Grenoville Oeillet Fane Perfume: More vintage Carnation love!

Grenoville is one of those great "obscure" French perfume houses from the 20th century; it was originally established by Paul Grenoville in 1879. If you liked "Perfume: Story of a Murderer" you may appreciate that Paul changed his name to Grenoville from the original ‘Grenouille’- it means 'frog' and is, of course, the name of the serial killer-cum-perfumer in the novel as well.

The shop was initially located at 20 rue Royale, in Paris. Business did very well for many many years and the perfumery passed down through numerous hands while producing a prodigious list of releases throughout the teens and 1920s. In 1943 the company even acquired another company, the smaller Parfums de Clamy. Despite surviving two through two World Wars, Grenoville gradually declined. After 1940s, there were fewer releases- one dating from the 1950s (Esbroufe) and finally XX Vincent was released in 1971.

Byzance was a decadent 'new' Gardenia scent released in 1926 and heavily promoted by Grenoville. Casanova (1929) was another enduring bestseller for them but the little perfume that caught my attention is their Oeillet Fane (Wilted Carnation). Released in 1921 it was also one of their more popular scents. As far as solifloral scents go, carnation is probably my favorite so I set my bar pretty high. But this Wilted Carnation is stunning. It actually beats the scent that comes directly from a handful of my own highly fragrant Fire Witch carnations, picked right out of the ground. The perfume is hyper-realistic, bright, firey and accented with sweet orange touches that pick up on the spicy clove notes. A little honey-musk (civit?, ambergris?) is perfectly folded into the base, giving it that super-dopamine releasing rush that keeps my nose plastered to my wrist doing a little happy-dance rabbit twitch. The potency is really stunning, a few small drops before a workout the other day left me surrounded by a cloud of carnations and made the back bedroom smell better than a florist's closet.

Of my other carnation perfumes, it reminds me most of Floris Malmaison. But it smells better than that, warmer, less overtly musky and more honey-floral into the dry down- intoxicating, but not too powdery, nor too sweet (although it gets sweeter as it progresses).

If you like fancy bottles and high end presentations, Grenoville does not disappoint but it can be difficult to get access to great photos. The little 5ml bottle I've got is just enough to treasure. Topped with the common pine-cone silver tone lid, it came in a cute little decorated box. Grenoville released a ton of scents in these little bottles. They were decorated with pretty printed paper labels, sometimes arty graphics and they are a perfect size to collect. The sealed bottle and decorative box came in an old fashioned box exactly like the one pictured with the powder box. It came with a little foil tag over the threads with the name of the perfume printed over it, and it's a great thing to see when you're assessing the condition of a bottle.

I'm not sure you can tell it from the photos, but in the Seasonal Quartet, Oeillet Fane was assigned as the Summer scent so I'll be letting Oeillet Fane's spices charm me this fall and winter but I'm trying to save some for the warmer weather, too.

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.

images:
Le Beau Masque from dgaudit.free.fr
Grenoville ads from Hprints
The Grenoville bottle pics are all from MonaLisa6411@ Skyrock blog.

Vintage Summer-Time Favorites & Common Scents

I cannot bring myself to write much, darn it. For one thing, there's far too much going on in the garden this year. And also I admit to feeling a lack of inspiration. But of course my vintage darlings, the perfumes themselves, have not been forgotten. Today I'm wearing Malmaison in pure perfume form, by Floris. It's a perennial summer favorite of mine, full of fire and ice thanks to a generous (over, apparently*) dose of cloves. The scent of fresh-from-the-garden carnations- in man-made forms at least- often eludes me. You see, in nature their spice is tinted with earthy, green and watery touches.  If I had synesthesia, the smell would mirror the slightly rough yet light as a feather clingy/powdery texture of silk chiffon.  But in the perfumer's hands, carnation can often smell sad and flat- one or two dimensional at best. But never with Malmaison, which in pure perfume form matches the just picked, sun warmed scent of my Firewitch carnations. But the best part of Malmaison is the slightly sneaky, smokey musky dry down.

*Malmaison has been discontinued and can never be resurrected because of- IFRA restrictions on high percentages of some of its key scent components (eugenol or basically, clove oil).

Yet, you can still sometimes find the EDT version of Floris Malmaison for sale online or possibly if you are oh, so lucky, sitting on a store shelf. It is maybe not as balanced for me as the pure perfume version but certainly it is nice and well worth a try, but only if you can find it for a price that isn't completely inflated.

For some reason it seems I crave floral musks most in the heat of summer, and musky carnation scents in particular. Confession: this year, I've been giving in to Love's Baby Soft on sweltering nights when it stays really hot outside. Age be damned, I absolutely relish it's appealingly light version of sweet and spice. Another carnation based scent, it conveys the coolness of dewy fresh carnations and a carries a dry down of the softest tinged musks. Splashed, it has positively tonic effects and would be perfect for those who avoid citrus but desire a refreshing cologne.

Another vintage floral musky favorite that I absolutely adore for when you feel like a cat on a hot tin roof but want to feel like a cool (and purring!) kitten: Anais-Anais. It's a breezy green and powdery lily rose carnation with a slight twist in the base- sandalwood & incense. This one is also marketed, or thought of as being so, towards young girls- but the complements I receive when wearing it indicate that the right state of mind and compatible chemistry are all that is needed. 

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.
 
images:
Josephine at Malmaison by Gerard from catherinedelors.com
Dinathus Firewitch from scnla.com
Love's Baby Soft ad from facultystaff.vwc.edu
Anais-Anais ad from ribeirochris.free.fr

Œillets, Rouge et Blanc: Vintage Carnation Perfume Roundup for Winter Solstice

It's nearly Christmas day, and I'm just ending a terrible two week cold that robbed me of my olfactory senses for the last week and a half... hence the posts bereft of much content in terms of out right perfume reviews. So today in order to celebrate the joy of the approaching Christmas and reflect on this time to give thanks for all and renew wishes for peace on this Earth, I pulled a clutch of my vintage carnation scents from the vault today to review in round up. Their rich warmth is an especially welcome sensation after the routine of constant sneezing and nose blowing of the past few days. The photo above is admittedly rough but it serves as a reference for the line up.

First from the left is a small vial of vintage Avon Crimson Carnation. It is an 1/8 oz bottle, made in USA of what I believe is perfume. Very sweet, lilac, honey and orange scented carnation with a plumy rose heart and neat little civet-musky- honey bottom- no powder here! This is a mightly spicy little hot-sauce number of a carnation- too bad it seems to be pretty little known or discussed. I wonder with that name if it didn't go with a lipstick shade? Next in line is a nearly identical bottle but the 1/4 oz size, is the carnation made by La-Tausca, the Genesee Trading company brand of drug-store variety perfumes. It came in the smart gold box pictured behind it. This is a pale tinny scent with nail polish remover notes and a little peppery stale floral and a harsh musky base. Without any comparison, it reads as 'vintage carnation' but nothing special, but standing next to better scents, it really suffers. The third bottle from the left is a funky chunky nearly square presentation I love, the top a large gold cube, the bottle, a shorter glass cube that looks purple thanks to the color of the juice inside it. By Chambly Creations of Chicago, Illinois it is Sweden Carnation, in what is labeled skin parfum. It is 1/2 oz size. It smells like a drier herbal tinged composition, the carnation is rosy and slightly bruised. It also feels watery and smells a little soapy, the spice increases as it dries.

Next and to the front is a little gold embellished bottle of Nina Ricci perfume, it is not for sure to mke that this is the better known L'Air du Temps- it is a little old. This is a sharp-sweet white carnation with strong lily of the valley notes and a perfumey, emotion heightening sense to it, if that makes sense. Next is Prince Matchebelli Potpourri, a syrupy oily carnation scent (it is bath oil, after all)  that is heavy on the rose and lemony facets- geramium?, with a fatter quality, less spice, not firey but nearly grape-figgy sweetness. It dries down spicier with rum notes. You can find this one on line occasionally for not too much $, the bottle is precious with little stars embossed all over and it would make for a yummy bath!

Slightly in fron of the round Potpourri bottle is a small vial of Caron Poivre- this may not be technically discontinued, but I'm not sure, it could be as well. Nevertheless it is certainly spice and it is here among my carnations- now this one comes across almost medicinal at first. It has a true tiger balm note that some people say smells like bandaides, it's almost rubbery and mentholated. Tearing on under those fumes is more spice, pepper, cloves and burnt tobacco with soft honey traces. A proper perfume with enough presence that a man could easily wear it. Behind and to the right of this is another Caron creation- the incomparable Bellodgia- a 1960 era purse parfum of 1/4 oz. Here the true honeysuckle tinged sweetness of carnaations drunk on narcissus and still perfectly pink in their cinnamon teaberry spice. This is indeed the queen of the carnations, with a tart bum of a base.  Finally last in line across the front, Floris Malmaison. Here is another type of red carnation, with an animal nearly bo type note, not too strong with a dry bay leaf tinged carnation, it dries down with a strong note of finely milled french soap in perfect counterbalance to the animal scent that lasts in equal measure, a very mature & sophisticated carnation.

In the back of my photo are lined with some additional perfume favorites of mine that all owe quite a bit of their nature to a pursausive note of carnation: Left to right far rear: M de Molinard- a foresty pine, moss and carnation concoction, very white. Next, Givenchy Indecence parfum mini- this vanilla sandalwood overdosed floral is buttery cinnamon nearly narcotic confection of ylang and carnation bliss. A step down to the right you can't see my little carnation-leather by Robert Piguet, Bandit- the original bad boy of carnation scents, in a ~5ml parfum vial, with strong green-weedy notes that grows surprisingly agreeable as roasted notes of leather and coffee emerge. Lastly, Zadig parfum 1/2 oz by Emilio Pucci. This perfume is a creamy symphony while alluding  to a creamy sumptuous carnation with caramel tones has notes of ylang jasmine and musk. And finally not pictured, but closing my round-up of carnations for Christmas nonetheless is Estee Lauder's Spellbound parfum, with notes of stewed fruits, pimentos, fire smoke and civet, it takes carnation into the dark, edible realm.

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.