You’ve Changed

A familiar scenario took place chez The Scentimentalist last night: a new bottle of scent was brandished—an oldie and, yes, a goodie. Its cap was tugged off roughly in nostalgic anticipation; expectant alveoli quieted and at the ready.

Spritz! And in for a sniff, for that first moment of nasal recall.

But—oh!—that wasn’t First! At least, not the First I remembered. Since when did its voluminous jasmine note smell so grimly diluted, its narcissus accord like the daffodils going mouldy in the vase by my fireplace?

A vexing tale, but true. And one that, over the past few years, has afflicted The Scentimentalist’s nostrils with deadening frequency. For First, like so many other landmark scents, has been ‘reformulated’—nay, adulterated, readers!

This phenomenon has been hastened by a plethora of factors, most of which have been dwelled on in more detail and with a good deal more erudition than here. Certainly, the IFRA Code of Practice with its attendant standards and regulations has proved a prime mover in this regard, notably in the run-up to 2010. Most galling have been its steely (but by no means new) restrictions on oakmoss; hence, perfume websites now abound with articles bewailing this injustice—in some cases, with very good cause.

In a great many instances, it is the harsh realities of ‘the bottom line’ that have been a driving force behind reformulation, with costly—and often diminishing—components being steadily replaced by infinitely cheaper, and yet very serviceable, synthetic substitutes.

The letter of the law has also prevailed, with many reconfigurations emerging from the banning of substances, natural or otherwise, including those identified as irritants or allergens, or as unsustainable or demanding environmental protection.

In the case of vintage Rive Gauche, it was arguably Tom Ford’s ego that was sufficient to tweak this perfume masterwork—but why, and for whom? Once unimpeachable and now unspeakable, afficionados are advised to check the detail on the packaging: if the name ‘Rive Gauche’ is flanked by two small, black squares, then you know you’ve got a bottle of the new—and less glorious—juice.

Sticking with YSL, perhaps the news that has created the most disquiet in perfume fora this year is the desecration (for it can only be described as such) of Opium. Presumably in a bid to deflate its late Seventies big-hair credentials, YSL has seen fit to render it altogether ‘lighter’, with a reported note (—oh, the horror!) of ‘rubber bands’ …

So where does all this leave the guileless and unlucky shopper, who—like The Scentimentalist—seeks out a beloved scent that one has worn without interruption, or perhaps wore just a few years hitherto, or even several decades before, only to find that it is now little more than a simulacrum?

Well, to start, it should be accepted that, invariably, there will be tears (cf. The Scentimentalist and the new Diorissimo, Joy and No. 19). This may, in certain instances, evolve into unbridled, impotent rage (cf. The Scentimentalist and the newer Tabac Blond and Cristalle). Meanwhile, in the very best-case scenario, mere confusion and hapless bewilderment will reign (cf. The Scentimentalist and Ysatis, Oscar de la Renta and Habanita).

Or then, you could just go with it. Shit happens. And change—we frequently find—can be scary.

Contrariwise, you could remind yourself that, for many great scents things are not all bad, and that there’s still some solid stuff to be had. To wit, though the beast that is Bandit has now changed more times than you’ve changed your own pantaloons, what exists on the shelves at this time is pretty tolerable, ditto Mitsouko.

And then, of course, there’s one final suggestion (though you may, like The Scentimentalist, end up living in perfumed penury): get your ass quick sticks onto ebay and snap up every old-formulation bottle IN EXISTENCE!

What are your reformulation woes? Share them here, with The Scentimentalist.

And thanks to Michael Fowler's mummy (once, but sadly no longer, a devoted wearer of Opium) for inspiring this post.

Piguet / Rochas: Butch / Femme

Paris, 1944.

A city on the eve of liberation from occupation. Éluard’s The German Rendezvous, Sartre’s No Exit at the Vieux-Colombier. The launch of two scents that remain colossi of twentieth-century perfumery: Piguet’s brutal, androgynous Bandit and Rochas’s voluptuous, ‘womanly’ Femme.

Despite sharing the same birth year and arising out of the same cultural and socio-political milieu, could two scents ever be less akin in their take on the ‘feminine’ fragrance and how women might present themselves through smell?

On first sight, certainly, we find little commonality: Bandit is a stark dominatrix of a scent, asserting itself with a unrepentant blast of galbanum then easing itself austerely into a dark, leather-and-tobacco base. Femme, meanwhile, is brimful of over-ripe fruit: the tenderest peaches and plums macerated with the fleshiest flowers, a heavy sigh of sandalwood and amber reposing beneath. The former is bitter, blunt and severe, the latter yielding, lactonic and round.

Bandit, incidentally, was created by a woman (Germaine Cellier). Femme – as you may have guessed – was created by a man (Edmond Roudnitska).

But here, to my mind at least, is where the binarism becomes blurred: in generic terms these are both breathtaking chypres, sharing compositional elements such as patchouli, oakmoss and musk. Each divides opinion and neither scent is ‘easy’ to wear (though vintage Femme, I understand, is more user-friendly than its current incarnation). And lastly, to put it coarsely, each scent is ineffably ‘dirty’, Bandit with its edgy S&M associations and Femme with its full-bodied potency and sensuality.

For The Scentimentalist, the interest of Bandit and Femme lies in the new possibilities each presents for women’s gender performance via the olfactory. Bandit – then, as now – poses a real and credible challenge to traditional expectations of how a woman ‘should’ smell. In creating a scent replete with what Balzac describes in La Cousine Bette as ‘des qualités d’homme’, Cellier (who, we are told, was lesbian) offers both women – and men – the chance to ‘crossdress’ with perfume.

No less startlingly, Roudnitska’s overtly sexual (but never vulgar) Femme seizes on the spirit of independence enjoyed by French women during the war years, and presents a perfumed persona of womanly glamour, to be bought by the bottle and enjoyed for oneself as much as for others.

After numerous, somewhat uneven, re-orchestrations, Bandit is now about as true to its original formula as it can be. To smell this scent 65 years after its creation, one is mindful of how no contemporary mainstream perfume house would dare to make anything as bold and gender-bending.

Femme, meanwhile, has altogether transitioned: in 1989 Olivier Cresp was commissioned to create a ‘new’ Femme for Rochas. This version, controversially for some, may be distinguished from Roudnitska’s by a prominent note of cumin. Ironically, this ‘womanly’ scent par excellence now smells irretrievably more ‘manly’ as a consequence.