BASILE BY BASILE VINTAGE VERSION 1986/87

Thanks to Azar for another Mass-Market Monday post! Somehow I missed ever smelling this one.
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The golden leaves and blustery wet weather make it clear that winter is on its way.  It is time to snuggle up near a warm fire with a good book.  It's also time for couple of generous blasts of my favorite spicy oriental fragrance - vintage Basile by Basile.  I much prefer this warm, Italian mass-market beauty to the more popular (and more expensive) YSL Opium.

The Basile I love is the EdP from the 1980s. This deep amber colored jus resides in a narrow, angular bottle adorned with geometric, black plastic "shoulder pads" - so 80s! As far as I know the newer version of Basile is only available in EdT. While very similar to the original, the reformulation is missing the shoulder pads and seriously skimps on the rich clove, warm ylang-ylang and intense tangerine that are so generously supplied in the earlier version.

Here are the notes listed on Fragrantica: 

Top - tangerine, orange blossom, ylang-ylang, cinnamon, cloves.

Heart - jasmine, tuberose, rose, iris.

Base - sandalwood, patchouli, oakmoss, amber.

I don't always agree with or understand the published breakdown of a fragrance, but vintage Basile evolves exactly as the description above suggests. Sparkling tangerine is spiced with cinnamon and clove and rounded out with the richness of ylang-ylang and orange blossom. The fragrance evolves to a lush rosy, floral and dries after 8 hours (or so) to amber, oakmoss and sandalwood infused with remnants of the initial comforting ylang-ylang and mouthwatering tangerine.

The "mouthwatering tangerine" reminds me that November is the month when the new crops of citrus fruits hit our Pacific Northwest markets.  It is time for me to start nagging the produce managers about just when to expect the new pomelos, tangerines and grapefruits!  When these new crops finally arrive I am invariably treated to fresh cut samples of the latest and greatest from Florida, California, Texas and around the world.  Yum!

I wear the majority of my big, spicy oriental fragrances any time of the year but for some reason I tend to reserve Basile  (which is a little more "subtle" than most) for late fall and early winter.  What is your favorite spicy oriental?  Do you enjoy it year round?   

Azar xx  

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Sounds like I need to try this! It looks like you can get a very large bottle of the new version for under $15 on Amazon. 

[Bottle with shoulder pads photo by Azar; new bottle photo from Fragrantica; other images from Wikimedia]

THE BLIZZARD, FLEURS DE GLACE, AND THOUGHTS ON WRITING ABOUT PERFUME

It appears that as we in the Northwest enjoy our usual interminable stretch of cool, damp weather, the rest of the US is being frozen solid and buried under a massive blanket of snow. In a serendipitously timely post, John Reasinger of Cafleurebon just wrote a review of Fleurs de Glace, a perfume that I was in the process of discontinuing.  His description of it is so eloquent and evocative that it makes me have second thoughts about pulling it from my line!

It also made me think about the symbiotic relationship between perfumers and reviewers. It’s fascinating to see how a talented writer can make us see our creations in a new light, and perfume reviewers are especially adept at doing that. Perfume is like poetry. Everyone gets something a little different from it, and every interpretation is right. A good reviewer shows the perfumer aspects of their creation that they had not thought of and translates the perfumer’s intangible work into tangible words for the public to enjoy.

This may sound strange, but it reminds me of what happens in the relationship between a playwright and a director. Having been on both sides of the process and caught in the middle as an actor, I’ve always marveled at the transformations that invariably occur depending on the interpretation of the director and cast. Even though the words written in the script don’t change, their intent and message inexorably evolves on its own unique trajectory as rehearsals progress. Each production is a completely different entity that picks up on different aspects of what the writer intentionally or unintentionally put in the script. Sometimes the writer is surprised to find that what they thought was a fluffy comedy actually makes some profound statements, or what they thought was a serious philosophical and conceptual piece actually comes across as uproariously funny.

I hadn’t thought of this before, but perfume reviewers really do interpret the perfumer’s “script” for an audience, with many audience members doubling as actors, extending the interpretation with their informal reviews and comments. No one should ever underestimate the importance of perfume writers at every level in making our creations come to life. There can never be too many writers because each brings something unique to the process of understanding a perfume.

Writing this makes me realize how thankful I am to everyone who writes about perfume, whether they are professional journalists and bloggers or consumers who post informal reviews and comments. I learn something from each one of you, and that is the more valuable than I can express.

I’d like to end this by pointing out that there’s a drawing on Cafleurebon for a full-sized bottle of the reader’s choice of Olympic Amber or Fleurs de Glace for readers in the US. 

[All photos are mine. Snow and ice photos are from the last time we had a significant snowfall in Seattle. I don't remember what year it was.] 

RECOMMENDED READING

Sometimes, when coming back to one of my creations in any medium after a long time, I’m stunned by how good it is, and how I failed to see the merit in it initially. I think anyone who creates has probably had this experience, needing to see their work with objective eyes in order to appreciate it. Sometimes I’m also stunned by the ability of others to draw so much beauty from my creations, and to express it so beautifully, creating an entirely new thing of beauty.

Olga Rowe has done this in her review of Sonnet XVII on CaFleureBon. The review is truly a thing of beauty, both in the words and in the art that she chose to illustrate it. She has not only told a story, she has managed to incorporate into a literary work an accurate and detailed description of the fragrance itself. Nothing sounds forced or contrived. It’s a masterclass in how to write a good perfume review.

I am immensely grateful to Michelyn Camen and CaFleureBon for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this wide-reaching project.

[The puzzle picture that Olga posted on her review reminded me of one that I had painted many years ago, shown here.]

MYRRH AND MUSHROOMS

This morning my sample of the day was D. S. & Durga’s Resin from a 2.5 ml decant that I got on sale from TPC. It didn’t leak or evaporate – hallelujah! I was a little surprised to find that it’s pretty much myrrh straight up, with a halo of sweet, violet powder in the sillage, so I did a search for information about this fragrance. I didn’t find much. There is one fairly negative review on Basenotes, a listing on Fragrantica that says it’s “masculine” and that the notes are “copaiba balsam and myrrh”, and that’s it.

The D.S. & Durga website is one of those overly designed exercises in conformity with the latest trend, complete with a gratuitous “welcome screen” that is late to arrive and overstays its welcome, too many moving parts, light gray or pastel font on an off-white background, and no way to go back once you’ve gone forward. I’ll be glad when the fashion for super-low contrast type and cumbersome animations on perfume websites (and my students’ Powerpoint presentations) goes the way of the dinosaur and the dodo bird. What I did find out from the website, by deduction, is that Resin has been discontinued.

Back to the perfume itself. Copaiba balsam isn’t much of a fragrance on its own, and is used more as a fixative than for its scent, which is rather flat, woody, and a little peppery. Myrrh, on the other hand, is one of the quirkiest scents in the whole realm of perfumery. There’s quite a bit of variation from one variety to another, but what’s constant is a deeply resinous, bitter, leathery, almost industrial, note that’s absolutely unmistakable.

I have written about myrrh before, but sometimes I can have a perfectly formed image of a scent in my mind but cannot find the right words to describe it to others in terms they'd understand. This can be very frustrating. Smelling Resin this morning I had an epiphany in the realm of semantics. Myrrh has a distinct smell of freshly cut “champignon”-type mushrooms. All mushrooms have this scent, but the white and brown button mushrooms have it in a fairly pure form, unobstructed by other notes. It’s what I smell when I’m out walking in the woods and catch a whiff of mushrooms before I see them. It’s the smell of dead leaves turned to flesh, the smell of wet, decaying forest sprouting exuberant saprophytic life. Often I’ll go looking for the source of the scent, and sure enough, there the mushrooms are, hiding under the dead leaves or behind a fern. It’s a pungent, earthy scent and it’s one of the notes in myrrh, stronger in some varieties than others.

It’s funny that the natural mushroom absolute that I have, made from cepes, doesn’t smell at all like fresh mushrooms. In fact, it smells more like soy sauce than anything else. However, my experience with the mushroom note this morning set the gears of inspiration in motion yet again, making me wonder what it would be like to create a perfume based on myrrh and mushrooms. It might turn out to be “not suitable for human use” as the Basenotes reviewer observed about Durga’s Resin (I happen to disagree with this statement), but it would certainly be an interesting exercise in blending related notes.

[Myrrh and mushroom photos from Wikimedia]

WHEN IS SHARP FLAT?

This morning I sampled Andrea Maack’s “Sharp”. I expected this EdP to be … well … sharp - full of aldehydes and galbanum, or something along those lines, but it’s not. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. It’s soft and matte, more a light woody vanilla gourmand than anything else. It’s like white almond nougat, mostly just sugary sweet with traces of meringue, toasted almond and vanilla. What makes it different is the woody aspect, as if it had been made in an oak barrel. The whole thing is underscored by white musks, not obtrusive, but filling out the composition. After my initial encounter I read the list of notes, which are pretty much in line with what I smelled, except for the listed orange blossom, which is minimal at best, although orange blossom does briefly appear close to the skin about an hour or two into the drydown if one goes looking for it. In the end, it’s a standard, soft vanilla-musk.

I was liking the scent a good bit, in a low-key sort of way, until I read the manufacturer’s list of notes, which immediately sent me into rant mode. What the **** is “angel skin”??? Andrea Maack is an icelandic artist who farmed out the making of several perfumes to a French manufacturer, so maybe it’s an Icelandic name for white nougat, but then why not use the common name for the candy? If it’s not an obscure type of candy, then it’s completely unhelpful to the person trying to decide if they want to try the perfume, since I would think the common assumption would be that angel skin, like the skin of other mythical creatures, is odorless. As far as I know, it’s not like “dragon’s blood”, which is an actual plant-derived resin, or “baby’s breath”, which is a flower, or “angel hair”, which is a type of pasta, or even “angel food”, which is a type of cake. Googling “angel skin” doesn’t turn up any such alternative meaning, although I did see one comment on a perfume forum asking “how many angel skins can fit into a bottle of “Sharp?" This question immediately conjured up visions of a witch stirring a bubbling pot filled with the foreskins of newly-circumcised baby angels. I know white styrofoam packing peanuts are sometimes referred to as “angel turds”, so maybe “angel skin” is bubble wrap. And “soothing softness”? Come on, can’t you be more specific? Is this a euphemism for “fabric softener scent”? Am I missing some intended clever irony in calling a perfume full of “soothing softness” “Sharp”? Is the Andrea Maack perfume called “Smart” going to turn out to be stupid or dowdy, and the one called “Craft”, a bungled mess? I really hope not.

Maybe there’s a whole untapped realm of perfume notes - angel feathers, unicorn sweat, alien spaceship deodorizer, hell-fire and brimstone, ghost’s aura, Santa Claus beard, the river Styx, Pandora’s box … the list could go on and on. It’s one thing to use these sorts of names for a perfume, but it’s quite another to use them as descriptions of the materials that went into making the perfume, which I always thought were intended to give potential buyers an idea of what the fragrance would actually smell like in real-world terms with which they are familiar. On the other hand, we have “amber”, “aquatic”, and “musk” commonly used to describe perfume notes even though they have nothing to do with the scent of real amber, water, or musk, so maybe it’s OK for odd names to be used to describe synthetic fantasy notes. If used often enough, eventually everyone will come to recognize them for what they are.

Of course, one advantage of using silly names for perfume notes is that people will discuss what they might be. As we all know, bad publicity or dubious publicity is better than no publicity, so maybe there's a rationale behind it all.

What do you think about the use of fantasy names for perfume notes? What about contradictions between the name and the fragrance?

[Angel painting by Franz Von Stuck, 1889; Unicorn painting by Domenico Zampieri, 1602]

DAWAMESK

When The Perfumed Court offered tiny samples of Guerlain's Dawamesk for sale, how could I not be reeled in hook, line, and sinker? A perfume named for an edible hashish product is not to be missed, even though I’m fully aware that it’s likely to be, in some sense, a disappointment. A quote from Baudelaire’s Les Paradis Artificiels describes dawamesk (the real stuff, not the perfume) as being made from a fatty, sugary base seasoned with vanilla, cinnamon, pistachio, almonds and musk and, of course, containing a goodly amount of hashish. Sometimes it even contained “cantharides”, an extract from a beetle otherwise known as “Spanish fly”, which was the Victorian precursor to Viagra. Dawamesk was the original hash brownie deluxe, a spread that could be used on bread, mixed into a cup of coffee, or otherwise ingested for a trip to some artificial paradise.

The fragrance Dawamesk, released by Guerlain in 1942, has long been discontinued, no one seems to know exactly when, but so long ago that the rare bottle one occasionally sees for sale on E-Bay is empty. So what does Guerlain’s Dawamesk smell like? Well, for starters, it doesn’t smell like hashish, nor does it smell like most of the things on Baudelaire’s list of ingredients. It starts off smelling like a vintage floral, rich and sweet, but at the same time light and cheerful. I get something that might be indolic orange blossom, ylang-ylang, heliotrope, and possibly some other floral notes that blend into the general mix. The flowers are all on a rich vanilla base. The opening volley of sillage is absolutely gorgeous, even to someone who doesn’t like floral scents. As it dries down, the indole gradually retreats, allowing a hint of cinnamon to come through, along with progressively more of the heliotrope and some faint, abstract, woody notes. After about 8 hours, all that’s left is a slightly spicy, woody, musky skin scent. I don’t know the concentration of my sample, but its overall strength and indolic assertiveness are typical of a vintage fragrance.

Guerlain’s Dawamesk is not the buttery, sugary spread on the baguette, but rather a cinnamon-flavored, hallucinated trip to a flower-filled tropical island, a quick and convenient getaway from the damp cold, mold, and squalor of a 19th-century Parisian artist’s garret in the winter. My sample was only 0.25 ml, but I’ve had over 8 hours worth of enjoyment from a tiny dab that made no visible dent on the juice in the vial. Was it worth it? I think so.

BACK FROM VACATION

I have no idea what prompted this odd behavior, but for the past few weeks I’ve been taking a break from perfume. I’ve not been wearing perfume or dabbling in my “lab”. I’ve not been reading the perfume blogs or forums or ordering samples. I’ve neglected this blog. I think maybe the idea of all those samples in my closet finally became overwhelming. I’ve sampled enough perfumes so that I kind of know what to expect in many cases. As a result, what should be a pleasure easily becomes a chore. I think the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was a carded sample of Anna Sui Dolly Girl Ooh La Love that I pulled out at random to try as a form of self-discipline. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, and it’s still sitting there taunting me with its garish card and the prospect of smelling yet another overpoweringly strong generic fruity-floral scent that’s almost identical to all of the other over-sillaged generic flanker fruity-floral commercial scents that are out there.

Today I knew it was time to snap out of my perfume slump, so decided to treat myself and try something unpredictable. A while back I got a few samples from Ayala Moriel, but had never gotten around to trying them. To my horror, I saw that one of them had either leaked or evaporated due to the cap not being put on tightly enough. It was Espionage. The smell on the stained label was enough to prompt me to add a drop of alcohol to the brown dregs at the bottom of the tiny jar and reconstitute the perfume. Ooh la love at first sniff! This is one good perfume. I may have created a super-concentrated version, but it doesn’t matter. Qualitatively, it’s the same.

Espionage starts out as a smoky, herbal, woody vanilla that reminds me of Lapsang Suchong tea. Gradually the smoke dissipates a little to reveal some subtle notes of dried rose petals and tobacco leaves, altogether enjoyable. The notes say that there’s “leather” in the mix, but given that this is an all-natural perfume I suppose the leather accord must have been formulated with cade or some such smoky material, providing a much nicer companion for the vanilla than a synthetic leather would have. There’s supposed to be ambrette in the composition, but it doesn’t hog front and center stage the way it does in Strange Invisible Perfumes. It just stays in the background, supporting and enhancing the other notes.

Maybe one reason why Espionage smells so good to me is because my nose is fresh and enthusiastic after its vacation. Whatever the reason, I’m back to perfuming again. Bring it on!

STEPHANIE AND THE GARDENIA

Stephanie
The Michael Storer review series continues. Stephanie is a powerful white floral that’s peppery, spicy, a little bit indolic, a little bit green, and represents the prototypical “pollinators-come-hither” fragrance. It’s the scent of a mature flower sending out its last call, just before it starts to fade. It’s neither gardenia nor jasmine but a hybrid of the two with some other floral notes thrown in for good measure. The scent stays fairly linear, but as it dries down, it adds a faint root beer-like note that reminds me of some of the night-fragrant orchids that I grow. Mostly, the big white jasmine-gardenia flower with its persistently ticking biological clock just fades away over the space of 6-8 hours.

I’m not fond of floral fragrances, so Stephanie has no chance of ever becoming one of my all-time favorites. However, I would certainly wear it if I wanted a purely floral perfume. It’s as good a white floral as you’ll find anywhere, and it’s not complicated by a lot of irrelevant notes. If you are a lover of white florals, Stephanie is definitely worth trying.

The Gardenia Bush
Having just declared that I don’t like floral fragrances, I now have to explain why I just bought a gardenia bush for the garden. The fact is that I love and adore floral fragrances on flowers, I just don’t particularly like them on myself. Don’t ask me why, that’s just the way it is. Anyway, I was in a plant nursery the other day searching for something else when I was seduced by the scent of gardenia - that indescribable airy, creamy, velvety, sweet, moist scent put out by the real flowers. The plant I ended up with is a hybrid variety called “Chuck Hayes”, and it’s supposed to be cold hardy enough to survive winter temperatures much colder than those typical of the Pacific Northwest. We shall see. It’s covered with buds, so I hope they’ll survive the cold weather that’s predicted for the coming week.
[gardenia flower photo from Wikimedia Commons]