Lost Perfumes: FAUN by Ravel

Could this be the start of a 'Lost Perfumes' series? Faun is one of the first perfumes I added to my vintage perfume collection but it's been around for so long that I'd sort of forgotten and neglected it. If you saw my post from last week, you may recall I posted a photo of the bottle. It resembles a 1945-1950 era Chanel bottle- spare and squared in shape with a plain black cap. In the hand, it somehow feels cheaper than Chanel's version. The label is slightly off, both in the cut and lettering... Perhaps the packaging had something to do with why I wasn't really drawn to try what was inside, at least initially. But recently I decided to take a closer look at this unknown mid-20th century creation.
A little preliminary research lead me to discover that the details about Ravel and it's perfumes have mostly been obscured by the passage of time. Even though Ravel is a relatively modern perfume house that existed in the late 1940's and 1950's, if you know vintage perfumes at all, then you'll know that 50 or 60 years is a long time in perfume years. Smaller 'independent' perfume houses tend to pop up and fall away rather quickly. And it's not just the smaller houses- it seems that most perfumes fade from our collective memories with lightening-like speed.

In fact one wonders about the fate of the multitude of modern releases, and the niche companies that seem to pop up overnight. We know that the perfumes of today will likely face a similar fate since very, very few perfumes really stand the test of time. There are many reasons for this poor longevity, from weak business models to inconsistent raw materials and supply problems to simple bad luck. But mostly I think it is because perfume is like art. Very often, once you've created something, the animus leaves you. Or perhaps there are too many poorly conceived start-ups, without support for talent to grow or the vision to allow it to florish.

At first perfume may seem like an easy and cheap thing to produce. With a modest upfront investment in chemicals and creator, there is big profit potential. But it is deceptively simple. Fine things, truly fine things that is, tend to take time; original creations are not so easy to produce as uninspired knock-offs. So ultimately many of the 'new' things we see are not really so special and there is an almost constant turn-over of even the so-called successful 'hit' perfumes.

But even for it's time, Ravel was one of the smaller perfume houses based in New York. Like many, it touted a French connection, listing Paris as a second site as well but with practically no advertising history and no presence in famous reference works or collections (that I know of, yet...), there is little else to say about it. It seems Ravel was one of many start-ups that florished in the glow of post WWII optimisim but it lasted less than a decade. The perfumes of Ravel include: Adagio, Pagan, and Pagoda (a little metal bottle of this perfume recently surfaced on the web; if it's not been plucked up yet, you may still be able to find it, and if you do, please let me know what you find); all three of these were from 1945. Faun came out in 1946, followed by the trio of L'Amour En Rose, My Fair Lady and Moments De Passion which were released in 1955 and the final known release, No. 9, came out in 1956. Pagan and Faun caught my eye right away as the most originally named and the most desirable of Ravel's perfumes to collect... but I can only discuss Faun, since it's the only one I've experienced.

And what of the perfume in question, this Faun? As I've said, the name itself is intriguing. The image of the Faun is that of a half human, half deer that is usually but not always male. Looking at iconic images of the Faun, it seems clear there is an implied sensuality and rustic animalic quality is suggested by use of the Faun image. At its opening, Faun is bursting forth with juicy bergamot and smells at first like a typical hersperidic cologne. Very soon the citrus is joined by aldehydes which lift and intensify the composition, taking it more towards a typical perfume. Early on in the scent, I sense a slight turn toward cool green and slightly powdery chypre notes- there is a restrained plum-prune, mossy, mushroomy accord that typifies Chypres of this same period for me. Yet, smelled side by side, I see the accord is very hushed in Faun.

Soon the perfume turns again, the fresher citrus elements at the forefront bolstered by a rooty, effervescent middle in which orris and the rich, smooth, softness of fur notes shine. Fur notes in perfume have almost mythical status today. We do not see these notes often in the most modern compositions yet at one time fur was perhaps one of the most celebrated of notes for feminine perfumes, famously referred to in the poetry imagery of Baudelaire.

Fur, like musk smells heavily of animal but Ravel's Faun does not turn on us, nor bare its teeth, thanks to a generous helping of dry patchouli that anchors the composition perfectly. The patchouli plays up the tingle of salicyclates and prevents the perfume from going too far toward mossy green shadings of a proper chypre perfume. Along with the patchouli and fur, the base of the perfume reveals itself to be a proper, very classic and somewhat salty and stout leather.

Amazingly free of overt florals, Faun lives up to its androgynous promise. The citrus, aldehyde and patchouli/leather/fur combination is one that still feels wearable even in this admittedly dated creation. On the whole, I've become impressed with Faun, or more so with it's type- a genre busting scent that plays with male-female, cologne-perfume duality; it is one of the few vintages that I might enjoy wearing but that might also appeal to someone with more strictly modern tastes.

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

photo/art credits:

Nijinsky Faun: http://imagecache.allposters.com/images/pic/BRGPOD/171825~Nijinsky-s-Faun-Costume-in-L-Apres-Midi-D-Un-Faune-by-Claude-Debussy-Posters.jpg

Faun Seducing Girl: http://imagecache.allposters.com/images/pic/BRGPOD/212535~Nymph-Abducted-by-a-Faun-1860-Posters.

Faun with Horns: http://forestrogers.typepad.com/L-faun464.jpg

Faun Girl: http://images.epilogue.net/users/griffingirl/APHRODISIA_FAUN.jpg by christine griffin

Faun with Maiden & Red Flowers: www.karinboye.se/verk/akvareller/lilith-med-faun.gif

Faun & Flora: hoocher.com/Hans_Makart/Faun_and_Nymph_(Pan_and_Flora)_1872.jpg

In the meantime... Perfumery: practice & principles

Ok, ok. So I've been a little reticent lately, even stingy with my perfume-and-blog-related correspondence and commentary; stress and deadlines in unrelated areas have intruded rudely into the time I normally reserve for my perfumed pursuits! But in between the spaces, I've been reading Calkin and Jellinek's Perfumery: practice and principles. Perfumery is a 1994 textbook-level work focusing on the recent changes in the area of perfumery brought about by the modern analytic chemist's tools, chiefly gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, as well as growing changes in available raw materials. It is, well, weighty in parts- so unless you're going to be tested on organic chemistry sometime real soon, you might want to skip straight to the chapter called Selected Great Perfumes. For me this chapter is worth the entire book. For starters, I found the list of Great Perfumes selected, as well as those that were ignored, very interesting.
And I even started to feel a little depressed while reading about the perfumes. For example Ysatis is classified with other chypres because somewhere it's fingerprint stamps it as being in that group. But the GC information tells you nothing about how Ysatis really smells- if you don't know it, this perfume is a hot Ylang dominated skin-scent with white florals practically radiating from it's heart. It almost overwhelms me with smothering overbearing 80's style sillage but it was the perfect 1980's rendition of a suntan oil type of vacation scent. If you've seen the neon-colored pink, yellow and green trim of the box logo, well, it fits the scent perfectly.
Kaleidoscopic and buttery sweet with a faintly mossy dry-down (enough to keep your nose returning to tease it from the killer tuberose ylang-ylang combination). But I can't share those technicolor sensations with you if I just stick to the scent's GC profile, and wonder if it is really more of a chypre or a floral-musk. Ironically I feel just a little that the authors rely a bit much on the very same thing they caution perfumers not to rely too heavily on- that is, the GC analysis.

And GC MS is important- oh, so important to the chemistry side of perfume making. But I think in order to discuss perfume fairly, as art and as product, as when we are reviewing it, I think we need to stick very closely to our own impressions of any scent we're talking about. I would rather hear your own free associations and reports about what you think you smell, than just hear you rattle off a list of compounds. I am somewhat torn because I do love to read lists of notes but when I see that so many perfumes keep boiling back down to lists of similar ingredients, everything blurs into differing proportions of a small set of super-scenting chemicals like Hedione, Methyl Ionone or Galaxolide (just a fancy name for polycyclic musk, kittens), Iso-E and a few ubiquitous florals (rose/jasmine) and woods, vetiver and whatever decoration you throw on top. It's hard not to feel overwhelmed and somewhat jaded at the same time.

A GC MS machine...
But the danger in becoming jaded is that you really don't bother to stop and smell carefully anymore, or force yourself to make those associations that made smelling things so much fun in the beginning. So if you think Bvlgari Black smells like burning rubber, then please just say so- it tells me so much more than if you'd just rattled off the list of what was in the juice. In the past and unless they had the recipe, most perfumeologists had to rely on their noses in order to suss out what was in any given juice. It required effort, imagination and creativity. Plus, the more you know about scent and molecules, and organic chemistry, the more leeway you realize there is in smelling perfumes. Sometimes, rare notes appear and you catch little novel sub-tides inside of a complex composition. Some of us can smell things that others of us can't, or in smaller proportions. These little eddies and variables contribute much to the overall experience of a scent, to say nothing of our own internal experiences and tastes. And it's all of those little things that really help us pull more about the scent out of ourselves than if we stick to a "guided by notes" type of discussion.

Because with GC, there is no more need to guess about notes. You just toss a little of your sample 'fume onto the machine and maybe in twenty minutes or less, if you can read the print out or use the software to edit it, and you will be able to pick out and name all of the organic molecules that are in your sample. You even get the order of vaporization, and information about the relative magnitudes of constituents in it. No need to risk a guess and maybe sound stupid with your super smart perfume friends when discussing notes of a new, or rare lost perfume. Why is that so many of us act more like Mensa flunkies than simple scent junkies? No wonder it's been a sore point for some of those who've labored to train themselves to smell without the benefit of such tools!

Maybe I'm just arguing this way because my love of [rare] perfumes was ignited after I'd left my job in the analytical laboratory. I find it a little ironic that I used to run samples on GC/MS machines and idly wonder what ot do with the last 4 or 5 spaces in my machine... I even edited the raw data myself. And I won't lie... if I still worked there, I doubt I could resist the temptation to load up a few extras with my special 'blanks'. Of course I'd want to analyze some of my own perfumes. But I can't and so for now, my reviews will remain as they have, dealing mostly with trying to paint scent impressions for you with words, and dealing less with strictly dissecting out note lists and comparing to some known standard... although, as I've said before, it is a two edged thing.... So know that when you come here, you will find both educated and sometimes totally in the dark guesses. But at least you'll know the impressions are my own and for what it's worth, they're alway honest, mostly from the heart and not so much the head...

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

photo credits:
Lady with rose: media.photobucket.com diditrocious 'regal nose'
L' air du temps: parfumeriazet.sk Ysatis: ebay.cgi
CG MS: uaf.ed
Chimps smelling roses: chuvachienes.com

Next Vintage Perfume Review: Ravel FAUN!

It's been almost a month since my last post, and that's something I never wanted to do... but the recent quiessence of this blog belies the reality of my life. The closing of May marks the end of an incredibly hectic work year. I'm living with the truth of the old saying that whatever doesn't kill you, only leaves you stronger, or luctor et emergo, as they say.

Summer vacation starts June 1st so look for the upcoming review of a rare vintage perfume- Ravel's FAUN, circa 1940s. I'm also slowly putting together a very limited sample package of some of the recently reviewed perfumes featured here on TVPV, which I'll be sending to a couple of perfume bloggers that I know. So stay tuned, and maybe you can hear what they think of some of the perfumes I've brought out of the vault. And I'll be back in full force in June! In the meantime, in the photo you see my bottle of Ravel's Faun- it's not a fancy presentation, but don't let the Chanel knock-off presentation fool you...

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

Vivaudou Part II...

You may remember the earlier post on Vivaudou cosmetics and Nikki perfume. I've sent off a few samples of Nikki to various readers, and I'm still planning on sending it out to a few more, including someone who isn't expecting it. So far the feedback has been interesting: challenging, strange notes, or could it have begun turning?- as for the last one, no, I hope not! Seriously, it is too sweet and clean to be turning but you never really know how something smelled or was supposed to smell, in the beginning, when something is as old as this stuff is. But I argue it is just an unusual composition and one with lots of coumarin, I'm betting. The 'hazelnut' I get might smell more like 'hay' to others. And there's a very fine delicate complex powdery theme woven in, which really fits in with Vivaudou, once you realize that the name is synonymous with fine cosemetic powders. Indeed Nikki could be exactly that- an interpretation of a woman, smelt through powder, and just a trace of salt and old roses, along with something unexpected, something a little acrid or slightly bitter, marigold(?)... It grows on you... Perhaps I'll find a definitive opinion from someone more expert than I.

But until then, I have the pleasant task of updating you on the Vivaudou story. If you recall, in the intial story I speculated that the two Vivaudou's- Jean and Victor, were related. Well, it turns out they were related indeed! In fact, I heard from the grandson of Victor Vivaudou, a lovely gentleman named David Kinnement. It turns out David's grandfather Victor did much more than make perfume (and establish a thriving cosmetics business). He was arrested for smuggling (Diamonds! In his own Vivaudou (?) cold cream!) in the early 1920's. But his career began on a more hope-filled note when he graduated as a Maître de Parfum in Grasse around 1903. By 1914, he'd fled France to avoid the impending war and seek his fortune and fame in America, making cosmetics and perhaps trading in off-market women's couture (I'm assuming perhaps from his Old World connections...) . He left his wife and children behind and brought his mistress, Rose, to the US with him.
There he met the landed gentry of New York's golden society. He attended glittering parties that lasted for days at the Vanderbilt's and Gatsby's, and soon he and Rose purchased a home nearby. He started Vivaudou cosmetics, either with his father Jean, or more likely using Jean's name for the company (it isn't clear to me which was the case). Vivaudou landed in New York at a magical time in history and he was there to see New York transform itself from an almost provincial, colonial American city with quaint Belle Epoch tastes to the fully industrialized, sky scraper filled, world-class wonder we know today. Vivaudou associated with the cream of the crop of designers and artists of his time. The period of time and place in which he lived- New York, during the height of the jazz age and the birth of modern fashion photography and art, was as unique as the parfums he created.
His Orloff perfume bottles are certainly beautiful and distinctive, as Nikki attests. But what strikes me the most, as it did David, is the wonderful art work that was used in Vivaudou's print advertisements. One of the most famous artists he used, Henry Clive, achieved fame as a pin-up artist but he created many beautiful images for Vivaudou's cosmetics, powders and perfumes. I've taken the liberty of putting a few of these increasinly rare images up for you to feast your eyes on and so they can live on here among all the other wealth of vintage goodies I try to pack into this space.
Above, a gorgeous & detailed Mavis advertisement- the face powder, of course! And below,

One of Henry Clives' many period magazine covers (note his characteristic signature in the lower left corner). Red was a strong favorite color of Henry's and also of Vivaudou's, as you can see it was used extensively and lavishly in many of their advertsiing images.

Henry Clive did all of these advertising images, most of which were sourced from Flickr, American Archives dotcom or Pro dot Corbis dotcom.

I would love to see the advertising for Nikki, or any of the other Vivadou products but there just isn't anything I can come up with... And it's kind of funny because Vivaudou was associated with a host of perfume 'lines' including Delettrez, Arly (Paris France), Prince de Chany (Paris France & Beverly Hills,Ca), Vimay (Los Angeles and Culver City,CA) and finally Vadsco Sales Corp.(Long Island,NY).
Above, a rare advertising image from Vivaudou's Delettrez perfume line.

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

Note: all of the black and white images are DeMeyer: Dolores, first published in Vogue 1921 and 1916; Grace George, Vanity Fair 1920, courtesy Conde Nast. What you see here are photographs taken directly from my own DeMeyer book.

Perfume for Kids: Liddle Kiddles Kologne Dolls, meet the Barbie Twillerbabies...

This may seem like a BIG departure for those expecting strictly 'serious' perfume content, but I'm convinced that Mattel's Liddle Kiddle Kologne Dolls were, in part, responsible for my perfume fixation. Made in the early 1970s, the little dolls were about 2" tall. Each came encased in a plastic pendant heart and each doll represented a specific flower. Lily of the Valley, Violet and Orange Blossom were my favorites. In addition to being dressed like a blossom, each of the dolls and their containers had a very strong synthetic, solifloral flower perfume note infused. I spent endless hours playing with my Kiddle Kologne dolls. I was obsessive about trying to keep the dolls inside their cases to hold the scent as long and strong as possible.

Well, I almost fainted when I saw these new little Barbie Thumbelina Twillerbabies...

...because they're almost a direct copy of my beloved Kiddles and of course, they're SCENTED! Just like the Kiddles. These little dolls have soft (and safer, I assume) petal housing so they're not quite identical. Still, they are extremely appealing to me in that nostalgic way you can't resist... and in fact I could not resist buying them. I got the ones that smelled best (comparitively, of course!), which were Hydrangia, Rose, Daliah and Sunflower; the Daisy and Tulip were too watery for me.



Above is the Twillerbabie called Dahlia. She smells of soft vanilla with maybe some gentle coconut underneath and looks just like her flower. The sunflower is my favorite scent of the bunch. I thought she was a daffodil and I still think she smells of jonquil. The rose doll smells of a bubblegum rose with a hint of saffron. Hydranga is sweet pea-ish and powdery.

(photo of a Dahlia from Garden.Lovetoknow.com)

The original Kiddles were among my favorite toys growing up. They had a weirdly plastic-floral fusion of scent that I've never forgotten. I still smell a similar note in grown-up perfumes now and again and I find it's actually quite desirable. If you look at Mattel's whole range of scented Kiddles of the 70's you'd see that many were actually based on food scents, sort of early gourmands for kids, if you like. The Kiddle Kola dolls came in bright day-glo color hair and had soda flavors like orange, lemon-lime, cherry, cola too.


I have no idea if anyone outside of America ever saw these toys. But I wonder how many perfumistas here in America remember Kiddles?

Joy for Jasmine: Vintage Mori, Patou Perfumes

The first really warm days of spring put me in the mood for flowers. People might describe me as somewhat of a girly-girl but that does not fit in with my fragrance style sense. I tend to love perfumes with prominent aromatic, spice, citrus, woods, incense, leather or musk. In other words, very few proper perfumes, especially the feminine ones with over-dose of floral notes, make it into my scent rotation. Carnation is my one true floral fascination although their spicy-coolness seems particularly suited to crisp fall/winter days. But as soon as the temperature goes up into the 80's for some inexplicable reason I find myself craving the king of all flower essences, jasmine. In anticipation of a warm week-end I gave into my craving and brought out two of my favorite vintage jasmine perfumes for a head-to-head sniff-a-thon.

The reining jasmine perfume has got to be Joy... Released by Jean Patou in 1930, it was at the time reputedly the world's costliest perfume to produce. The duet of sweet may-rose and lots and lots of the world's finest jasmine blossoms forms the heart of Joy perfume. For many, it is bliss inducing. The sweet-spicy floral melds into the sweet- spicy animal base to an almost perfect effect. While Joy smells divine there are a few notes in it that distract me. I sense an almost bruised quality of sweetness gone just past it's peak; or maybe there's just too much of too many good things in it for me to process all at once. In any case, after wearing Joy for a short period of time I determined that it did not really suite me. So I searched for another jasmine scent hoping to find my own perfect jasmine. (This photo is from the Lightyears Project collection, which I can't link to, given my lack of technical expertise, but you can google them for all sorts of perfume history. The photo shows how the black & red Joy bottle was inspired by an ancient Chinese snuff bottle.)

The first perfume I chose in my search for jasmine joy is ironically a close relative of Joy: Jean Patou's Amour Amour. Created as part of a trio of perfumes from Patou in 1925, it was said to be the one made for those with dark hair, while “Que sais-je”, a lighter fragrance was for blondes and “Adieu Sagesse” was intended for red-heads. In fact it is said that Amour-Amour was inspired by and made for the devestatingly vampish sultry brunette, Louise Brooks.

Amour-Amour offers a panoply of floral notes, according to Fragrantica it includes neroli, bergamot, wild strawberry and lemon on top; carnation, orris, lily, lilac, orris, jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose, and narcissus in the middle; and finally musk, honey, civet, vetiver and heliotrope base. It sounds stunning, a perfect fantasy of truly scrumptuous jasmine in a bouquet of equally sumptous ingredients. It's easy to get carried away sometimes with how we think a perfume ought to smell. And such is the case for me with Amour Amour. It has jasmine for sure and it's even of the right type for me- fruity and sweet. But unfortunately, I find Amour Amour smells mostly strongly of narcissus and lemon. Surprisingly, it's more than a little soapy as well. Actually it reminds me most of the Dana perfume Platine, a perfume supposedly built for 'icy' blondes rather than dashing dark beauties. So if you are looking for another perfume suited to blondes, I suggest Amour Amour... Don't get me wrong, I treasure Amour, Amour. It may not be the perfect jasmine perfume that I crave but it is full of life and flowers and hints of sweet honey with bits of earthy roots and hints of animal things, rather like a real basket full of fresh spring flowers from the garden but it's being held next to a sink, full of fresh suds! Underneath the blossoms there is a hint of something cat-like (the civet), but on me, it's blotted out by the true soapy clean heart. A lovely perfume in it's own right but the jasmine never really blooms as lush as I wish it would. Everything is seamlessly blended but it's not the jasmine ideal I'm seeking today.


Note about this photo: as you can see, on the black velvet these bottles look terribly streaky and every little trace dust smudge looks like a big dirty streak, despite light pre-cleaning. I say light because I've had some tragic accidents with perfume bottles due to too vigorous handling or cleaning attempts. Edit: even so, I thought I'd give these bottles a good re-cleaning after seeing the photo, but on my way back from cleaning the Amour Amour bottle, I tripped and ended up loosing about half of the contents onto my computer chair mat- not even the carpet or wood floors but the crappy old plastic mat got christined with this rare juice!! So learn from my mistakes! Don't over-handle your bottles. Better fuller with a little honorable grime, than to have them sparkling clean and possibly broken or empty...

But here's the real reason Amour Amour can't get a fair wearing out of me; I've found Nuits Folles by Mori of Paris, circa 1930. Nuits Folles or "Crazy Nights" as the French translates, opens with a honey sweetened jasmine that starts out strong and never quits. From the first opening of strains of evening star flowers at dusk to the spicy heavy scent of honey made from not only jasmine, but pinks and geramiums, too; to the ultra-realistic strawberry fruit note that predominates throughout hours of wearing. Nuits Folles really is the best strawberry note I've found in a perfume, which is not an easy note to elevate to greatness but here it is, offering perfectly juicy redness to the scent. This is a happy and light-hearted scent, just the sort you'd wear to a gay and flirty garden party in the country, that might last for... days. A perfume that laughs first and never asks questions, the finish is lightly animalic and waxy with spicy aromatic notes of pollen sweet honey. In the photo you can see Nuits Folles in the taller bottle with the ball top stopper, I believe it is a pure parfum.

I can't find anything about the extinct Mori perfume company however I have scant information on early French perfume houses. Even the word itself is shrouded in mystery. It has a Slavic meaning associated with the sea- perhaps an island related name? The latin root is 'morior'- to die or wither away... which might describe anything, including that which is made from flowers. While their story may remain a mystery to me, there has to be more to the Mori story... perhaps there are more Mori bottles filled with exotic treasures sitting out there waiting to be discovered? With such an audacious perfume as Nuits Folles, someone must have noticed Mori before and I feel certain that more is known of this house. Given the quality and longevity of Nuit Folles, the other Mori perfumes must have been outstanding.

If anyone has any stories to share about Mori parfums, I wish they'd tell. Since there is maybe only 10 mls of Nuits Folles, it will be gone too soon. Still I intend to wear it- no regrets, no hoarding or saving it. Nor will I fantasize about finding any more of it! Instead I'll focus on being happy to have found a perfect jasmine for this time... after all, another completely new and unexpected fragrant discovery is waiting to delight and amaze me. And besides the room is too full of vapors from the Amour-Amour bottle, making it too hard to think about any more jasmine perfume...

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

Hayloft Perfume & Powder by Jean La Salle

Trio of Jean Lasalle Hayloft scented powder and perfume. Jean Lasalle had a shop on Park Avenue (New York) during the 1940s where she also sold pancake make up and other products. Aoung her line were a few scented ones including Carioca and Hayloft cologne. Most of her scented products were packaged in pale colors of powder pink and blue with feathers or similar airy design motifs. Hayloft is the only fragance from Jean LaSalle that I've smelled. It is a faithful rendition of hay scent with violet and bitter almond over melded powery sweet and greenish notes. Very acceptable by modern standards, I should think Hayloft was a hit back then, too. If you loved the hay note and were looking for coumarin based scents, then it was a great one to try. The wear time is probably 4 or 5 hours, very decent for a vintage cologne. I see bottles of Hayloft listed periodically on EBay and other sites so you can still find it if you search around a bit. The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.

Orloff NIKKI Perfume, Jean Vivaudou Cosmetics

The Jean Vivaudou Company is perhaps better known among glass collectors but perfume fanatics have a reason to know them, too. Sometimes abbreviated just J V Co, Vivaudou produced vanity and bathing products that were packaged in pretty glass containers mostly circa 1930s. In fact, I've owned a few of J V Co containers, not even realizing what they were. The little jar you see above originally held a perfumed sachet powder made by JV Co and when the powder was used up you were able to use the container as a planter. The glass in this case was actually made by Akro Agate, a large US glass manufacturing company famous for making everything from swirled (slag) glass baskets with animals like a chicken or a cat on top to highly collectible rainbow assorted aggies or marbles.

Interestingly, another man named Victor Vivaudou, got into the perfume and cosmetics business in New York in the early nineteen hundreds, just a few years earlier than Jean. Possibly the two Vivaudou's were related? It would be a very odd coincidence if both men lived in New York, during the same time period, doing the same business and were not related. Whether or not he had any help, it was during the 1930s- 1940s that Jean Vivaudou produced several perfumes under or with the name of Orloff Perfumes. The Orloff perfumes include: Apple Blossoms 1941, Attar of Petals 1945, Carnation Imperial 1939, Extrait de Cologne Russe 1939, Gardenia Russe 1939, Indies Spice 1941 and Nikki 1939. Jean Vivaudou Company used a wide variety of stylized containers for their cosmetics and the bottles for the Orloff perfumes were unique. You may have noticed all of the perfumes seem to share a Russian theme The perfume called Carnation Imperial came in a wooden Russian style container, rather like one of the cathedrals with the famous onion dome tops. It had a glass vial inside and the container was painted red, white, gold and green. In the photos below you see the perfume called NIKKI. The bottle is stunning, it's very gothic and even before I knew any of the other Orloff perfumes I thought it reminded me of something from Russia, too.



I love that you can clearly see a fingerprint in the gray paint under the silk screened layer of gold paint that makes up the Orloff logo, applied directly on the bottle. I think it is rare to see this mark so well preserved, as you can see the paint is wearing off in this example, too. The image appears to be that of a rider thoroughly robed against cold Russian winters, with blankets and cloaks perhaps obscuring the horse's rear legs. For me this is a very romantic presentation. The perfume within is very interesting to me as well; I am fairly certain it is authentic, as I received it from a single owner with several other same period perfumes that I know to be correct (and that have more value). It smells a bit raspy at the top but as I smell it more and more, I like it better and think maybe it is intended to be that way. It reminds me a little of the smell of chrysanthemums and also a hazelnut-like note. This morning I thought maybe also it had a basil note that might be causing part of the harshness, but now I'm not sure. It has a warm doughy quality so I suspect it might have been an Iris perfume, but once again, I'm not sure because Iris is a note that still plays hide-and-seek with me. It finishes slightly powdery, mostly warm and roasted-nutty. That edge of bitter floral lasts all the way through, at least on me.

I really wish this had been Gardenia Russe (can you imagine!) or Carnation Imperial (I'm real into carnation) but I just love the bottle Nikki comes in. It's actually a rather large bottle and since I mostly dab, I'm sure I'll have much more than a lifetime's supply of NIKKI.

So how about a first here? Since I'm totally non-commercial and unincorporated, it has to be a modest first sample give away; so for up to the first five people who request it (email me at millascet@gmail.com if you want to be included) but since I don't really think 5 people read this blog, I'm not sure I'll send out even 1 vial. But if I do, then don't be too mean if you disagree with my smell analysis; I go without any reference or list of notes 99% of the time. I'm using the only things I've got, which are namely my nose and my brain, so if you do get a sample of this perfume, try not to tease me too badly if you open the vial and think to yourself, duh, this is a ROSE perfume, dummy !! At the same time, I want to know what you think and I would love to hear back from you on the blog or by email once you've sniffed Nikki, to tell me what you think about it, too.

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

Vintage Musk Oil by the House of Dana.

Musk is one of the most penatrating essences known to man. It's diffusive power is unequal- just a few molecules can scent literally millons of cubic feet of air. Perhaps that is why many animals and insects use this fragrant bodily secretion to send silent, invisible signals to lure mates or warn competitors. Humans are also exquisetly attracted to (and repelled by) the smell of musk. It is no wonder Musk has such an evocative allure when you consider the central role it plays in securing the survival of a great many different plant and animal species. (photo: rubyslippers.ca/history)

At the same time musk is incredibly useful in the construction of perfumes. It acts to chemically 'fix' or absorb and preserve the other volatile components-including the floral and vegetal essences of flowers, spices, grasses/herbs, and woods. It smooths and blends all of the other ingredients making it an excellent base material. In addition musk often imparts it's own scent into the perfume. How does just plain musk smell? Like sandalwood, urine and ambergris, it is very sharp at first, with a unique spicy quality that varies from musk to musk, followed by a sweet uncutuous finish. The synthetic musks translate that fatty quality into a more airy, powdery effect that is much clearer and more appealing to the modern nose. Some musk has a very floral-rosey quality as well but it smells as if the flowers had been cooked down into a tarry oil; musk has to be diluted to be appreciated. And when it is allowed to mix with air and other ingredients, it creates an expanding softness that travels on the air and enlivens all the others elements, enticing the nose and creating a longing to smell more.

There are several different types of musk but the most famous type for perfume comes from the moschus moschiferus or Musk Deer. These are strange little deer with no antlers, instead they have large tusk-like fangs. The musk deer eat mainly leaves, flowers, and grasses, with some mosses and lichens. This diet would be perfect for creating wonderful chypre-perfumey smelling deers! Little Musk deers were found across large areas of China and Russia but they were nearly hunted to the edge of extinction. People harvested both the musk glands and the tusks but today the animals are protected. The musk gland is located on the abdomen between the testicles and the umbilicus and in the wild, the deer just drop little 'musk pellets' on the ground as they graze. The scent of the musk wafts up inot the air and acts as a pheromone, transmitting subtle chemical signals to other deer. Hunters were too impatient and greedy to collect the droppings, so they simply gutted the deer and removed the entire glands, nearly wiping the creatures out. There are farms in Russia today were Musk deer are raised and their droppings are harvested but the quality of this farmed musk is inferior to the wild type. (photo:© WWF/H-W Schuldei/Leipzig Zoo)

The second type of animal derived musk that is widely used in making perfumes isn't really a musk but the secretion of the civet cat is commonly called civet musk. Produced in the male cat's perianal glands, the substance serves as territorial marker and is a potent aphrodesiac for the femal cat as well. Civet is classified as a feminine exciting scent. It is known to be especially penetrating and difficult to work with in it's raw form. Check out this advice about civet paste from http://www.profumo.it/ : "Do not get frightened by the smell of Civet musk. Just put a little bit of the civet paste on a piece of paper and smell it after a few days. The delicious flowery tones are indeed surprising. This is a very effective aphrodisiac for women. if a husband wants to stimulate his wifes libido, let him spray the bed sheets with Civet tincture masked with a little bit of Ylang Ylang essence." (photo: coconutstudio.com)

Besides civet and the musk deer, there are a number of plant based musks. Ambrette oil also known as "Musk Dana" and Abeimoshus Muschatus or Hibiscus Abelmoschus; these are the plant sources most perfumers prefer. However like musk animals such as the ox, rat, lorikette, beetle, duck and turtle, to name just a few, there are a number of musk plants including the cabbage, rose, thistle and okra. (photo: ag.ndsu.ed) But the largest catagory of musks are the synthetics. In 1888 the first synthetic musk was produced. This family was called the aromatic or nitro-musks, which were followed in time by several other large classes of unique musk compounds including polycyclic and macrocyclic musks. The polycyclic musks were developed after World War II. This is a photo of Galaxolide, a polycyclic musk. (photo: MadeinChina.com)

Today most of the musks on the market are of the synthetic variety, and plant derived musks are popular as well. Perfumes may contain combinations of sythesized musks and natural products. Synthiesized civet and deer musk are also available as are more ecologically friendly farmed 'wild' types.

As far as my little bottle of Dana Musk Oil, I couldn't find anything about it in my research. I did find a reported release date of 1972 which I can't verify. In 1973, Dana did release another musk that I do remember, called Monseiur Musk.

It had a big square black glass bottle, very 1970's looking. (photo: perfumezilla.com) The style looks nothing like my bottle below, which looks like it could be from an earlier era but who knows.

By the time Dana produced this bottle, it was a drugstore brand. There are remnants of a store tag on the back of the bottle, the price was $3.50 for 1/2 ounces. What makes this musk special to me is its strong animal quality which is another reason I thought it might be a few years older. In fact it was so goaty, so cat-boxy, that when I first tried it, I put off reviewing it. I sampled it again numerous times, trying a dot of it here or there, waiting for something to happen but it seemed rock solid. I figured the best thing to do with it was use it for layering with another scents. After all, perfumers often find adding a little bit of something noxious can impart highly desirable facets, giving a quality that enlivens the other ingredients in a perfume.

But the next time I opened the oil and applied a pin sized amount, touched my wrists together I was surprised to be greeted by a heavenly, fluffy, pillowy smell, all soft, creamy and dreamy, like a baby's head. The next day, it opened up further revealing buttery tuberose notes. What I thought was almost unsalvageable has been elevated to high art (in as far as musks go) a floral, spicy musk with creamy sandalwood, soapy facets, although lurking somewhere in there my nose still detects what seemed urinous before. It is positively magical, truely a chameleon scent that seemingly changed before my eyes. (photo: uncredited)

Post Note ~ Recommended Musks of Today ~

Luckily if you like clean, soft musks there are many to choose from. I especially like Jennifer Lopez's Glow, available in the drug store, department store catagory and it is still widely available. If however you want to sample some of the more adventurous 'perfumista class' musks, there are two that are really popular and widely lauded- Serge Lutens Muscs Kublai Khan and Frederic Malle's Musk Ravageur. Those are more niche, high end so you'll have to search harder to find them. If you like oils (my personal preference is for oils, they tend to wear more politely than proper perfumes), then one cult favorite that I really think is superior is Bruno Acampora's Musc Essence, an earthy, tangy musk that makes my mouth water sometimes. And if you can, go to Ava-Luxe's on-line store at http://www.ava-luxe.com/ and try some of her artful and thoughtfully blended musks such as Rasa, Kama, Madam X (especially love this one!) and Love's True Bluish Light (if you love your musk angelic) to give you an idea of the complexity and beauty of this scent material. If you really like to experiement, you can try hunting down some of the seriously exotic musks offered on EBay. They are pricy but worth knowing if you are serious about exploring musk. I always put in the search words "oud musk" to find the right kind. Try to find someone selling 1 ml or less to keep it affordable. I've tried both oud musk and oud free musk; I prefer the oud musk. (And remember with Ebay, it's all about the seller's feedback, so look for someone with 100%; that way you know they care about and work to maintain their rating, but as always be careful!)

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

Weekend Getaway: Amway Miryoku Cologne

I'm away 'on vacation' and working on another post right now. Of course it's gotten a little more involved than I planned so in the meantime take a look at this unusual looking perfume bottle. It's an Amway cologne (yes, Amway) with an Asian name, Miryoku. It comes in an imp or pear shaped bottle that has dusty mauve paint undercoat with gray splatter finish. The effect looks interesting but it feels like someone crafted it to match their 1981 bathroom with spray paint. The cap resembles the roof of a pagoda; it's made of molded plastic with faux bronze/copper finish. According to the crimp pattern and spray nozzle style I'd say it is circa 1970's - 80's. Because of the name I hoped it might be a dupe of Mitsouko (Guerlain) but instead it's effervescent, lightly fruity/spicy with a very strong powdery-clean dry down that may include fresh calone notes, too. It remainds me of another Japanese cologne, Pola L'Azur French Bouquet (vintage 1960's) in scent but that one included far more aldehydes. Miryoku gets better as it dries down and I can see why someone might have liked this.

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

Perfume Bottle Copy Cats: Perry Ellis 360 and Lucien LeLong's Tailspin

Today I am bringing another example of copy-cat bottle designs. This type of perfidity seems widespread in the perfume world with numerous perfumes housed in bottles that are copied from other designers. In the past perfumers worked with the most accomplished glass artists of their time to create painstakingly crafted vessels deemed worthy of the juice contained within them. Check out the bottle I found on the on-line Shiseido museum, a beautiful commercial bottle, a copy of an even finer one made by Baccarat for Elizabeth Arden's "It's You" perfume in 1939. It is truely an exquisit presentation deserving of a high end luxury perfume. Yet predictably, there is a low end Avon copy of this design somewhere although I can't locate a photo for you.

A cheap container speaks volumes to the consumer and what is says is not good, especially if the perfume is touted 'high-end'. Perfumes have long been considered luxury products so it is a shame to see the declining quality of packaging; it hints at the same cheapening of the contents
inside. When niche or exclusive perfumes come to me in cheap packaging, I feel a stab of betrayal. I spent money for something I hope is a magical elixer that will transform me but the packaging rudely wakes me from the dream- it makes me feel that someone might be producing the whole thing in their kitchen sink and printing the label on their ink jet printer- which is definitely not what I want to think about when I'm buying something that to enhance me, seduce me with its mystique.

Today's example: Perry Ellis 360 parfum produced by Parfums Stern, Paris... At first
the bottle appears charmingly unique.

But then I happened upon the bottle shown below while shopping at Passion for Perfumes (see links, where to buy and no I'm not affiliated). Lucien LeLong's Tailspin is housed within a "gyroscopic" bottle nearly identical to the Perry Ellis one. In this case, there is a flat brass topped stopper and dauber, while the Perry bottle has a glass stopper and no dauber. Also the Lelong bottle is an actual gyroscope, while the Perry bottle follows the lines but the entire base of the container is filled with perfume and a small dimple on the bottom allows it to stand up.

The Perry Ellis perfume bottle is pretty but it's not original and knowing it is a copy, makes it even less appealing. The Lelong bottle is much more complicated (the perfume is housed within an inner bottle, so it remains upright while the gyroscope could be rolled across a flat surface) and it seems to be an original design, and therefore it seems more desirable and more luxurious, something one would want to hold, play with and contemplate with each wearing of the perfume. I hope modern perfumers learn the value of luxury and reach out to new designers to create more of the types of bottles that made bottle collecting such a passion for perfume lovers.

I have seen photos of some of the new Guerlains, which come in shockingly plain bottles, despite the little badge at the base, they look cheap to me.... I should not single Guerlain out, they are by no means the only ones, but honestly I would never spend big money on something that comes in a cheap rectangular bottle that could be hair spray, when I can go back into time to have something that was made with care, and is truly fine. Yet some of the modern perfumes smell wonderful, and they deserve the best in bottles as well. If not the future of perfume bottle collecting is going to be very dim indeed.

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