Papier d'Arménie, and a zig-zaggy, concertina fold tale of four cities

Source: stedentripper.com

I am not sure if there are any current readers of Bonkers who might have caught this post from December, 2009, just a couple of months after I started the blog. It is an account of a snowy trip to Bruges with ex-Mr Bonkers' mother, whom my Facebook friends may also know as 'my elderly friend', noted for her random acts of largesse, 'random' being very much the operative word. Her 75th birthday fell while we were away, and I gave her a bottle of Coco Chanel at breakfast that morning. She had already expressed a liking for Coco, I hasten to add, which marked quite a stylistic departure from the only other scent she owned at the time, the inoffensively peachy Burberry Women. In my post I wrote:

"Her sillage was creamy and warm like a sable stole, cocooning her in this winter wonderland. Well, metaphorically anyway, as we both ended up buying hats."

Now obviously  I wouldn't compare a perfume to a cosy stole anymore, having set up the hoary trope equivalent of a swear box for it some time around 2013... ;) But I mention it because I was wafting an equally memorable trail of Guerlain Bois d'Arménie. I had recently acquired a decant and had fallen hard for its soothing blend of smoky incense and warm, sweet vanillic woods.

Notes: pink pepper, iris, rose, coriander, benzoin, Indonesian patchouli, incense, precious woods, musk and balsams

Back then, I was dimly aware that this 'Armenian paper' from which the Guerlain scent took its inspiration was a venerable form of room deodoriser: it came in booklets comprising strips of paper that you would fold into a concertina and light like joss sticks. I have since learnt that they were invented in 1885 in a suburb of Paris by one Auguste Poncot, and that the family still jealously guard the recipe to this day. The primary ingredient, benzoin, a resin from the styrax tree, is mixed with aromatic 'natural essences' and used to coat an absorbent paper.

Source: Nature et Decouvertes

Three years after the trip to Bruges, in June 2012, I received a card out of the blue from Woking - from my cousin Tim's wife, Sue, enclosing a book of Paper d'Arménie(!) and the following note:

"Now you are probably already familiar with these Papiers Arménie things, but they were new to me. One of my favourite blogs (Mr London Street, he's really very good) wrote about them so evocatively I had to try them for myself. And having eventually got hold of some through French eBay, I thought you might like them, as our resident scentaholic. Let me know what you think of them.

Much love,
Sue

PS Tim hates them, btw, says they're too much like joss sticks. But I'll wear him down eventually."

I was about to move house at the time, so I tucked the little booklet away in a safe place. Later that summer, it resurfaced in my shoe box of perfume paraphernalia, and I decided to take it with me to show Victoria Frolova of Boisdejasmin, along with the very few perfumes I owned that I thought she might not have tried. I was going to Brussels specially to meet her in fact, and also to visit the niche perfumery in Waregem, Place Vendôme (aka Birgit Heaven). During our time together - spent sniffing and eating the several delicious meals Victoria rustled up - we talked amongst other things about our shared love of Bois d'Arménie, and I passed across the booklet of papers for her perusal. Indeed, through an oversight I left it behind in Victoria's flat, and she confirmed to me in a message yesterday that she still has them, awaiting collection on a future visit.

Fast forward to last week, when I was in touch with my friend Jessica about an upcoming gig of hers I planned to attend, and also inquiring about the last stragglers she hopes to test in her ongoing rose perfume quest, one of which was A La Rose, by Francis Kurkdjian.

"I don't think I've tried the Francis K yet. (That sounds like a Kafka character, doesn't it?) I am addicted to 'papier d'arménie' which I buy by mail order from France - the best one by far is the limited-edition one by Kurkdjian. So I am sure I will like A la rose."

Well, well, up they had popped again! - we are clearly not out of the Armenian woods yet...;) Thus it was that I decided to take a sample of Bois d'Arménie with me to the Would-be-goods gig on Saturday, so that Jessica could compare the perfume to the papers she knew. The band were performing in an indiepop charity festival in Cheshire. To be more specific, they played in what looked for all the world like a shiipping container on its side in the car park of a family-friendly pub in Congleton. And the weather also caught me out. Heavy rain had been forecast, so I felt quite smug about my choice of wellies and hooded anorak. I was wearing a zip up hooded top under that (can't have too many hoods in a Glastonbury-type scenario), and had also brought an umbrella and waterproof overtrousers. I still had concerns that the toilet arrangements might involve a two day trek, as I was only going up for the afternoon. As a precaution, I popped into the ladies at the local Tesco superstore before heading for the festival site. In the event, there was just a bit of light spitting during the gig and ample toilet facilities in the pub. Outfitwise I felt a little cheated, to be honest, and I ended up leaving the wellies in the car. Andy, the bass player (the same one as in The Monochrome Set), admitted that he had rather expected 'a bit of a field'.

Not to worry - it was a most enjoyable afternoon regardless! After the band came off stage, Jessica and I sat on a bench by a table laden with raffle prizes, and I gave her the sample of Bois d'Arménie. She applied it immediately, and wrote back with her verdict later in an email, namely that she had enjoyed it, but it wasn't quite 'her', before adding:

"If I haven't said so already, the best Papier d'Armenie by a long way is the 'Armenie' version with the pale blue cover. I find the rose one (also by Francis Kurkdjian) a bit sickly and the original version somewhat harsh by comparison."

Source: naturasellina.de

This is interesting, as I wasn't aware of the rose version by Francis Kurkdjian to which Jessica had referred earlier, and now here was yet another - blue, superior! - variant to consider. And even though Victoria has the booklet, I am pretty sure it is the original one that I had...

A bit of googling led me to this review of Papier d'Arménie by Robin of Now Smell This, in which she also nails her colours to the blue mast!

"This is the perfect Papier d'Arménie. It is even creamier and sweeter than La Rose — the powdery myrrh, incense, benzoin and vanilla scent of the unlit paper would be wonderful in a personal fragrance (or dusting powder) and would make a nice follow up to Guerlain's Bois d'Armenie."

So the smoky incense trail of Bois d'Arménie and its associated paper has led from a snow clad Bruges to Woking, to Brussels...to Congleton(!)....that's a fair few 'wegomleggings' along the way!

And then to Now Smell This, and now to Amazon. Because of course I am keen to try this ultimate blue version by Kurkdjian without delay...

UPDATE: In response to Sabine's inquiry below about the practicality / safety of burning these papers, I had a go today with one of two remaining two strips I found that didn't go to Brussels. All was well - it was over very quickly! - though the little concertina needed relighting twice, as my dining room is on the draughty side. ;)

Bonkers In Belgium - Part 1: Meeting Victoria Of Bois De Jasmin - Well Worth The Wegomlegging

Two weeks on from my last post, the new house continues to consume much of my energies, and I sense I may remain in "light crisis management mode" on an indefinite basis going forward. And just as they say we are all a mere three feet away from a rat, so it is that I am - as ever - within easy arm's reach of a Farrow & Ball colour chart and a tape measure. I did, however, manage to slip away last week on a trip to Belgium, leaving Charlie Bonkers (whose failing kidneys are rallying on a human diet of superior cold cuts), in the care of a friend.

Now I may have a special interest in perfume, but one of the most impassioned pieces of writing on Bonkers has to be this post on traffic congestion in Belgium - or, as Wordbird aptly dubbed it the other day on Facebook - Flem. On this latest trip the roads were relatively "fluide", however, my optimistically named TomTom Go (which mostly thinks in German if it thinks at all), was "totally over-demanded" by the current spate of roadworks throughout the country. I drove aimlessly for long stretches when my sat nav lost the signal, and even when it seemed to have found it again, it was sure to lead me up blind alleys or the wrong way down one-way streets. Yes, the drive to Brussels proved to be more of a wiggly wegomlegging - or detour - than I bargained for, but as noted in the title of this post, the end more than justified the meandering means...

My first stop on the Wednesday was a meeting with Victoria Frolova of Bois de Jasmin . I visited her in her rooftop apartment, which had dormer windows and panoramic views of the city. It wouldn't have surprised me to have seen Nicole Kidman perched on the terrace, straddling the glittering sickle moon of the Chanel logo. We ended up spending the day in Victoria's flat, sniffing things from each other's collection and pausing only to wolf down the delicious and nutritious meals my hostess knocked up in less time than it takes me to snap the top on a 2.5ml atomiser. Actually, that takes rather a long time, if I even manage it, indeed - so maybe make that a 1ml vial...

In the course of our conversation I was intrigued to learn that Victoria and I had a number of key things in common apart from a love of fragrance: for instance we both had all our wisdom teeth out at once - with complications!; we both fortify ourselves with By Kilian Sweet Redemption on challenging days, and for reasons primarily of pigmentation, neither of us would ever be seen dead in lemon yellow. Beyond that, the similarities are more tenuous, for while I do consider myself a bit of a linguist, Victoria speaks more languages than you can shake a stick/Stock/bâton/палочка/kij etc at, has the honed physique of a classically trained ballet dancer (that's because she is one!), the nuanced nose of an industry insider, and the wrist action of someone used to deploying a pestle and mortar in the supreme act of alchemy that is an impromptu vinaigrette.

So what did we smell?

I brought along a number of somewhat obscure, discontinued and/or vintage scents from my collection for Victoria to try, including my beloved Plus Que Jamais and the sandalwood-tastic Damian Bash Lucifer #3. Victoria was especially interested to sample my bottle of Elizabeth Arden Blue Grass from the 70s, pronouncing it to be in very good nick, and remarking on the expensive jasmine absolute used. Conversely, she confirmed the demise of my vintage Chloe and a couple of niche decants, so I entrusted those to her for humane disposal after I had gone.

For her part, Victoria had prepared samples of a couple of scents I was interested to try, namely Serge Lutens Santal Majuscule and Chanel Coco Noir (of which more in the next post). If Hermès Santal Massoia is a soprano, Santal Majuscule is definitely an alto. From its reddish browny colour, I feared it might smell like one of those Serges Abigail of I Smell Therefore I Am famously described as "icky stewed things", but while Santal Majuscule is sweet and gourmand, it is not too heavy. It reminded me of a sandalwood-forward version of L'Artisan's Vanille Absolument or Tom Ford's Tobacco Vanille, but I don't care for either of those the way I liked this (I am not keen on boozy scents, that's probably why). It was "Santal Absolument" for sure though, as the name Majuscule of course suggests - as in "Sandalwood Writ Large" or "Sandalwood With A Capital 'S'", type of thing.

Notes (from The Perfumed Court): sandalwood, honey, cocoa, spices and Arabian Attar rose.

Victoria also introduced me to a couple of Olfactive Studio perfumes, of which I was particularly taken with Lumière Blanche - more than taken in fact - smitten more like. It is a soft, milky and musky, sandalwoody wisp of a thing, and would make an excellent understated day scent. It was milkier and more rounded than Santal Massoia, which - much as I love it - does retain a slight "planky" bite to it, without ever lapsing into "trapped in a tea chest" territory (Tam Dao, I'm looking at you!).

Notes (from Now Smell This): cardamom, star anise, cinnamon, iris, almond milk, cashmere woods, cedarwood, sandalwood, tonka bean and white musks.

And as a souvenir of one of the key ingredients in Lumière Blanche, Victoria kindly gave me a couple of tonka beans encrusted with coumarin to take away, along with a pot of the wonderfully toffeefied speciality from Normandy, "confiture de lait", aka "milk jam".

In the course of our sniffing session, I also got to sample the duo of Amouage Interludes, which were not my thing at all - the men's version was too birch tarry, while the opening of the women's (which has notes of mown grass, apparently), was muddled and harsh and reminiscent of something in the solvent line that might well be the subject of one of my work projects...yes, it was not unlike paint stripper, to be brutally frank.

At five o'clock I headed home to my hotel, and it struck me that this enjoyable meeting with Victoria had nicely kickstarted my interest in perfume again. I have been so caught up in the aftermath of the move and its attendant setbacks that my hobby has had to take a back seat. In a comment on a recent post by Tara of Olfactoria's Travels about the stages of the "perfume journey", I aligned myself with those who felt they were on a "perfume plateau, admiring the view". To that I would now add that thanks to Victoria, my particular plateau appears not to be as flat as all that.

Photo of wegomlegging from brusselblogt.be, aerial view of Brussels park from karine*imagine via Wikimedia Commons, photo of Santal Majuscule from news-parfums.com, photo of Victoria Frolova from boisdejasmin.com, other photo my own