Suzanna: 65 posts

Suzanna reflects on perfumes that stood the test of time for her. This is Suzanna’s last article for Bois de Jasmin. We’re sad to bid her goodbye, but I wish her much luck and success with her new endeavors. I also wish everyone celebrating Thanksgiving a wonderful holiday. Bois de Jasmin will return on Monday, December 2nd, with its regular schedule.

Trends and fashions notwithstanding, there are fragrances that always  have a place in my wardrobe. These are the bottles that are consistently replaced even as they haphazardly get shoved to the back of the cabinet. They may also be the oldest bottles in the collection and the ones with the most juice remaining. They are definitely the fragrances most often to be seized by sudden necessity—today is a Robert Piguet Fracas day and nothing else will do!

So, here is a peak inside my perfume cabinet. The perfumes mentioned below hit the right spot, year after year.  They are stalwarts and sometimes standbys, but whatever their use they will always be a part of my fragrant life.

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Maître Parfumeur et Gantier Santal Noble is my “reference” sandalwood fragrance, my baseline for other fragrances featuring this note.  It is part of MPG’s “Parfums du Levant” collection for men, the “Levant” broadly referring to a geographic area that is here stretched to include India and therefore the famous and now endangered Mysore sandalwood.

Although marketed to men, Santal Noble is, in true niche fashion, genderless.  Sandalwood connoisseurs might find the sandalwood note somewhat too mild, but Santal Noble gives me a rush of pleasure each time I wear it.  It is creamy, smooth, and I would go as far as to say, bewitching.

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I can probably be forgiven for the erroneous assumption that Givenchy Dahlia Noir might be somehow dark.  After all, the name means “Black Dahlia” and what does this suggest but a grisly Hollywood murder?  Come to think of it, Givenchy seems the last house one would think of as conceiving a scent to match the name. Most of their names are meaningless and arrive somewhere between sounding good (Dahlia Noir) and sounding silly (Oblique Rewind).

Dahlia Noir Eau de Parfum turns out to be a chypre based on rose, iris, and patchouli.  With a big citrus opening, it isn’t terribly dark, though.  Instead, it is intensely powdery, with the powder intended to describe the “femme fatale” allure of the marketing copy. To me though, the drydown of iris and vanilla is too strong on baby-powder. In its heightened use of this iris and vanilla, Dahlia Noir is somewhat similar to Guerlain L’Instant Magic.  Ultimately, the eau de parfum reveals a rosy center and a creamy patchouli base.

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Perfumer Jacques Polge has authored or co-authored so many of my favorite Chanel fragrances (Beige, Coromandel, Cristalle Eau de Parfum, Coco) that it always pains me to admit that he has also authored my least-favorite Chanel scent, Chance.  Chance always smells to me as if a brand of lesser and striving quality decided to make something “à la Chanel” in style and came up with Chance.

I understand where marketing was going with this scent—that extremely lucrative twenty-something market must be addressed and not with No. 5.  In its fruit, vanilla, and patchouli trope Chance has the ingredients to appeal to this younger market and from that marketing standpoint Chance was a smart idea indeed; the scent does sell and sell well. I smell it on young girls in the mall, their hair swinging and their limbs tanned, and it doesn’t smell any better to me on them than it does on me.

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Suzanna reviews two India inspired fragrances

Neela Vermeire is an Indian perfume lover living in Paris whose “creative partner” is none other than perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour, king of the travel-themed fragrance.  The Neela Vermeire Creations line consists of four fragrances themed around different periods of Indian history: Mohur, Trayee, Bombay Bling, and Ashoka. I’ve already reviewed Mohur, and today I will talk about Trayee and Bombay Bling.

After Mohur, my favorite was Trayee, a fragrance inspired by the Vedic era that uses notes of Ayurvedic medicine and religious rituals.  Trayee is a smoky perfume featuring a stunning incense note.  Also in there is a “ganja accord” that I will call “green bud” for those who might recognize it, and a sense-awakening jolt of ginger, cinnamon, and clove at the top.  Here and there, Trayee reminded me of black tea leaves (this is not listed) steeped plain, without sugar.

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