A Trio Of Bonkers Trips: No 2 (Belgium & France) - A "Drowned And Out In Paris" Sniffathon: Fragonard Museum

The next stop on my semi-random itinerary in Paris was the Musée Fragonard (9, rue Scribe), which I just happened to walk past as I headed towards Place Vendôme. I didn’t know Fragonard had a museum, and if I had, I would have expected it only to be in Grasse. It was in an elegant old townhouse. and as I walked into the empty foyer I was warmly greeted by the lady on the reception desk, who asked if I wanted to take a tour. There was no charge, for as later became apparent, the tour ends in a bit of a sales pitch in the shop downstairs. Several people came in just behind me and the receptionist performed a quick triage between those who wanted an English-speaking guide and those who preferred a French one. In my case, I was happy to take the next tour in either language, as my feet were starting to hurt by this point! Within 5-10 minutes the French guide, a willowy girl who could easily have given up tour guiding and applied to enter France’s Next Top Model, hove into view and escorted our small group of four upstairs, where the museum occupied a handful of rooms.

Cameras were not allowed, but I have found a few snaps on the Internet taken by bolder visitors than me. The first room housed some splendid alembics and other perfume-making paraphernalia. As we were given a quick run-down of the various methods of extracting essential oils such as steam distillation, maceration and enfleurage (for delicate flowers like jasmine and tuberose that can’t stand the heat apparently – much like my friend Geraldine, I thought fondly), I couldn’t help but think of Tarleisio, and her blog, The Alembicated Genie.

The guide went on to relate how Fragonard brings out a new release every year showcasing a particular note. Last year it was mimosa, this year fleurs d’oranger, while violet is up next in 2012. We also learnt that Fragonard doesn’t export its perfumes and its bricks and mortar presence is confined to in-house shops in Paris, Grasse and Eze. This sounded to me like an exclusivity policy akin to that of Puredistance in its early days, but I must say I don’t have Fragonard down as a luxury brand.

In the second room we were shown displays of perfume bottles through the ages, from early, tapering glass ones that women used to tuck coyly into their corsages, to later models in porcelain from Germany and the UK. The guide explained that the bottles Fragonard uses for the parfum version of its scents are made of stainless steel to maximise their shelf life. I was reminded of Montale and Comptoir Sud Pacifique’s similar use of steel, but had always assumed this was for aesthetic reasons unrelated to longevity.

The next exhibit on our tour was a perfumer’s “organ”, containing a couple of hundred different materials in little brown apothecary-style bottles, though apparently a “top of the range” organ might run to 1000 bottles! According to the guide, "noses" only work for a maximum of 20 years while they are in their prime, and as well as ensuring that they eat a balanced diet (no stinking hot curries, I inferred), don’t drink or smoke either so as not to compromise the sensitivity of their precision sniffer. I kept trying to remember the time I met Bertrand Duchaufour at the Penhaligon’s launch of Amaranthine. I could have sworn he had a glass of cava, but maybe not… : - )

In the final room we took a smelling test to see how good we were at recognising different odours. We were each assigned a spot at a long bench, and given a dozen or so bottles containing unnamed scented waxes, which we had to place on the picture corresponding to the note we were smelling. Examples of notes were cinnamon, mint, lavender, strawberry, pineapple, licorice and rose. It was a fun but relatively easy exercise, and all four of us got them all right! I think we would probably have managed to get most of them even without the picture clues, though the fruits were a bit tricky.

The talk over, the guide led us down to the shop, where she gave us a “tour” of the Fragonard parfum strength scents, available to buy individually or in sets of 3 or more for a greatly reduced price. Because we would be paying factory gate prices, even the starting price for a single 5ml mini of a parfum struck me as quite reasonable at 26 euros, and this price also fell sharply if you were willing to buy a humungous canister of 250ml, or whatever the biggest size was. The guide even whipped out a calculator to stress just how significant a percentage saving we would make if we opted for a bulk or multiple bottle purchase. She was veritably the Carol Vorderman of fragrance SAs!

The parfums I tested on card were:

ETOILE – overly sharp citrus bouquet

Notes: "lemon, apple, bergamot, ginger, gardenia, lily of the valley, jasmine, cedar, amber and musk"

EMILIE – overly sharp floral, despite the rather appealing note list below!

Notes: orange blossom, rose, jasmine, violet, lily of the valley, amber and sandalwood

BELLE DE NUIT – Fragonard's best selling feminine, recommended by the guide as the safe choice for buying as a gift for someone, and I would agree - it struck me as a pleasant, but mainstream light floral oriental.

Notes: mirabilis, violet, geranium, rose, plum, woods and musks.

DIAMANT – softly spicy gourmand oriental – initial impression was of something a little discordant, but this grew on me, and I wish I had tested it on skin.

Notes: mandarin, orange, pepper, rose, jasmine, plum, patchouli, vanilla, musk and caramel.

CAPUCINE – surprisingly sweet oriental given the note listing: very potent and powdery going on (with all the muzzy force of EL Knowing, if that makes any sense), but the far drydown was yummy in a Prada Candy kind of way, and I regretted not buying at least 5ml of the parfum.

Notes: green tea, bergamot, rose, jasmine, musk, winter woods

BELLE CHERIE – not yet released, but we were treated to a sneak preview. A fruity gourmand scent, again with a slight discordant aspect that didn’t go away, unlike Diamant. The lone reviewer of this scent on Makeupalley detected a "whacking great whallop of ethyl maltol", which probably gives it its sweetie shop character.

Notes: tangerine, star fruit, jasmine, heliotrope, lily of the valley, sandalwood, tonka bean and vanilla.

So in the end I came away empty handed, though Capucine and Diamant definitely merit a retrial. Seems like I will have to wait till I am back in Paris for that.

I would be interested to get anybody else’s take on the Fragonard range, namely views about the company's low key sales strategy, and whether the brand feels exclusive to you or not. Despite having taken the tour of the museum, I haven't changed my view of the brand, I must say, but I can't quite put my finger on why I don't quite consider Fragonard "a serious player".




Photo of museum entrance from france-for-visitors.com, photo of perfume-making equipment from inthemo.com, photo of perfumer's organ from whattoseeinparis.com, photo of Fragonard products from the company's website, photo of the shop from tripadvisor.co.uk

Another Bonkers Road Trip - The Scented Bit!

I have been back just over a week, and the scents on the blotters I keep finding at the bottom of handbags have long since become an indistinct blur. This actually matters less than you might think, as the perfume names I had scribbled on them were illegible from the off. But I reckon it is time I wrote up the perfume related aspects of from my recent travels - before the memories also become irretrievably fuzzy.

Mileagewise, this trip was 37% longer (in duration) and 48% longer (in distance) than the one in March, yet I seemed to have had less time to explore any perfume outlets that crossed my path. The extra miles covered may have had a lot to do with this, for on three occasions I spotted interesting perfume shops but made myself drive on by because I needed to be somewhere at a particular time. Should anyone be familiar with the Parfumeries in Stolberg, Erkelenz and Herisau (Switzerland) please tell me what I missed!

The few perfume outlets I did manage to visit - in shopping malls near Stuttgart and in former East Germany - barely left an impression: there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of Joop! and Bruno Banani, I do remember that. Well, that is not strictly fair: I did try out a few things that were new to me, for example the Chloe trio (Eau de Fleurs Neroli, Lavande and Capucine). The Neroli was too aggressive; I don't like lavender, and the Capucine was a sort of indeterminate green scent (with nasturtium!) That would explain my nose's complete inability to place it...

I also tried the new Dior Escale flanker a couple of times (Escale aux Marquises), and while I thought on first encounter that I might like it better than the previous two scents in the series - it lacked the sharp edge of Portofino and the overt herbiness of Pondichery - after prolonged wearing I decided it was rather odd: a sort of upmarket fruity floral marred by a faintly unpleasant note I couldn't quite put my finger on. Odd in the way Byredo's Bal d'Afrique is odd, but that is "good odd" and this was "bad odd" - a dubious accolade I would also award to Comme des Garcons' Daphne.

Okay, so far so unremarkable. After all, on my previous trip - as I later learnt - I managed to interest an online retailer, Parfumerie Nidderau, into stocking Kristiansand NYC. And here I was, over two weeks into the trip, having only tried a couple of Chloes, a Dior flanker and Lancome's Tresor In Love (which I wasn't even going to mention).

But things started to look up on 12th June, when I hooked up again with that cosmopolitan trio from Basenotes: Alicka61, Potiron and Wordbird. We agreed to meet in the Marktplatz in the centre of Basel, in exactly the same spot as back in March. This time, as it was the weekend, I was glad not to be suited and booted, or carrying a briefcase.

After a bit of excited chattering on the spot, we installed ourselves at an outside table attached to a quiet courtyard cafe recommended by Potiron: Der Rote Engel. The others ordered mouthwatering slabs of fruit tart, for which I inconveniently developed a major craving a couple of hours later, but I just felt like a cup of tea at the time.

And what an impressive beverage it turned out to be! For it came in the largest cup I have ever seen in commercial use. Mr Bonkers' mother, who has a bit of a phobia about disproportionately large tableware, and who, on our way back from Bruges last year, famously complained in Costa Coffee at Watford Gap Services that the cup her tea was served in was unacceptably large, would have been outraged and totally spooked by this freak of the ceramics industry. (Wordbird kindly placed her hand in the shot to give you a sense of scale.)

Then it wasn't long before we did that "upending of the handbag" trick and samples poured out on to the table. Wordbird was even looking for a new home for half a bottle of a natural floral perfume I had not heard of before. She kindly gave me a selection of Possets' perfumes, one of those kooky indie brands I had been curious about. (I will test and report on them in due course.) I have already sneaked a trial of the whimsically named Ghost Fart, and am bracing myself to try the rest!

After this pitstop - and given that we had loitered last time (without making a single purchase between us) in the niche perfumery Hyazinth for an indecently long time - none of us felt bold enough to return so soon, and instead checked out the perfume section in Globus, Basel's high end department store. I didn't spot any new launches, but we all found scents that were new to us - whole swathes of the Acqua di Parma or Bond No 9 ranges, for example, plus the odd Prada, Marc Jacobs or Etro. I gave Annick Goutal's Ninfeo Mio its fourth or fifth trial but my original verdict still stands: way too sharp!!

From Globus (having said goodbye to Alicka61, who had to head home at this point) we went to Import Parfumerie and had a very satisfying scavenge in their bargain bins. These were crammed with deeply discounted perfumes - some to as little as 10 or 15 euros (a steal for Switzerland!) - but most of them were not on my radar and for the most part looked like Swiss equivalents of Elizabeth Arden's Red Door and things in that vein.

I thought I had found a true bargain in a 30 SFRS bottle of DSQUARED She Wood, only to discover that it was the body lotion. But let me not downplay the thrill of the rummage, which was considerable, and enhanced by Wordbird's helpful commentary about the general style of different brands.

By now my stomach was rumbling, so we popped into an Italian cafe (another Potiron haunt) and ordered freshly made paninis, and in my case a cup of tea served in a receptacle of conventional dimensions. Our energy levels restored, we hit Douglas, where I made a purchase! (Two metal decanting funnels for 2 SFRS apiece, which struck me as pretty good value.) And Wordbird's more substantial purchase of a small Steiff bear bought us some more valuable "loitering time".

In Douglas I used my prime skin sites to retry Rance Eau Royale (fresh, foresty) and Laetitia (woodier than I remembered, doubtless due to the heat). My first trial of Guerlain's Flora Nymphea was a nondescript disappointment on skin - I had expected some kind of honeyed beauty like Chanel Beige. I also sampled DSQUARED Crystal Creek Wood (intrigued by the blue colour of the juice), and found it a pleasant, vaguely aquatic number, just as you would expect.

After Douglas and a mosey round a nearby shoe store (some interesting Camper-esque styles here and there, but with prices to match, sadly!), Potiron suggested taking a ferry ride across the Rhine. It lasted all of 3 minutes, but it was fun to look back at the city skylines on from the water. On the other side of the river we wandered along the tree-lined promenade bordering Klein-Basel, before stopping for a beer within the grounds of a former army barracks (now a green area fringed with cafes, bars and an arts venue). We were dimly aware of the early English goal against the USA in the bar next door (it has been downhill ever since!), and before we knew it it was getting cold and dark and time to accompany Wordbird to the railway station. Potiron and I rounded off the night with an Italian meal, and it was after 11pm when we went our separate ways at a tram stop near the centre.

Summing up, it was fantastic to see everyone again, and this meeting further cemented our international friendship. To the point where - while perfume will always be the interest that first united us, and we will probably brave Parfumerie Hyazinth again one day - I think we could have just as much fun next time hitting the shoe shops instead.