Guerlain Jicky Eau de Parfum: Clair de Lune

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Source: space.desktopnexus.com

Elegance that defies time and age, the crystal clear clarity of moonlight, the refinement of a dandy with the soft warmth of the lady, the natural freshness of an aromatic country garden, and a play on light and dark, cleanness and dirtiness. Those are a few of the things encapsulated for me by Jicky, a Guerlain legend that just celebrated its 125th birthday and is reportedly the oldest fragrance in continuous production. In this review, I’ll focus on modern Jicky, solely because it is the version most people have access to, and limit myself to the Eau de Parfum concentration, often called Parfum de Toilette. The eau de toilette is most common form of the scent, with the lightest, freshest, and most citrusy aspects, but I think the PDT/EDP may be truest to the spirit of the original Jicky.

The gold bottle of Jicky in EDP or PDT concentration. Source: FragranceX

Jicky was created in 1889 by Aimé Guerlain. The legend is that he created it in memory of a girl he loved whose nickname was “Jicky,” though it seems that he may have named it after his nephew instead. It is a fragrance that is considered one of the very first “modern” creations, both in terms of its use of synthetically extracted molecules and in terms of being truly unisex. In fact, Jicky seems to have been originally marketed as a men’s fragrance before women took it over for their own. I think it is a masterpiece that anyone of any gender who enjoys aromatic perfumes centered on lavender should try for themselves. Continue reading →

Vintage Bal à Versailles: The Animalic Queen

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Brantôme. La vie des dames galantes. Source: etudes-francaises.net

Bal à Versailles… the stories and images for this benchmark animalic floriental are well-known: leather-clad chevaliers peeing in corners of Versailles; lusty courtesans whose heated, quivering bosoms trickle with musky sweat; over-ripe florals competing with the smell of unwashed knickers; and, most of all, the smell of sex in the air. Leather, civet, dark resins all swirling together with indolic orange blossoms, jasmine, rose, sweetened benzoin, Mysore sandalwood, and a plethora of other notes to recreate the smell of Versailles, a rank place where 17th century aristocrats tried to hide their unwashed flesh and carnal pursuits under a heady layer of scented, powdered florals.

That is the legend and those are the stories, but not for me. Vintage Bal à Versailles has never been the rank monster of so many adoring and horrified tales. The very polarizing — indeed, infamous — fragrance has always been about something else for me. I first smelt it when I was 6 years old, and thought it merely a lovely, heady floral with a womanly vibe and incredible glamour. The 1970s were a time of Yves Saint Laurent, Bianca Jagger, half-dressed women with clothes cut down to their navel or up to their thigh, Studio 54, or, in my neck of the woods, sleek women showing off tanned, sun-kissed Mediterranean skin in couture and diamonds at the equally wild Whiskey à Gogo and Jimmy’z nightclubs. Bal à Versailles seemed a perfect representation for the time, and certainly no different than the Opium, Fracas, or Joy on my glamourous mother’s mis à toilette table. They all epitomized sensuality and sophistication to my young mind.

Jerry Hall, 1970s. Source: birkinbagbeauty.blogspot.com

We’re shaped by our childhood influences and mental associations, but I still don’t think vintage Bal à Versailles is the dangerous, rank, horrifying monster of all the tales. Honestly, it’s almost tame as compared to some of today’s animalic niche fragrances. Almost. It may be milder than Masque‘s intense Montecristo, but vintage Bal à Versailles is still not a fragrance that I’d recommend to someone just starting on their fragrance journey or to a perfumista used to modern, commercial perfumery. I wouldn’t even recommend it to more experienced perfume lovers unless they had a taste for strongly animalic, urinous, leathery, balsamic, resinous, indolic florientals with a touch of powder.

Photo: Pinterest. Original source unknown.

It’s a very narrow category but, for those who qualify, vintage Bal à Versailles is a must-try masterpiece that I cannot recommend enough. It is sensual, lusty but soft, sophisticated, edgy, opulent, and often verging on the feral. It is most certainly something that a man can wear. Supposedly, Michael Jackson did so for more than 30 years, stockpiling it in massive quantities. He is admittedly not a shining example of a very masculine man, but, as you will see from Basenotes and elsewhere, many men wear vintage Bal à Versailles without hesitation. One woman even said it was really a man’s fragrance, perhaps because Bal à Versailles has a leathery bent, along with a definite urinous edge from the civet that isn’t always easy. All of this, however, pertains to the vintage version, as the modern one is a ghastly, powdery, synthetic creation that has been compared to “grandmas in mothballs” and worse.

Eau de Cologne. Photo: my own.

Bal à Versailles was created by Jean Desprez and released by his company with the same name in 1962. There are three vintage concentrations, but I am going to focus primarily on the lovely, very affordable, easy to obtain Eau de Cologne with a brief discussion about the stunning, more expensive Parfum. (There is also a vintage Parfum de Toilette formulation, akin to an eau de parfum, but I haven’t tried that in years, and don’t have a sample to update my memory.) I will be basing this review on my own bottle of Bal à Versailles cologne which I believe is from the 1960s, and a sample of the vintage parfum.

Vintage Bal à Versailles Eau de Cologne, made in France. Photo: my own.

According to Fragrantica, Bal à Versailles’ very lengthy list of notes includes:

Top notes: rosemary, orange blossom, mandarin orange, cassia, jasmine, rose, neroli, bergamot, bulgarian rose and lemon;

Middle notes: sandalwood, patchouli, lilac, orris root, vetiver, ylang-ylang, lily-of-the-valley and leather;

Base notes: tolu balsam, amber, musk, benzoin, civet, vanilla, cedar and resins.

Source: Facebook

Bal à Versailles opens with the feral YEEOOOWL of a wild jungle cat in heat. There is no way around that simple fact, especially when you smell the fragrance up close. The word “urinous” is going to be used a hundred times in this review because that very long list of notes up top is dominated by one element above all others: civet.

If you ever want to laugh to the point of hysterical pain, I suggest you read Chandler Burr‘s account of an afternoon spent with the perfumer Jean Guichard in Givaudan smelling, among other things, civet. The incredibly amusing New York Times article entitled Meow Mix talks about what happens when civet was given on blotters to the group:

The owner of the perfume house immediately shouted, “Whoa!” The industry consultant yelled, “Ohmygod!” as if a grenade had exploded nearby. The Abercrombie woman jumped up and crouched at the door like a cornered animal. I think I actually ducked.

Civet. Source: focusingonwildlife.com

“This is civet!” Guichard announced. Civet is a fundamental French perfume material, a historic girder of the industry and the quintessential scent of France. It happens to come, Guichard said pleasantly, “from the anal gland of the civet cat.” [snip the truly hysterical account of the perfumer’s father, civet, “butt cream,” and kissing.] […] [¶]

Since civet is hugely powerful and long-lasting (cats use the odor to mark their territory), and since these are qualities valued by perfumers, it’s not surprising that civet is one of the fundamentals of French perfume. […][¶]

Talk to any perfumer, even American ones, and they’ll say that civet, used in tiny quantities, breathes astonishing life into perfumes, giving them weight and depth. Civet is like adding whole cream to soups or sauces: what could make you gag taken straight up and raw becomes, when underpinning the greater mix, golden and sensual.

The French can tolerate civetlike scents by the gallon. Kouros, an Yves Saint Laurent fragrance for men that’s perpetually on the best-seller list in France, is almost pure animal. It hits you like Wladimir Klitschko’s right hook and smells like his boxing shorts after 10 rounds. That is the polite way to put it. [Emphasis added by me.]

Photo: My own.

Vintage Bal à Versailles does not smell like a boxer’s dirty shorts after 10 rounds, but it does have a potent whiff of urine mixed in with honeyed orange blossoms, skanky raw leather that feels almost as if a lot of castoreum were used, and plush, warm, golden warmth. There is a strong, thick river of sticky, treacly, blackened balsams running through the base, and I would bet that one of the unnamed “resins” on the list is smoky styrax.

The intense, feral bouquet is infused with a plethora of other notes as well. Most noticeable is the bergamot that feels juicy, as if sun-sweetened and hanging thick from the vine. It is followed by crisp lemon, sweet jasmine, dewy lily of the valley, and unctuous, buttery, almost banana-like ylang-ylang. Lurking in much more quiet fashion in the background is the greenness of woody vetiver and fresh, green cedar. And, if you focus hard, you can even detect hints of rosemary flitting about, alongside a faint whisper of herbs. It’s not rosemary, per se, but more like a herbal bouquet with something almost like lavender.

Leather Hides. Source: Fragrantica

Within minutes, the notes rearrange themselves and Bal à Versailles shows other facets. The jasmine surges forward in strength, followed by even more leather and musk. On their heels is bright neroli, and dried, candied oranges. There is a growing touch of roses which smell simultaneously pale and pink, but also like the dried, stale kind that you’d find pressed in a book. In the base, old-style patchouli stirs next to the resins. Its brown, spicy, and slightly smoky aroma is perfectly complemented by the tolu balsam, burnt resins, amber, and a sliver of vanilla.

Dior Couture. Photo: Patrick Demarchelier for “Dior Couture,” a book by Ingrid Sischy, Patrick Demarchelier.

From afar, Bal à Versailles smells like urinous, indolic, over-ripe, honeyed orange blossoms and sweet jasmine, infused with raw leather, juicy citrus fruits, dried roses, a wisp of smoke, and a hint of powdered vanilla sweetness, all cocooned in a musky, resinous, golden, ambered glow. It’s a skank fest that goes beyond the whiff of slightly ripe undies to something much darker. I don’t think of Marie-Antoinette at Versailles, despite the strong vibe of chevaliers dressed in leather that was pee’d upon or women in opulent ball gowns. I think of heated flesh, leather, and sex in a mix that is very modern.

Photo: Photographer: Hans Feurer. Model: Candice Swanepoel. Vogue Australia June 2013. Source: Starstyle.com

This is not grandma’s powdered flowers, not unless grandma happened to be a skanky courtesan in a ball gown with strong dominatrix tendencies. To me, Bal à Versailles feels simultaneously like something classic from the golden age of perfumery but, also, like something that could take its place amongst the niche fragrances of today with their attempts to push the boundaries and to evoke the animal within.

Few of those modern scents can possibly match the complexity of vintage Bal à Versailles. If you took parts of vintage Shalimar, threw in a good dose of Kouros‘ urinous elements, you still wouldn’t have it. One reason why is that there is far more going on with vintage Bal à Versailles than just pee. In fact, I think it is actually less urinous than either vintage Kouros (which was driven more by costus root) or Masque’s new Montecristo. While there is an animalic musk element in Bal à Versailles, I think it smells more like a civet-castoreum mix than the powerful hyrax in Montecristo, the hardcore, intense costus root note in Amouage‘s Opus VII, or the more purely musk-fur-hair combination of Parfum d’Empire‘s Musc Tonkin.

This is probably a good time to provide some contextual definitions. In my mind and to my nose, there is a definite difference between, “animalic,” “horsey,” “urinous,” “barnyard,” and “fecal” — with the progression moving from left to right in terms of intensity, rawness, and brutality. Some people use the terms interchangeably or as crude shorthand for “ass,” but that is misleading, in my opinion, and ignores the definite differences in aroma between the various elements.

In the case of vintage Bal à Versailles cologne, several of those tonalities appear on my skin, though to very different degrees. The one exception is “fecal;” that is not an issue at all. In first place is “urinous,” followed by the much milder “animalic.” The leather occasionally has the faintest touch of something “horsey,” along with the rawness of uncured hides, but both those things stem primarily from the other two elements. Once, for an incredibly brief 5 minutes, there was a suggestion of something vaguely approaching a “barnyard” tonality but it was fleeting and in the background. I have never once smelled a fecal note from Bal à Versailles. There has also never been the smell of sweat, unwashed hair, smelly armpits, or stale body odor.

Photo: My own.

Bal à Versailles is a very well-blended prismatic scent whose opening bouquet of lushly indolic flowers with urinous, animalic, raunchy, leathery, balsamic, citric, and ambered notes changes only by small degrees. The core essence of the fragrance remains largely the same until the final hours, but the nuances and the prominence of certain notes vary over time.

Mysore sandalwood cross-section. Source: vk.com

The vanilla and sweetness grow stronger after 15 minutes, while powder clouds loom on the horizon. Small streaks of Mysore sandalwood appear, accompanied by fresh lily of the valley, and benzoin. The latter’s cinnamon-vanilla aspect melds perfectly with the Mysore sandalwood, creating a mix that is like spicy gingerbread with a growing touch of creaminess. At times, the lemon and bergamot are quite noticeable in the background; on other occasions, the dried roses very much overpowers the jasmine in the forefront. In one test, even the lily-of-the-valley, cedar and vetiver seem quite prominent at the 90-minute mark, while the leathery darkness in the base seemed to soften substantially. The orange blossoms, however, rule them all on my skin from start to finish.

Photo: Ellen von Unwerth for Vogue Turkey, December 2010. Source: http://blog.netrobe.com

Roughly 3.25 hours into Bal à Versailles’ development, the perfume is primarily creamy orange blossoms with urinous civet, sweet jasmine, soft roses, creamy sandalwood gingerbread, and a touch of vanilla in a golden haze. The leathery balsams feel much more muted, and the perfume as a whole is sprinkled with a light dusting of powder. The latter never smells like dated, old-fashioned makeup powder on my skin, perhaps because it is thoroughly infused with benzoin sweetness and ambered warmth. Bal à Versailles now hovers just above the skin, though it is not quiet a skin scent and it is still extremely strong when sniffed up close for many more hours to come.

Source: popularscreensavers.com

It takes a long time for the civet’s sharp yeowl to fade away, but the first hints of that come around the end of the 6th hour. Bal à Versailles is now dominated by creamy orange blossoms with a trace of honeyed beeswax from the sweet myrrh, followed by jasmine and lightly spiced cinnamon benzoin, all lightly dusted with powder. In its final moments, it’s merely a blur of sweet, golden florals with the vague hint of orange blossoms.

Generally, vintage Bal à Versailles cologne lasts between 10 and 11 hours on my skin, depending on the amount I apply. My bottle — like all the cologne versions — is a dab bottle, but I’ve decanted a portion into an atomizer which does increase the longevity. As a whole, the perfume is very potent in strength, but airy, lightweight, and soft in feel. The sillage is initially huge, with 2 good sprays creating an intense cloud that wafts 5-6 inches above the skin. Even when the sillage dropped at the 90-minute mark to about 2 inches, small trails would rise up from my arms whenever I moved, and linger in the air. As noted above, Bal à Versailles became a skin scent on me only at the start of the 4th hour, but it wasn’t hard to smell until the middle of the 8th hour. At that point, I was sure the perfume was about to die, but it clung to the skin tenaciously for several more hours to come. For a mere “cologne,” the longevity is excellent.

Photo: my own.

Bal à Versailles is lovely in cologne form, but it is truly spectacular in vintage parfum. It is deeper, richer, smoother, and more luxurious. There is much more leather, more darkness, and, most of the time, more raunchy brazenness. One of my few problems with the eau de cologne formulation is that civet feels quite sharp at times. That issue is overcome with the parfum, where it is much smoother and more well-rounded. I think the parfum is even more animalic than the cologne, but it’s not quite as shrieking or as obviously urinous.

Photo: my own.

There are other differences as well. On my skin, the eau de cologne is sweeter, thinner, much more overtly and obviously floral, and with a substantially weaker leather element. The vanilla comes out more in the cologne, while the darkly balsamic resins, smokiness, and ambered goldenness are stronger in the parfum. The latter has a much deeper, richer, lovelier drydown with oil-burnished, almost honeyed leather vying with the tolu balsam, incense-y styrax and amber for dominance. The florals seem almost like an afterthought at this point, which is why the parfum feels more masculine than the more feminine cologne. Yet, the parfum is also softer and has less projection on my skin, as is common with extrait versions. It lasts about an hour less than the cologne, but, then again, one generally uses much less.

Source: Tumblr and mindenseges.hupont.hu

I honestly cannot decide which concentration I like more. Sometimes, the sweeter, more floral, more vanillic cologne calls my name. On other occasions, the more intensely animalic parfum feels more appealing with its richer, smoother, deeper elements. Yet, sometimes, it can feel a little too animalic and a little too carnal, while the sweeter, more floral cologne seems easier to wear and more approachable. It comes down to mood, and perhaps to gender. The parfum feels a little more chevalier and opulent, while the cologne feels a little more like a feminine courtesan.

One big difference between the two is price. You can find a 1960s era bottle of the cologne on eBay for roughly $40-$60 in some pretty good sizes. There are always exceptions, with some sellers asking for much more, but it’s not hard to get a 2 oz or 60 ml (like mine) in that price range. I’ve even seen some barely touched 4 oz or 120 ml bottles go for roughly the same amount.

BaV Parfum mini on eBay.

Unfortunately, the eBay prices for the parfum version are quite crazy for anything other than a minuscule amount. Most of the bottles offered are roughly the size of a small sample or decant: they’re frequently 2.4 ml or 0.08 oz, and some are 4 ml. The price range for those is generally between $20-$35, which isn’t terrible until you consider how little you’re getting. On occasion, you will see much larger, more conventionally sized bottles, but those come with frightening price tags to match. (There is currently an auction for 4 oz bottle of parfum starting at $875. That makes the $217 bottle of parfum in a 7.5 ml size seem almost “cheap” in comparison.) Slightly less expensive than the pure parfum is the “parfum de toilette” version, which I believe is essentially eau de parfum, though I’ve never tried it and don’t know much about it. Here are some more photos:

1980s Parfum, 7.5 ml bottle. Source: eBay

Parfum de Toilette. Possibly 1980s. Source: eBay.

As a side note, there are bottles of “eau de cologne” shown on eBay which look very different than my own. They are not clear glass in a chiseled flacon, but tall, narrow bottles of opaque white with a gold pattern and, occasionally, the coloured Jean Desprez label that resembles a rococo painting of a 17th century woman. Some of the cologne bottles do resemble mine, but have a blue label instead of a cream one. I can’t date the various bottles, but I believe my bottle is the oldest version, followed by the glass one with the blue label, and then the taller, narrow, opaque white bottles which I remember from the 1970s. Here are some photos to show you the differences:

My bottle of Eau de Cologne. Seemingly 1960s.

My bottle of Eau de Cologne. 1960s, I believe.

Eau de Cologne, perhaps early 1970s? Source: eBay.

Eau de Cologne, perhaps late 1960s, early 1970s. Source: eBay

Eau de Cologne, late 1970s, perhaps? Source: eBay.

I’m no expert at all on these various versions, their dates, or how they may differ, but there is a very useful, detailed analysis provided on Bal à Versailles’ Fragrantica page by the perfume blogger, “Le Mouchoir de Monsieur.” He talks about the history of the various concentrations and reformulations, mentions their packaging differences, compares how they smell, and explains why he thinks Bal à Versailles should be dabbed on, instead of sprayed. He is clearly an expert, so I’ve included parts of his long text almost verbatim, but have broken it up with paragraph breaks to make it easier on the eyes and easier to read:

… following the classic standards of Haute Parfumerie, the original three concentrations that were initially made exhibited a trio of scents, each one different, and designed to sublimate the other two; thus, Jean Desprez himself would have instructed the wearer to splash on the Eau de Cologne with abandon, all over the body, perhaps even using it as an hair tonic. After a time, the Parfum de Toilette would be applied more sparingly, but liberally, on exposed parts of the body: The shoulders, neck, calves and decolletage. Finally, the Parfum, clearly conceived to be dabbed very sparingly on specific pulse points. […] It is my own judgement that BAV is one of the rare scents that truly does benefit from an application by hand, and not by atomizer: To atomize the parfum, for example, automatically distorts it. Remember: At the time of its launch, not one of these concentrations was offered in a vaporizer. The EDC could be then poured on, or applied with a sea sponge, as was often done with this type of “Eau,” (The first issue of this was called merely “Eau Bal a Versailles.”) The Parfum de Toilette, in its lyre shaped flacon, could be “dabbed,” eventually decanted into an atomizer and sprayed, but was most likely intended to be applied by stopper or fingertip. The original packaging of this concentration was clearly marked with the words: “A Fragrance to Compliment Bal a Versailles Parfum.” Finally, the Parfum itself, was very obviously one intended to be slapped on by fingertip with force, to awaken the veins, and to push the molecules of it into the skin.

“Louis d’Orléans Showing his Mistress” by Eugène Delacroix. Source: Wikipedia

As is rarely, if ever seen today, each one of these scents is vastly different. The EDC is a light, rosey musk and incense affair, surely the most wearbale by today’s standards, the PDT is a rich, heady symphony of smoke and resin, this one clearly the most “dated” of the three, heavy with the “Old Lady” connotations with which all of our modern noses are equipped, and finally, the Majestic Parfum, which is a symbiosis of so many elements that it defies any specific analysis in very much the same way many of the Classic Caron scents do. At the time of its advent, Bal a Versailles was the first commercial perfume of the Twentieth Century to out price “Joy,” which previously truly had been “the Costliest Perfume in the World.” […][¶]

Vintage ad. Source: The Non-Blonde.

There was a moment in time when the House of Jean Desprez, still in the hands of its founders, did itself re-formulate this composition, as it was discovered sometime around the mid to late Seventies that certain ingredients it contained were indeed toxic to the human body in the concentrations originally presented. This re-formulation was once again re-enacted in the mid Eighties, Jean Desprez still purely a French perfumer, for other reasons, these having to do with the increasing costs and outright disappearance of some of its second version components. This leaves us with seven French versions of this famed scent, all of which were of top quality, with no expense spared to maintain the integrity of the original vision of Jean Desprez[.] […][Emphasis added by me.]

Are you a little confused? Well, I wouldn’t blame you. I even skipped his detailed discussion about the more recent versions of Bal à Versailles, the two American companies that held or still hold the “Jean Desprez” name and patents from 2002 onwards, and their eau de toilette. If you’re at all curious, I encourage you to read his account. It’s a fascinating history, though convoluted and with an exhausting number of versions in total. (It seems there are fourteen, all in all.)

Suffice it to say, an expert on Bal à Versailles gives a thumbs up to the 1960s cologne as the most wearable by today’s standards, and to the vintage parfum as the truest, most beautiful embodiment of the scent. He also shares my belief that you should stay away from modern versions. I’ve heard that bottles can be found in places like TJ Maxx, and nothing good is ever said about them. People uniformly described the modern, reformulated fragrance as a horrifying, heavily powdered, very synthetic mess. I tried the modern EDT some years ago, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

Photo: Grover Schrayer on Flicker. (Website link embedded within.)

If you want more information on the three, main vintage versions and how they may differ, another Fragrantica reviewer, “Loving the Alien,” offers their assessment:

The Eau de Cologne is a civet-heavy and very powdery oriental in the vein of Toujours Moi and Tabu.

The Parfum de Toilette is a caramelized amber/tolu with deep notes of rose, similar to Avon Occur!, which is clearly inspired by Bal a Versailles.

The Parfum is an intensely spicy and incensey animalic. I can think of nothing similar to the parfum version.

They are all very, very different, although they have the same amber/resin/vanilla/orange blossom theme.

The new ones vary considerably; they are not apparently related to the original scent by much.

Regardless of version, I wouldn’t recommend vintage Bal à Versailles to anyone who didn’t love animalic, skanky fragrances. Fragrantica abounds with almost as many negative reviews as admiringly positive ones, though the perfume’s entry page does not distinguish between the various versions, vintage or modern, so it’s sometimes hard to know which one struck such intense fear and revulsion in people’s hearts. Still, I cannot emphasize enough what a polarizing, terror-inducing scent Bal à Versailles can be to someone who is unaccustomed to civet, its feline yeowl, raunchiness in general, or heavy, potently indolic, vintage fragrances. Some of the descriptions range from the mere “repulsive,” to my favorite: “someone’s overactive musk leather-bound crotch.” There is also talk about cat feces, sweat, “old lady,” and mothballs (undoubtedly from the indoles).

Screenshot from the movie, “Dangerous Liaisons.” Source: the Huffington Post

Even those who love Bal à Versailles use terms to describe it that would be negative in many other contexts like, for example, “filthy/beautiful/sublime.” The blogger, The Perfume Dandy, wrote a review on Fragrantica under the name “Assiduosity” where he lovingly called it “bestial” and “irresistibly repugnant”:

Bal a Versailles is a dangerous, irresistibly repugnant scent for men and women prepared to dance the dance of death. For all its wondrous beauty nothing can disguise the beating of its monstrous bestial heart.

There may be flowers and powder a plenty but this is an unapologetically animal aroma with plenty of tooth and claw.

With silage the size of a herd of wildebeest and longevity the length of an elephant’s memory this is not a commitment to be taken likely.

Accept its invitation and you are bid welcome to the party of a lifetime, but stay too long and you to may succumb to the guillotine’s blade.

But hell is worth the risk!!

Honestly, I think Bal à Versailles is so much tamer than the stream of forceful, intense, alarming descriptions on Fragrantica would lead you to believe. It is not for everyone and may smell dated by some modern standards, but there are far more intensely animalic fragrances out there, in my opinion. If you can wear Montecristo, Opus VII, vintage Kouros, Hard Leather, Serge Lutens’ Muscs Koublai Khan, or Cuir Mauresque, and if you don’t mind a light dusting of benzoin powder added to their debauched skankiness, then you should have no problems with Bal à Versailles. Everyone else, however, beware.

Vintage Bal à Versailles is not only for women. One Basenotes thread entitled “Can a man wear Bal a Versailles” had numerous men chiming in enthusiastically about the scent, including Mark Behnke of Colognoisseur. For one chap, Mike Perez, the vintage Eau de Cologne had a similar feel to some famous leather fragrances:

I finally found some vintage EdC today and bought it for a great price.

The EdC has, as a few other threads suggest, a similar leather feel to Knize Ten and (dare-I-say) Tabac Blond.

I think the comparisons to L’ Air de Rein by Miller Harris are credible, although this one hints at a much more orientalized feel. [Emphasis to names added by me.]

I can definitely see why he’d mention Knize Ten, though I personally don’t find it to be animalic. I think a closer analogy might be to an animalic version of Knize Ten Golden.

The eau de toilette bottle, which looks like a larger size of the parfum, so be careful and check the concentration on the boxes. Source: Basenotes

In that same thread, another chap compares the non-cologne formulations, and echoes the very common refrain that the EDT is the least appealing of the lot, though it is unclear to me if he’s talking about vintage versions:

I currently have the Parfum de Toilette and EdT. The Edt is kinda ho-hum to me. The Pdt is much better (richer and darker) but the parfum is my favorite. I went through a tiny bottle of the parfum in no time. It’s has a vague kinship to Kouros, but much more wearable. [Emphasis to name added by me.]

The bottom line to all this is that vintage Bal à Versailles is a legendary masterpiece in its genre. It is not for everyone, but if you have any love for raunchy, animalic, heady, powerhouse orientals, then it is something that you should try at least once in your life. I think it is beautiful.

Versailles. Photographer: Raul Higuera. Source: latinfashionews.com/

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: You can use find vintage Bal à Versailles on eBay at the following links: cologne and parfum. If you want to sample before you buy, Surrender to Chance has the vintage Cologne starting at $3 for a 1 ml vial. The vintage Parfum de Toilette starts at $4.99 for a 1 ml vial. The Perfumed Court has the vintage Parfum starting at $6.94 for a 1/2 ml vial. It also offers a duo of the vintage pure Parfum and vintage Eau de Parfum (parfum de toilette, I believe) for $19.99 for 1 ml vials of each. I don’t see the cologne version on their site.

Mona di Orio Violette Fumée (Les Nombres d’Or)

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Source: Fragrantica

Violette Fumée is a fresh, citric floral musk from Mona di Orio that was posthumously released in 2013 as part of her Nombres d’Or Collection. Madame di Orio was a very talented perfumer who died tragically at the age of 41 in 2011 from post-surgical complications, and Violette Fumée was her last creation. It was originally made as a personal, private gift to her business partner and the company’s co-founder, Jeroen Oude Sogtoen, based on his favorite notes. He decided to release the scent publicly in 2013 as an homage to her.

Source: Luckyscent

Violette Fumée is described as an “eau de parfum intense” on the Mona di Orio website, and also as an “Oriental Balsamic Floral.” The official description for the fragrance is interesting, as it discusses some elements that are not actually included in the accompanying note list:

With the creation of Violette Fumée, Mona composed the melody of my favorite passions, memories and materials.

With flirty florals like violet and rose fumed with pipe tobacco, the exquisite smoothness of cashmere and suede, and deep resinous undertones, this warmly smoldering scent evokes my sensorial love for luxury, and makes me feel, dream, travel and remember.

Revved at the start, crisp, fresh notes of herbal lavender and sparkling bergamot pair with inky oakmoss and get a twist as the scent unfolds into the elegance of vetiver and clary sage.

The shy violet and iconic rose develop into a powdery and gourmand fume and then ramp up as spicy and savory notes of aphrodisiac saffron and smoky bois de gaiac communicate with the florals and begin to ignite.

The smoldering continues as resinous opoponax, myrrh, and musky cashmeran dive slowly into an intense velvety embrace.

Top notes: Mediterranean Lavender, Bergamot from Calabria, Oakmoss from the Balkans
Heart notes: Violet flowers and leaves from Egypt, Turkish Rose, Vetiver from Haiti, Clary Sage
Base notes: Opoponax and Myrrh from Somalia, Cashmeran.

As you can see from the description, saffron, tobacco, and guaiac wood are mentioned, but they do not appear on the actual list of notes. I detected small, minute traces of the last two notes, but not the saffron.

Source: naturesgardencandles.com

Violette Fumée opens on my skin as a very cool citrus, aromatic, and floral bouquet. There is crisp, chilled bergamot and pungent, herbal lavender, followed by dewy, metallic violets, its crunchy green leaves, and tendrils of light, sheer smoke. The violets smell slightly dewy and liquidy, but primarily carry the aroma of its crunchy, fuzzy, peppered leaves. There is a metallic sharpness that violets can sometimes demonstrate, but the note is also accentuated here by clean, synthetic, white musk. Touches of clary sage waft about, emitting a slight soapiness amidst the plant’s lavender and leathery undertones. Vetiver trails behind it, smelling both green and mineralized.

Oakmoss or tree moss.

A few minutes later, another green note arrives on the scene: oakmoss. Like the vetiver, it initially has a mineralized aspect and doesn’t smell plushly green. Yet, it is not completely the grey, fusty, dusty, more pungent version, either. It lies somewhere in-between, supplemented by the bergamot to prevent the mosses from feeling too austere. As a whole, Violette Fumée is a visual palette of green, yellow and purple, with small streaks of black. It is initially a very cool fragrance in temperature as well, thanks largely to the chilliness of the crisp bergamot and the violet’s floral liquidity.

The black smoke that ties the aromatic, citric and floral elements together is very muted on my skin. It is a subtle touch which I wish were far stronger. Interestingly, the first time I wore Violette Fumée, the smokiness was much more apparent than on my two subsequent tests and I have to wonder if temperature was responsible as it was far cooler that first time around. Yet, even so, if I were to quantify the smoke on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest, it was a 3 in my first test and perhaps a 1.5 at best on subsequent occasions. In short, rather minor as a whole. Even more minor is the tobacco undertone that I detected in one test, but which never subsequently reappeared.

Violet Leaf via gaertner-und-florist.at

Violette Fumée slowly shifts, though by very fractional degrees. After 10 minutes, the fragrance feels softer and warmer. The bergamot’s zesty briskness turns sweeter, while the lavender and clary sage lose some of their sharp, herbal pungency. The violets grow stronger, their scent feeling more floral now than just the crunchy, piquant green leaves. Their dewiness and metallic edge fade away, though the clean musk remains. In fact, the latter’s synthetic sharpness is consistently intertwined with the bergamot note, resulting in a clean lemoniness that I think has a very harsh edge. It continues largely unabated until the very end of Violette Fumée’s development on my skin, and it is the thing that I like the least about the perfume.

Source: funny-pictures.picphotos.net

Violette Fumée begins to turn abstract and wispy 45 minutes into its development. There are fluctuating levels of greenness, but the smokiness has faded away, along with the lavender and clary sage. The oakmoss feels almost nebulous, more like an abstract suggestion than anything clearly delineated. In fact, many of Violette Fumée’s notes lose their distinct shape, except for violet and the lemony musk, and the perfume feels very sheer.

What appears instead is a generalized, rather amorphous woodiness. Neither the guaiac nor the cashmeran are detectable in any individual way, but they blend in with the other notes to create a sort of nebulous, “woody musk” cocoon in which the violets are nestled. The cashmeran is noticeable mostly through the growing touch of creaminess in Violette Fumée’s base, almost like shea. By the 90-minute mark, the perfume is primarily a fresh, violet floral scent with strong bergamot musk and a touch of sweetness, all resting upon a thin base of creamy woods. A hint of vetiver lingers in the background, but there is no smokiness, very little sense of oakmoss, and only a suggestion of crisp greenness. The perfume now lies just an inch, at best, above my skin.

As a whole, Violette Fumée is a very airy, lightweight fragrance with soft, quiet sillage. Three smears amounting to 2 small spritzes from an actual bottle gave me 2 inches in projection. Applying a larger quantity did not significantly change that number. By the end of the second hour, the perfume is a skin scent on me and feels very thin.

Artist unknown. Source: pinterest via eBay.

At the start of the 3rd hour, Violette Fumée is a fresh, light, largely abstract floral with a vague suggestion of violets, followed by sharp, synthetic, lemony musk, all atop a base of generic woodiness with creaminess. As a whole, the perfume feels very clean and has something of a soapy nuance, thanks to the fabric softener musk. The impression of greenness has completely disappeared, but a slight powderiness has taken its place.

Violette Fumée remains largely unchanged for hours to come. The rose makes a quiet appearance at the end of the 6th hour, but it feels thin, pink, and very wan. The general bouquet is now primarily an abstract “floral” accord dominated by citric cleanness and a touch of vague woodiness. Even the creaminess in the base feels more muted and thin. In its final moments, Violette Fumée is a blur of something floral and clean. All in all, the perfume consistently lasted between 10 and 11 hours, largely because my skin holds onto clean musk synthetics like the devil.

Photo: My own.

Violette Fumée has generally received very good reviews, both from bloggers and on Fragrantica. The Non-Blonde writes, in part:

Violette Fumée is a gender-bending fragrance. Smoke and flowers, delicate tendrils and petals against musky creamy wood. Pipe tobacco that has an almost fruity core, a rich texture with a modern sensibility. I wanted to describe the dry-down as a purple cloak, but that’s a bit over the top, while Mona di Orio created Violette Fumée as a wearable and sophisticated personal fragrance for a man with an impeccable urbane taste.

The musky dry-down is of the slightly fruity kind, round, rich and satisfying. It still has those purple fumes surrounding it, and I feel an urge to lose myself in this mist. Despite all of that and the high concentration of the juice, Violette Fumée is not a heavy perfume. Applied moderately, it’s somewhere between a skin scent and a fashion accessory that you notice but doesn’t steal the show from your words.

“Green-purpel Fractal by Aqualoop31.” Source: aqualoop31.deviantart.com

For The Scented Hound, Violette Fumée was also a lovely experience, one which reminded him of a “page from a 19th century botanical illustrative leather bound book.” He writes, in part:

Violette Fumee opens with the most beautiful lavender and bergamot combination; it’s herbal and refreshing in a creamy comforting way. After a few minutes, the fragrance starts to warm and become deeper as a beefy oakmoss emerges from the bottom that envelopes and seems to fold over the lavender. After about 10 minutes or so, the violet seems to make an appearance from the edge of the fragrance. I know this is going to sound strange, but it’s appearance is like prairie dogs popping their head out of the ground. What I mean is that the violet doesn’t come out at once, but seems to pop in and out until eventually you feel like you are surrounded by violets tinged with rose. Violette Fumee at this point still retains its creaminess but it becomes slightly brighter without becoming sheer. What I love about this is that the herbal aspects of the fragrance keep this from becoming too floral and pretty which allow Violette Fumee to retain a substantive elegance. After some time, the myrrh and opoponax emerge from below and a slight suede provides for a beautiful finish to this multi-faceted fragrance.

Source: parfumi.net

On Fragrantica, most people seem to adore Violette Fumée, with some comparing it to Chanel‘s No. 19 and Cristalle. For example, “kxnaiades” writes, in part:

Violette Fumee is like no other violet scent I’ve come across. I thought Lez Nez’s Unicorn Spell and CDG Stephen Jones were different and unique takes on violet. Mona di Orio’s Violet Fumee pretty much blazes past these and leaves them in her smoke, in terms of originality. This really has to be sat down with and taken time with to enjoy, it’s complex and does not reveal it’s entirety in the first half hour. I agree that it’s opening reminds me alot of Cristalle and the like. Cristalle opens cold and unreachable on me, just like Violette Fumee did. I know perfectly well what clary sage smells like now, the leathery note was clearly in the icy herbal opening. However, making friends does take time and I was patient. My faith was well-placed and with time, the chill air left and I was greeted with a fresh violet with its leaves still green and perky, resins and woods. I much much prefer the warmer drydown to the opening so thankfully this lasts very well on my skin with a single spritz. This is not an easy scent to like, but neither were Cristalle or No. 19 for me intially, but now is a different story from then. Violette Fumee is not for those looking for a sweet violet pastille scent. It’s a decidedly unisex take on violet with a bold entrance and uncompromising quality I’ve come to expect from Mona di Orio. This is no shrinking violet.

Source: raymichemin.canalblog.com

For “Mick Trick,” Violet Fumée didn’t remind him of any Chanels but he also really liked the scent, though he does note that the “fumee” aspect was barely noticeable on his skin. He writes, in part:

Violette Fumee opens with a fresh sparkly triumvirate of green violet leaf, a splash of golden effervescent honeyed bergamot and subtle herbal lavender. Towards the heart the violet flower builds, an ultra-fine polished smooth powderiness is present but checked and never overwhelms, as opoponax adds resinous sweetness and a creaminess to the violet, forming the languorous sinuous and slightly shimmering heart of the fragrance. There’s also a very subtle tobacco note appearing at the beginning of the drydown, although I noticed this only on the second full wearing. At late drydown the violet flower recedes and watery violet leaf endures with a soft suede musky aspect (must be the cashmeran).

As others have noted the ‘fumee’ aspect is noticeable by its absence. Although I experienced a couple of phantom smokey tendrils that are gone as soon as I noticed then. It lays close and after around 4 hours is really a skin scent, however I experienced +12 hours longevity, on fabric it’s also +next day material. Not bad at all. There is a sweetness to VF, but it always retains a freshness and never threatens to become cloying. I’ve worn it now three times in the last four days, it’s got a subtle luxurious allure that keeps me coming back for more, I like it very much.

There are only two negative reviews for the fragrance:

Awful, smoky and cheap, totally synth. [¶] Crazy price, sillage bad, longevity bad. [¶] Thumbs down.

The drydown smells on me like Earl Grey tea leaves.

Violet Fumée is not cheap at $330 or €230, though the bottle is a 100 ml. I don’t think it feels like an eau de parfum at all, something that one Fragrantica commentator also mentioned. For me, the perfume is very over-priced for what it is, and I don’t find its quality to be impressive. The bergamot musk dominated much of the drydown on my skin, which is perhaps why that last quote from Fragrantica mentions “Earl Grey tea leaves,” but it is the sharpness of the synthetic that I found to be particularly objectionable. For $330, I’d like a lot more than citric fabric softener emanating from my skin — and a sheer, wispy, thin, largely abstract floral-woody-musk isn’t it.

In all fairness, I despise clean, white musk — in anything — and other people don’t have the same issues with the note. They also are not so sensitive to synthetics which my skin amplifies quite a bit. Plus, as I’ve tried to make clear, I’m in a distinct, tiny minority regarding this scent. Everyone else seems to be a fan. So, if you love violet fragrances and clean, fresh florals as a whole, then you may want to give Violette Fumée a sniff.

DETAILS:

Cost, Sizes, Sets & Availability: Violette Fumée is an eau de parfum, and is available in two different options or sizes. The full bottle is 3.4 oz/100 ml and costs $330, €230, or £195. It is available world-wide on the Mona di Orio website which also sells a 5 ml roll-on bottle for €20. However, Violette Fumée is not one of the fragrances included in the usual MdO Travel set of 3 minis or in the Nombres d’Or Discovery Set of 8 x 5ml bottles. In the U.S.: Violette Fumée is sold at Luckyscent, Parfum1, and MinNewYork. All three places sell samples. Outside the U.S: In the UK, you can find Violette Fumée at Les Senteurs which sells it for £195, and also offers a sample vial for sale. Mona di Orio’s full line can also be found at Roullier White. In Europe, Violette Fumée is sold at Premiere Avenue, Jovoy, and First in Fragrance. The Mona di Orio line is also sold at Essenza Nobile. In Paris, Mona di Orio is sold at Marie Antoinette, and you can email Antonio to purchase. In the Netherlands, the line is offered at ParfuMaria and Skin Cosmetics. In the United Arab Emirates, Mona di Orio is sold at Harvey Nichols. In Australia, Melbourne’s Peony Haute Parfumerie carries the brand. For all other countries from Russia to Spain, you can use the Store Locator guide on the company website. Samples: Samples are available at Surrender to Chance starting at $4.50 for a 1/2 ml vial, at Luckyscent, Parfum1, and many of the European retailers linked to above.

SHL 777 Rose de Petra: Desert Rose

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Source: Pinterest

The ancient temple of Petra soars high in the sky before a vast desert whose sands are stained pink and red with the blood of roses. The flowers are dusted with fiery spices, then nestled in a cocoon of green mosses and dry woods. A soft ambered hue hangs above them matching the gold-pink-red of the caves near the temple, while down below trickles a dark stream of smoky styrax, balsamic resins, and a touch of leather. A woman walks quietly in the shade, veiled in rose-red, her dark eyes watching the incoming shadows as the dusty desert wind brings sand, dryness and whispers of wood from distant lands. She wears Rose de Petra by Stéphane Humbert Lucas.

Every time I wear Rose de Petra, its desert inspiration and its layered, spicy dryness always make me think of Sting’s famous song, “Desert Rose“:

I dream of rain
I lift my gaze to empty skies above
I close my eyes, this rare perfume
Is the sweet intoxication of her love

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in pain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

Sweet desert rose
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this

Sweet desert rose
This memory of Eden haunts us all
This desert flower, this rare perfume
Is the sweet intoxication of the fall.

Source: cn.forwallpaper.com

Unlike poor Sting, Rose de Petra doesn’t make me feel tortured or pained, but it does indeed call to mind the desert rose that hides its “gardens in the sand” behind veils, each layer like a secret promise of more to come, before revealing its soft, sweet heart. I’m not particularly fond of rose fragrances, but I thought this one was very refined, wonderfully smooth, and really lovely. Yes, even “intoxicating” at times, just as the song says, though not because of the actual rose note, in my opinion.

Rose de Petra is a fragrance from the Paris niche house, Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 (hereinafter just referred to as “SHL” or “777“). Monsieur Lucas was the in-house perfumer for SoOud and Nez à Nez, but launched his new house in 2013. There were originally seven fragrances, one of which was Rose de Petra, followed by several new releases this year. They are all officially listed as being eau de parfums, but are really extrait or pure parfums with at least 24% concentration.

Rose de Petra. Source: SHL 777 Facebook page.

Until last month, all the 777 creations were exclusive to Europe, Russia, and Middle Eastern, but they are now carried in America at Luckyscent and Osswald NY. Monsieur Lucas kindly and graciously sent me samples of his entire 11-piece collection, from the jaw-dropping, spectacular, monster amber, O Hira (which blew my socks off), the smoky new Oud 777, the gourmand Une Nuit à Doha, and the superb Black Gemstone which was love at first sniff for me. This is the final review of the series.

Al Khazneh Temple at Petra. Source: Wikimedia

Monsieur Lucas has a genuine love of the Middle East, from its majestic ancient buildings to its philosophical mysticism, and he uses both as the inspiration for all the fragrances in his new line. For Rose de Petra, he was moved partially by the magnificent, famed temple of Petra in Jordan, but also by “rose du sable” or the “desert rose.” As Wikipedia explains, those are colloquial names given to a desert crystal made partially from sand in a formation which resembles a rose. Sands and rose… that should give you a small idea of Rose de Petra’s nature, but its core essence is something very different in my opinion.

The fragrance is essentially a chypre-oriental hybrid, though you’d never guess that by looking at its official notes of its notes or the press release description provided to me:

Source: galleryhip.com

Philter of Bulgarian rose,
red epithem, sensual and pungent.
Generous, silky and mystical rose.

Notes:
Rose Oxide – Pomegranate – Litchi
Bulgarian rose
Pepper – Cardamom – Cumin seeds.

Regular readers of my 777 reviews will know by now that the official list given to places like Fragrantica or to distributors is merely a highly abbreviated, thumbnail synopsis. The lists are never complete, and leave off what I’d estimate to be 40% to 70% of the elements, depending on the fragrance. (In the case of O Hira, the one note “list” omits 99% of the actual notes.) Monsieur Lucas has told me candidly that he wants people to be moved emotionally by what they smell, not to be fixated on the details. He believes that perfume should be about a journey, almost a transcendental experience or escape. The minutiae detracts from what he wants you to feel.

Saffron. Source: FoodandFarsi.com (Website link embedded within.)

Well, I’m far too OCD about details for such abstract esotericism. I like to know what’s in a scent, especially when I detect a lot more than what is listed. In the case of Rose de Petra, I smelled saffron, patchouli, styrax, a balsamic resin, cedar, vanilla, tonka, a tobacco-like leatheriness, a leafy greenness, and an oud note. So I wrote to Monsieur Lucas, and it turns out that many of those things are indeed in Rose de Petra, though not the oud which he was happy to hear about and which he said was a sort of “mirage” that he’d intentionally sought to create.

The list of notes in Rose de Petra is actually closer to the following, though Monsieur Lucas hinted that even this is not complete:

Essence of Bulgarian rose, rose oxide, litchi, pomegranate, pepper, cardamom, cumin, saffron, cinnamon, patchouli, leather, Peru balsam, styrax, vetiver, cedar, oakmoss, tree moss, labdanum [amber], coumarin, and vanilla.

One of the visual inspirations for Rose de Petra, and its rose note. Source: Stéphane Humbert Lucas.

One of the visual inspirations for Rose de Petra, and its fruity Bulgarian rose note. Source: Stéphane Humbert Lucas.

In his correspondence with me, Monsieur Lucas said he sought to make a fragrance that highlighted contrasts. The fruitiness and gaiety of the Bulgarian rose; the heat, spices, stoniness. and mystery of the desert; the sandy beauty of the “Rose du Sables” or desert rose; and the striated stone of Petra. He wanted a composition that was “chaud et froid,” hot and cold, with small touches of various mosses and “green” fresh cedar counterbalanced by the fiery spices, the rich Peru balsam, dark leather, and smoky styrax. And, to demonstrate the contrasts, he shared the photos which inspired him and which represent the visuals of Rose de Petra in his mind:

“Rose du Sables,” Desert Rose rock crystal. Source: Stéphane Humbert Lucas

Source: Stéphane Humbert Lucas

Rose de Petra opens on my skin with pink roses that are dewy and wet, simultaneously pale but rich. For all their delicacy, they are heavily sprinkled with spices from nutty cardamon and dusty cumin to the fieriness of black pepper and red-gold saffron. Sweet cinnamon follows in their trail, then the fruity tartness of pomegranates. The liquidy dewiness is a subtle, muted touch which stems from the lychee (or litchi), and it is quickly overwhelmed by a heaping dose of very fruited, purple patchouli which turns the rose from pink to blood-red.

Source: banoosh.com

There are other elements noticeable as well. As the spices grow stronger on top, the first hints of the dark base appear, almost like a shadow falling over the background. There is a subtle, tiny streak of smoky leatheriness from the styrax, while the Peru balsam adds both an undercurrent of sticky darkness and a full-bodied richness to the scent. Lurking at the edges is a tangy sweet-sourness, accompanied by a leafy greenness. It goes beyond mere pomegranates, and I initially wondered if a tiny dose of cassis had been used as well. At a much higher dosage and quantity, those notes reveal themselves to be oakmoss.

I’ve tested Rose de Petra a number of times and, while the overall parameters of the opening are largely the same, the perfume really shines if you apply more of the scent. My sample atomizer had a very wonky, temperamental spray that gave out little dribs and drabs, so the first time I applied roughly the equivalent of one decent spritz from a bottle. On subsequent occasions, I doubled and even tripled the dose and… good heavens, the oakmoss really shines forth. In some fragrances, moss notes can smell pungently mineralized, grey, fusty, dusty, or akin to dry tree bark. Here, however, it is lushly green, rich, and smooth.

Source: 1ms.net

These richer elements transform the rose in less than five minutes. From the delicate, pale, dewy, little thing of its opening, the rose now feels drenched in a darkly fruited liqueur, as if a rich cordial had been poured all over the velvety petals. Fieriness lies just underneath from the spices, while a subtle, tart tanginess from the pomegranates weaves in and out of the top notes like tiny, little fireflies. The whole thing likes on a base that is plushly green from the oakmoss, but overcast with black shadows from leathery, smoky, balsamic elements.

Photo: David Hare. Source: open.az

I know some of you are cumin-phobes who shudder at the mere mention of the word, so let me reassure you here and now: you needn’t worry. Nothing in Rose de Petra smells fetid, sweaty, food-like, or reminiscent of stale, unwashed body odor. Rather, each and every time I’ve tested the fragrance, the note is more like an abstract, spicy dustiness. To be honest, the cumin is a really subtle, minor note in the opening, hardly detectable on my skin next to the saffron, liqueured fruits, oakmoss and rose. And, as time passes, it grows even more abstract, like a mere suggestion of dustiness left at the bottom of an ancient spice drawer.

Photo: Joel Ryan/Invision/AP for Vivienne Westwood, London Fashion week, 2013. Source: Salon.com

At the end of the day, the rose and only the rose is the star of this soliflore. Rose de Petra feels like one, big long aria by a rose wearing different costumes, shedding the chypre-like mosses and patchouli veils of its opening to show its more purely oriental skin later on.

It is like Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils, but it also reminds me of something else: Frederic Malle‘s famous Portrait of a Lady (“POAL”). I wasn’t keen on the latter which was a gooey, rose-patchouli explosion on my skin with virtually no oakmoss to imbue it with any real chypre character. Rose de Petra’s opening feels like a spicier, substantially less syrupy, much deeper and richer version of the Malle scent. There is a greenness and subtle tanginess to the 777 fragrance that POAL lacks, and more dusty spiciness than the Malle ever demonstrated on my skin. Rose de Petra also feels much more concentrated, at least at first.

Source: pinterest

20 minutes into its development, Rose de Petra grows even spicier, and begins to resemble another famous fragrance. As fieriness and dustiness take over the blood-red, velvety flowers, Rose de Petra is slowly turning into what most people seem to experience with Amouage‘s Lyric Woman. On my skin, the latter was largely all about the ylang-ylang with very little spiced rose, so perhaps I should compare Rose de Petra to Lyric’s sister from the same nose: Epic Woman. The latter was definitely all about spiced, dusty, woody roses on me, but the very jammy richness of the flowers probably makes Rose de Petra closer to the conventional interpretation of Lyric Woman. The bottom line, though, is that the 777 creation starts off on my skin with similarities to Malle’s Portrait of a Lady, then turns into a combination of the Malle with one or both of Amouage’s famous rose fragrances. To be sure, there are differences, but the kinship is there.

Cedar. Photo: Brett Stewart, with permission. Source: http://instagram.com/bstewart23

Thoughts of Epic Woman come to mind again at the end of the first hour when Rose de Petra loses some of its jammy sweetness and chypre accords. The perfume turns woodier, drier and slightly balsamic as the base elements begin to rise to the surface. The oakmoss retreats, the subtle touch of tartness from the pomegranate dies away, and the individual spices turn more amorphous and indistinct. It’s no longer easy to pull out the cinnamon, black pepper, saffron, or even the dustiness of the cumin; everything has melted into each other, as the notes overlap seamlessly. Even the very concentrated denseness of Rose de Petra softens, with the sillage changing to match.

Rose de Petra starts off as quite a strong, robust scent with decent projection. Using the equivalent of 2 tiny sprays from an actual bottle gave me 2 inches of sillage, while 3 small sprays gave me 3 inches. However, those numbers soon drop, and Rose de Petra’s concentrated, rich opening bouquet turns quite airy and soft roughly 75 minutes into its development. At that time, the sillage drops to an inch above the skin, where it remains for the next few hours. So, when taken as an average whole, I would say that Rose de Petra is generally an airy, light scent with soft, almost intimate projection.

Source: YouTube video of Desert Rose, posted in full at the end.

At the start of the 3rd hour, Rose de Petra shifts again. The dry, woody tonalities grow stronger, and there was a definite suggestion of oud on my skin when I used a lesser quantity. At a higher dose, that was not as evident, though the cedar most definitely was. In both cases, however, and regardless of quantity, the perfume takes on a darker quality as the woods and smoky styrax rise up from the base to envelop the rose. Even the leather grows faintly more noticeable, though it is still mostly a subtle suggestion on my skin.

Photo: my own.

Rose de Petra now demonstrates a chiaroscuro effect, a play of light and dark, as the darker shadows are contrasted by a glow of warmth from the labdanum amber and by a definite streak of creaminess with a slightly powdery touch that speaks to the tonka and vanilla. (The note list mentions coumarin, but, for me, that often has a hay-like characteristic that I don’t detect here. Plus, coumarin comes from tonka beans, and that’s what I detect, so that’s what I’m going to call it.) Rose de Petra continues to be spicy, but it remains largely abstract, though once in a while a more distinct whisper of cardamon and pepper does pop up.

Rose de Petra has lost a lot of its thick richness, both in terms of the jammy, velvety rose and the perfume’s body itself. It feels much airier and softer than it did in the first hour. As a whole, Rose de Petra is now a spicy, dry, woody rose, lightly flecked by a dark resins, a suggestion of smokiness, a golden warmth, and creamy vanilla. There is a whisper of something almost like oud, but only a minute, lingering patina of jammy, patchouli sweetness or oakmoss.

Rose de Petra turns wholly abstract by the middle of the 4th hour. It is the merest wisp of a soft, slightly spicy rose with woodiness and tonka vanilla. Though there is a touch of sweetness, the perfume’s dryness and the occasionally sandy, powdery feel of the vanilla call to mind the desert sand of its inspiration. Sting’s “Desert Rose,” indeed. It’s very pretty, but it’s also a complete skin scent on me by this point.

The perfume continues to subtly shift, as the tonka vanilla grows stronger with every passing moment and vies with the woody tonalities for second place. By the start of the 6th hour, the lightly spiced rose is infused with as much creamy tonka as woodiness, all in a gauzy wisp that coats the skin like translucent pink silk. On occasion, a lingering hint of pomegranate floats by to startle me, almost like red dandelion fluff in the wind. Once in a blue moon, a hint of something darker follows it, but, for the most part, Rose de Petra has shed its dark shadows, opting for vanilla instead of balsamic, leathery, smoky elements. In its final moments, the perfume is a blur of sweet, dusty, pale pink roses with vanilla and the faintest suggestion of something woody.

Photo: my own.

All in all, Rose de Petra lasts between 8.5 and 9.5 hours on my skin, depending on how much I apply. It has the shortest longevity of any of the SHL line on my skin, and it also feels like the softest of the 11 fragrances. Like almost all of Monsieur Lucas’ creations (minus the 2022 Generation Homme which I despise with a passion), Rose de Petra feels very smooth, expensive, and refined. It’s hardly the most revolutionary, unusual, edgy scent around, but then few rose soliflores are.

In fact, I have to say, I liked it a lot more than I thought. Rose perfumes aren’t generally my thing, especially when they’re gooey and overly sweet, but I find very mossy or spicy versions much more appealing. Rose de Petra is what I had hoped both Portrait of a Lady and Lyric Woman would be on my skin, combined into one scent. I really liked the fiery bite that briefly resembled chili peppers at one point when I applied a greater dosage, along with something verging almost on a tobacco undertone from the mix of dark resins, labdanum and leather. The combination of dry dustiness, jammy sweetness, and fiery spices was particularly nice when contrasted with the oakmoss.

Even the fruitchouli was well calibrated so that it didn’t take on Portrait of a Lady’s purple, syrupy excesses. Actually, I think Rose de Petra’s heightened degrees of spiciness and background woodiness that really helped in that regard, along with the subtle touch of pomegranate. All three things ensure that the patchouli remains as a sort of tart, tangy liqueured cordial, instead of revoltingly sweet molasses. The pomegranate may not have been hugely noticeable in its own right, and I would have preferred much more of it, but I think it works subtly and indirectly to help keep the balance.

Photo: my own.

In the subsequent stages, the interplay between the creamy vanilla, the leathery base, and the warm ambered glow is truly lovely, especially when counterbalanced by the woody dryness. I can’t rave enough about the strongly balsamic, darker elements. They seep into everything, transforming the rose from the chypre of its opening into something purely Oriental, but none of it is sharp. All of it feels smooth and velvety soft, even the leathery, slightly smoky styrax. By the time the final stage rolled around, Rose de Petra frequently reminded me creamy, golden petals, thanks to the lovely vanilla tonka.

My only quibble with the fragrance is that it’s too soft and airy, with sillage that is a little too intimate, but all that is a matter of personal preference. It’s also not a hugely distinctive scent, except in terms of its quality. There, I think it stands neck and neck with offerings from Amouage or Frederic Malle. As a whole, I think Rose de Petra is a refined, approachable, uncomplicated but luxurious scent that could be worn on a variety of different occasions, including the office after the first hour has passed. I also think it is unisex, thanks to the darker, drier, and woody elements.

Rose de Petra is one of the more affordable creations in the 777 line. It retails for €148 or $220 for a 50 ml bottle of pure parfum. I think it’s definitely set at the right price. As a side note, Rose de Petra costs less at $220 than a comparable 50 ml bottle of Lyric Woman which retails for $280, and it is fractionally cheaper than Malle’s $230 Portrait of a Lady. If you love either of those fragrances, you should give Rose de Petra a sniff.

In the meantime, I leave you with an unofficial video for Sting’s Desert Rose. Its desert imagery, stunningly vivid colours, and romantic mood feel like a perfect fit for Rose de Petra in my mind.

Disclosure: Perfume sample courtesy of Stéphane Humbert Lucas. That did not influence this review. I do not do paid reviews, and my opinions are my own.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Rose de Petra is an Extrait or pure parfum that is only available in a 50 ml bottle and costs $220 or €148. In the U.S.: Osswald NY carries the 777 line, and sells Rose de Petra for $220. Luckyscent also has 777 fragrances, and sells Rose de Petra for the same amount. Outside the U.S.: Currently, the Stéphane Humbert Lucas’ website is under construction, and doesn’t have an e-store. The best online resource is First in Fragrance which has all the SHL 777 line, including Rose de Petra. In London, you can find the collection at Harrod’s Black Room, while in Paris, they are exclusive to Printemps under the name 777. Zurich’s Osswald also carries the line, but I don’t think they have an e-store any more. The Swiss perfumery, Theodora, also has SHL 777, but no e-store. In the Middle East, Souq.com used to have 6 of the earlier fragrances, but I no longer see them on the website. In the UAE, the SHL 777 line is available at Harvey Nichols and at Bloomingdales in the Dubai Mall. In Russia, SHL 777 is sold at Lenoma. Ukraine’s Sana Hunt Luxury store also carries the line, but they don’t have an e-store. Samples: In Europe, you can order a sample from First in Fragrance. In the U.S., none of the decanting sites currently carry this fragrance, but Luckyscent and Osswald NYC sell samples. Osswald’s Sample Program has a 3-order minimum but free domestic shipping. Pricing depends on the cost of the particular perfume in question. They range from $3 for a 2 ml vial, up to $9 for fragrances that cost over $300. Given Rose de Petra’s $220 price, a 2 ml spray sample should cost $6. It’s a better deal than Luckyscent’s $5 price for a small 0.7 dab vial. You can call Osswald at (212) 625-3111 to order, or use their website.