasmine, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang, orris, jonquil, narcissus

Base notes: Vetiver, sandalwood, tonka, amber, cistus, benzoin, musk

Hypnotique by Max Factor (1958)

Introduced in the 1950s by Max Factor “for the woman born to enchant men,” Hypnotique is a floral chypre with less animalic heft than Primitif but with similar seductress tendencies. Like many drugstore fragrances of its day, it dries down to an animalic as well as balsamic base.

Hypnotique was one of the most popular perfumes in the United States during the 1950s, perhaps due in part to its amazing kitsch presentation: Many women will recognize the campy velvet “hypno-cat” with rhinestone eyes that came with the perfume.

Notes not available.

Cabochard by Grès (1959)

Perfumer: Bernard Chant

Trained as a sculptor, Alix Barton, née Germaine Émile Krebs and known later as “Madame Grès,” launched her fashion house Grès in 1942. Her designs were modern, couture renditions of the gowns seen on Greek statues, tailored and flowing at the same time, like moveable sculptures. Classical and columnar, they draped the fashionable bodies of women like Jacqueline Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich, and the Duchess of Windsor.

Grès had wanted her first fragrance to smell like the water hyacinth she’d smelled on a trip to India, fresh and floral. But intense chypres were popular at the time, so Bernard Chant’s leather chypre Cabochard came to represent the Grès fashion line.

Caboche means headstrong or stubborn in French, and Cabochard projects an attenuated toughness. Like a “light” version of Robert Piguet’s Bandit, which it is often compared to, Cabochard also contains galbanum and the chemical isobutyl quinoline, which gives both perfumes a harsh, green, rubbery, and leather note. Yet Cabochard is a kinder, gentler, more floral Bandit, down to the demure gray bow around its neck.

Top notes: Aldehydes, citrus, fruit, spice accents

Heart notes: Jasmine, rose, geranium, ylang-ylang, orris

Base notes: Patchouli, amber, vetiver, castoreum, moss, musk