Talk By Pierre Guillaume At Les Senteurs: Learning The Specifics Of Parfumerie Générale - Part 2

Right, so where on earth do we go next after the incredible Coze licking demonstration? I could mention that there was lively debate amongst the audience as we discussed the correct English term for the type of sugar we detected in Sucre d'Ebène (the scent also featuring PG's favourite macrocyclic musk, if you recall): "Demerara", "muscovado" and just plain "brown" were three possible contenders.

Bestial scents

Or I could tell you that Pierre Guillaume referred to L'Ombre Fauve with its distinctive earthy notes of Amber 83, patchouli and musk as "liquid sex". He also described it as "very dirty" - quoting Francis Kurkdjian, and replicating the gesture more commonly seen on football terraces which FK used to describe his own creation, Cologne Pour Le Soir. And none of that is surprising really, given that the name of L'Ombre Fauve roughly translates as "bestial shadow".

So moving on swiftly on from raunch to another upcoming launch...

Corps & Âmes EDT Apaisante

There will only be one new Limited Edition scent released in the main PG line this year, a reworking of Corps & Âmes, called Corps & Âme EDT Apaisante, "apaisante" meaning "soothing" or "calming" in French. The original Corps & Âme reminds me very much of the civet cloud that is YSL Y, while the new LE - a chypre with notes of geranium, lemon verbena, jasmine sambac and a patchouli heart - had a slightly acerbic citrus / herbal opening, on card at least, and I wouldn't have said they were all that closely related. In fact I detected echoes of Guerlain Sous Le Vent (which PG said he would take as a compliment, when we were discussing our initial impressions). Then PG agreed with those who spotted a resemblance to Aromatics Elixir as the scent wore on. To give uplift to the chypre structure, the new version of Corps & Âmes will contain a linear musk called Serenolide, developed by Philip Kraft, German fragrance chemist with Givaudan.

PG's favourite scent from the Huitième Art range

"The new one!" (ie the "Polywood" blockbuster featured in Part 1).

Finding the balance between commercial success and creative freedom

PG talked about the fact that he has to strike a balance between following his muse in creative terms, producing scents that challenge and interest him personally, while ensuring that there are some more "commercial" perfumes in the mix (this is of course a relative term when applied to a niche brand). The latter can be relied upon to generate sales, including the funding of his more edgy creations such as Papyrus de Ciane, the scent that he is most proud of as a technical achievement.

Scents by other perfumers PG wishes he had created himself

- YSL M7

- Thierry Mugler Womanity (he admires its huge power of diffusion: "I think we will talk differently about it in 10 years' time")

- Lolita Lempicka au Masculin by Annick Mennardo ("she is the mistress of diffusion")

Thoughts on the fragrance market and why small doesn't equal niche

PG singled out a couple of mainstream scents which had particularly impressed him - JPG Kokorico and Terre d'Hermès - describing them as "a few pieces in an ocean of new launches". He finds the co-existence of mainstream and exclusive ranges within houses such as Tom Ford, Dior, Hermès, Chanel etc bewildering - "I am lost" - and assumes the public must be equally confused by these two-tier marketing strategies. PG also laments the fact that certain perfume brands are springing up which - on account of their small size - automatically position themselves as niche. PG doesn't feel this necessarily follows, and considers some of these ranges to be overpriced.

"That is not my version of niche. (By comparison) I am the discount of the niche!"

The PG distribution strategy and why small is beautiful

PG's distribution strategy is to limit the numbers of points of sale and grow the business slowly, as the use of distributors can lead to loss of control and dilution of the brand. This explains why, a year ago, I had been surprised to see the main PG line carried in a small independent perfumery in Holland, yet when I went back last autumn it had mysteriously vanished from the store.

How many tests does it take to develop a fragrance?

Not as many as you might think. PG cited the case of a perfume house which advertised the fact that some 500 tests/iterations had gone into the creation of one of its scents. PG puts this down to marketing spin, and gave 60 as a more typical number, while Intrigant Patchouli he got right first time!

"A good perfumer doesn't need that many tests."

Falling in love with fragrance and why "we are all reptiles on the Discovery Channel"

Actually, PG didn't actually quote this song lyric, or even the original version with "animals" in it, but he did say that the act of falling in love with a perfume is involuntary and more or less instantaneous. He explained how the process is governed by the hypothalamus in the brain and described it as "reptilian", leaning in towards the audience to emphasise his point, like a crocodile eyeing its prey. I have just googled "reptilian brain" and looks to me as though the limbic system may be more where the action is at, but I am not one to split hairs (or cut them in four, as the French say).

I interjected that we sometimes fall in love (with a perfume or a person, indeed) only to fall out of it again pretty smartly, as the scales - to stay with our reptilian theme - fall from our eyes, and we realise we made an expensive mistake...

Pierre Guillaume and Francis Kurkdjian - a whiff of bromance?

PG and Francis Kurkdjian are not exact contemporaries - PG is 35, FK 42 - and PG described their relationship as competitive but friendly. "We fight a little bit...and we go to the same place in Spain for our holidays."

It was in fact Francis Kurkdjian, who, on smelling Coze, PG's first creation, encouraged him to pursue a career in perfumery.

They also both attended the recent awards ceremony in Paris, where the order of “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” - an honorary title granted to those who have made outstanding contributions in the arts world - was bestowed upon five perfumers chosen from each of the main fragrance and flavour houses. (Kurkdjian had already received this award in 2009.) PG described it as an emotional occasion punctuated by episodes of horseplay and banter: Dominique Ropion took a photograph of the Minister of Culture, while Maurice Roucel amused the audience with his trademark spoonerisms.

The talk overran considerably - PG was so diligent about fielding questions that (as I later learned) he and the Les Senteurs team missed their dinner reservation. At the end of the night I saw him sitting quietly on a sofa at the back of the store and went over to say thank you and to show him the bottle of Brûlure de Rose I had bought on behalf of a friend whom I had just introduced to the scent. He stood up and kissed me on both cheeks in that gallant way the French do. The "bi-cheek bise" made my night, and it occurred to me that though I hadn't associated any particular memories with the main - supposedly "talkative" - PG fragrance line prior to the talk, I surely would now.

And my iPhone hasn't been in its cover since...

Oh, and today I realised that my phone is not the only link with the whole PG experience - he mentioned that Ambre Ceruléen was inspired by the so-called "cerulean speech" in The Devil Wears Prada, in which Miranda teases Andie about her ignorance of the precise colour of her old sweater:

"But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean."

Well, as it happens, I own a (distressed PVC) replica of the messenger bag worn by Andie - a gift from a friend who works in PR. It isn't blue, sadly, but I think I have enough memories of the talk to be going on with...

Photo of bestiary, reptiles and the Palais Royal from Wikimedia Commons, photo of PG bottle from basenotes.net, photo of Anne Hathaway from fabsugar.com, other photos my own

Stéphanie de Saint-Aignan Royal Palm: Tripadvisor In A Bottle

Since the advent of the Internet, there has been a growing trend away from using travel agents in favour of booking flights and hotels independently, a trend which Mr Bonkers and I have also followed to organise our holidays. Or - to be precise - which I have followed, since I am the designated "researcher" in our household. My favourite websites for planning work trip and holiday accommodation are Hotels.com. Booking.com, Trivago and perhaps the granddaddy of them all, Tripadvisor...

I have singled out Tripadvisor in the title of this post on account of its widely varying and often harsh critiques. I always use its reviews in conjunction with information from other sites, because if you relied on Tripadvisor alone, you would only feel confident booking a luxury five star hotel costing upwards of $1000 a night. And you still might be disappointed.

That said, the Royal Palm Hotel in Mauritius gets a rating of 89% out of a possible 100 on Tripadvisor, is ranked No 1 out of 24 hotels on the island, and gets uniformly rave reviews. I have just checked the rates and they are 395 to 980 euros per person per night, depending on the time of year. Sounds like a pretty safe bet if I had that kind of money.

And for a much smaller outlay there is Royal Palm, the hotel's "signature scent" insofar as a building can be said to have such a thing. The perfumer Stéphanie de Saint-Aignan worked for two years with Jacques Silvant, the General Manager of this luxury hotel on the Indian Ocean, to capture the scents of Mauritius in a bottle. The note listing from Luckyscent is as follows:

Grapefruit, jasmine, iris, cardamom, cinnamon, pink pepper, black pepper, clove, vetiver, cedar wood, leather and incense

Speaking to the Mauritius Tourist Office, Stéphanie de Saint-Aignan explained: "We were agreed that we wanted to create a scent that was both very fresh and very grounded, appealing equally to men and women, and which took its inspiration from the island's fruits, spices and precious woods." (my translation)

On first application I get a strong burst of spices - I can detect non-colour-specific pepper, cinnamon and clove, though not cardamom - and any grapefruit notes are lost in this feisty opening salvo. Throughout its development, Royal Palm remains sheer, green and softly spicy. Right off the bat it reminded me of Parfums 01630 Lentisque, with which it shares three notes: jasmine, iris and vetiver. And while there appears to be less overlap compositionally with PG Papyrus de Ciane, Royal Palm smells like a much more wearable and accessible interpretation of that same green/resinous style.

I came to hear about this scent via lovethescents, and no sooner had she tipped me off about it when I coincidentally received a sample as a swap extra.
Strangely, I can't find a single review of Royal Palm on any of the perfume blogs - I say "strangely", because it seems deserving of greater accolades.

And while the Royal Palm Hotel gets a very high rating on Tripadvisor, my own hastily assembled team of reviewers, namely Mr Bonkers and his mother, were less forthcoming in their praise of its eponymous perfume - and in that respect more typical of contributors to the site. The three of us were about to set off on a day trip to Bath, and I thought Royal Palm would be a refined choice of SOTD for such an elegant city.

"What on earth is this?!" inquired Mr Bonkers tetchily, after I had pressed him into giving my wrist a hasty sniff.

"It's the signature scent of a five star hotel in Mauritius."

"Huh", he replied, "Smells more like the bins on a caravan site in Rhyl."

Mr Bonkers's mother reluctantly applied her nose to the same spot.

"Sweatshop", she remarked, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "Sweatshop in Asia somewhere - you know - where they make T-shirts for a pittance."

Goodness - I didn't see any of that coming. Maybe she could smell the cardamom that I couldn't? Does cardamom + vetiver = sweat?

Undeterred by this slew of criticism, I dabbed on a bit more Royal Palm. This may be the closest I get to a holiday this year. Mrs Bonkers Senior meanwhile had applied a generous swoosh of Burberry Women, and Mr Bonkers was his usual scentless self. Looking back, I should have left some more space for the scent testing opportunities that lay ahead...


Photos of Royal Palm Hotel from free2.co.uk and questtravel.com, photo of Stéphanie de Saint-Aignan from ilemaurice-tourism.info, photo of spices from flickr.

London Trip: The Perfumery, The Supermodel, The Lover, And The Pair Of Magic Jeans

Well, that was rather a silly post the other day, wasn't it? But it was in the spirit of the Third Thing on The Non-Blonde's list of "Five Things I Learned In 4 Years of Beauty Blogging", namely "Inspiration comes in many shapes and forms".

And the title of this post, with its feeble nod to Peter Greenaway, is also on the frivolous side... But anyway, on to the recent lightning trip to London last Thursday, lightning because we went down and back in a day. I cadged a lift with Mr Bonkers, who was going to pick up a new, custom-made bass guitar he had commissioned as a present to himself for his 50th birthday. It was some time in the making, for Mr Bonkers is now 51 and a quarter, but he didn't seem to mind the wait.

On the day, Mr B reckoned he needed about five hours in the store's workshop to preside over the finishing touches to the bass, and to brief the staff on some modifications to three other guitars he was leaving off with them - for the musical instrument equivalent of cosmetic surgery, as far as I could gather. So, seizing my five hour window, I jumped on a tube to Sloane Square, bound for Les Senteurs, the bijou niche perfumery in the smart back streets of Belgravia, if "smart back streets" is not a contradiction in terms.

I have a passing acquaintance with Claire, the proprietor of Les Senteurs, as we have a close mutual friend, who is a strange hybrid of my profession (market researcher) and that of Mr Bonkers (musician). My friend's signature scent is FM Angeliques sous la Pluie, and I have made it a bit of a mission to swap for samples of this on MUA and keep him permanently topped up.

As luck would have it, Claire was in that afternoon, along with two new SAs: Martin, who had worked there before (in my dark, pre-perfumista days), and who has recently come back, and Eva. Shelley, whom I had met several times before, was also around.

I spent a most enjoyable hour and a half there (it flew, honest!), sniffing some new things and some things that were new to me, and shooting the breeze generally with Claire and the team. I have bought FBs on two of my previous visits: PG Brulure de Rose and Les Parfums d'Empire Osmanthus Interdite, so I didn't feel under any particular pressure to make a purchase on this occasion, and didn't.

Here is my test list, with comments on each (somewhat sketchy in places!):

Grossmith Shem-El-Nessim - retro, powdery iris floral of the most headache-inducing kind.

Annick Goutal Ninfeo Mio - third attempt to "get" this, but it still too sharp (though there is a lot of interesting stuff going on beneath the astringency).

Les Parfums de Rosine Secrets de Rose - retro powdery rose - not headache-inducing as such, but not my thing.

DelRae Mythique - third attempt to "get" this one too, and I did! Wish I had tried it on skin now, as it was a beautifully soft and powdery iris - not in a retro way.

L'Etat Libre d'Orange Like This - documented in my earlier post.

LesNez Let Me Play The Lion - a cool green scent I would like to try again. Not as cryogenically cool as Unicorn Spell, and mercifully also lacking the "peapod peeping through a freshly creosoted fence" vibe of the latter.

Honore des Pres Bonte's Bloom - a soft, greenish and rather distinctive floral, which I must revisit. Here is a description of this scent from Les Senteurs' website (penned by the perfume house, I would like to hope):

"Girls in muslin on summer afternoons when the fields are white with daisies, conjuring thoughts of corn fields, sunflowers, garlands of meadow flowers and tedded (sic) hay. Iris butter, camomile, fragrant herbs and Paraguayan leaves - green, soft, aromatic and delicate."

Honore des Pres Nu Green - another cool green floral, with a slightly weird opening, but it soon got into its stride. Another delightfully purple blurb follows:

"A beautiful all-purpose ambisexual green cologne to make you feel clean, re-born and vital: like diving into cold sea-water and then drying out in the sun on red rocks. A melange of green mint, plant musc, Indian herbs and tarragon is enveloped in sparkling dewy leaves and supported by drifts of pure white cedar."

Parfumerie Generale Louanges Profanes - a warm oriental floral - not noticeably profane!

Notes: neroli, hawthorn, lily infusion, incense smoke, benzoin and lignum vitae (guaiac) wood.

Parfumerie Generale Papyrus de Ciane - this has been fully reviewed elsewhere, notably by 1000 Fragrances, so I will just say that it struck me as a complex and interesting vegetal kind of floral, and reminded me of Diptyque's Eau de Lierre or a less sharp Ninfeo Mio.

Notes: bergamot, galbanum, neroli, broom, solar notes, lavender, mugwort, clove, incense, cistus labadanum, hedione, vetiver, Mousse de Saxe, Silvanone, white musk

Parfumerie Generale Gardenia Grand Soir - a good representation of gardenia, simple but unremarkable.

Parfumerie Generale Bois Naufrage - fig and driftwood. Very interesting, reminiscent of Ava Luxe Fig Wood, but slightly more saline and attenuated.

I found notes listed as fig tree, fleur de sel and ambergris. My impression of woody notes must come from the tree, though the fruit of the fig is also quite marked.

There is a superb review of this scent - the highlight of the afternoon - here, together with the story behind it:

http://www.cafleurebon.com/fragrance-reviewparfumerie-generale-bois-naufrage/

During all this testing, a funny thing happened, which proves how suggestible the human mind is - or my mind, anyway. I was re-smelling the Gardenia Grand Soir strip, thinking it was Papyrus de Ciane, and blow me if it didn't SMELL like Papyrus Ciane, until Martin pointed out my mistake. How weird and gullible is that?

It reminded me of the time when I was sixteen and on holiday with my father, who had ordered me pistachio ice cream in error instead of lime. Rather than send it back, he told me it WAS lime and I ate it all up quite happily - it really did taste of lime. Afterwards, my father confessed to the stunt he had just pulled and I was retrospectively furious!

After Les Senteurs, I had planned to go to Harrods next, so only tested Bois Naufrage on skin, saving space for a bunch of whatever took my fancy there. Which is a shame, because I never made it to Knightsbridge, but instead wandered the wrong way down the Kings Road. However, I did find a great pair of straight jeans in Gap, with magic slimming powers!

And I bumped into Claudia Schiffer! "Bump" being the operative word, as she is 8 months' pregnant. She was surrounded by a clutch of small blonde schifferlets, some of whom may have belonged to her tall blonde friend, who was the one not wearing "I'm a celebrity, please don't stare at me" sunglasses.
Summoned by a call from Mr Bonkers, I hotfooted it back to the guitar shop in Camden, and we set off for home. I kept sniffing the one spot on my hands with perfume on it all the way back up the M1, imagining tangled heaps of driftwood, salty breakers and ripe figs. By about Corley Services, the last trace of it had vanished.

Oh, and I may have made up The Lover for reasons of filmic verisimilitude....


(Photos of Les Senteurs are from Basenotes. Photo of Claudia Schiffer by Bauer Griffin. Jeans modelled by Freja Eriksen!)