Stars from the past

This post is going to be somewhat lengthy… my apologies. Tomorrow will see none or shorter posts.

Although I only spent some 48 hours in Paris, I could write about it for hours. I guess I haven’t mentioned Le Salon de l’agriculture international in detail, yet. Coming from the land of tunnels, cows grassing in the mountains above and cheese rolling down the hills, I was amazed about the diversity of France’s agricultural products and couldn’t resist buying my 60 year old Cognac from a small, very small producer not known in the world. This Cognac has aged for 50 year in an oak barrel and is like a perfume. A revelation! I have seen lots of rabbit breeds there, too. The “geant de Flandre” being the biggest, some 8 kg of rabbit with long, straight ears and a lovely round face. (I love rabbits!) and cows entirely degenerated to steak on four legs…

But let us come back to the Guerlain visit…..

I have seen Vega, a brilliant star from the past (1936), reborn and shining again. I couldn’t resist buying the simple, lab glass like flacon with its art deco label. I sniffed it first by placing my head in a compartment in the wall, where they would spray a little bit of it from the back, allowing smelling the entire composition… in theory. In practice, I prefer to smell it on paper strip, where it is just wonderful. A fresh start, very spicy and slightly terpene dominated (Rosmarin?) with a lovely citrus freshness, I guess Bergamot with others. It is warm and fresh, spicy and round, which I find intriguing, and very hard to reach indeed. The eau de toilette moves then over to the powdery aspects of ylang, somewhat fruity and of excellent quality, a touch Vanille is reaching out from the back already and the heart is opening with flours that are somewhat fruity, still a little bit spicy and wonderful: I smell orange flower and rose, abstracted somehow, and artfully integrated, wonderful! Finally, the musky back, cistus with woods, oakmoss (I guess) comes in and intermingles with the fruity flowers that never are too sweet. It is a stylish, classical perfume of the past, but in my nose it still is modern, like the art deco style has a modernity to it that sometimes is striking. I haven’t applied it on my skin, yet, and I would guess that its lasting power is somewhat moderate, but who cares…. This perfume asks for an immediate replay. Go and get it!

Then there is the Cuir de Beluga, that I also bought, because I did not understand the scent in the shop but found it interesting enough to study further. Yesterday, while sniffing on Cuir de Beluga soaked paper strips, I wanted to write something harsh about it. Something like:

Cuir de Beluga is not thoroughly composed. It is pretending to be more than it is. Indeed, it is a scent that is artificially pumped up by a marketing team that has lost any track to Guerlain’s name and what made Guerlain the world’s most famous perfume house. It is a cheap soup, with a recipe like: Take x parts Vanillin, add x-2 parts Vetiver (Vetiverylacetat) mix it with a hint of something smoky, and round the edges with something nice like bergamot (0.5 parts) some other stuff you find around the corner for 10$ a kilogram and fill it into bottles that are not too expensive, because you will need all your money to pay an army of marketing staff to sell this vanilla soup. The entire composition cooks down at the end to vanilla and vetiver. A cuir de Cookie, slightly baked too long, with a touch cacao in it, and a few dried fruits.

But then, I gave it another chance before going to bed and applied on my skin. I was baffled for I smelled something very different. This perfume is definitively to be tested on skin. And I must admit, that I should have tested it on skin beforehand. There, it turned out to be smokier, indeed I found a new aspect, smoke and earth, that comes from Cypriol. A natural scent used by the tons in India, that I always found very hard to work with. I detected some tobacco notes, too, that interplay with an aerial citrus chord (mandarin?) which is nice. Then it cooks down to vanilla and a dry vetiver again, maybe with a touch of cistus, patchouli,…. Honestly, I am disappointed, but maybe I have just a somewhat biased expectation of a leather scent. I will give it another try and would like to close my Paris story here.