Chypre

Chyprée

Coty Eau de Cologne Parfumée

In 1917, Coty launched this amber-colored fragrance "Chypre" and thus created a very special way of life!

"Chypre" is unmistakably feminine and describes a woman with all her facets:
Refreshing and lively like the well-known bergamot aromas, headstrong and spicy like silvery sage, and rebellious like a small animal that shows its claws and whose fur always smells a bit scruffy and stern.
This is not only represented at the very beginning by the unmistakable animalic presence of civet; no, oakmoss also quickly reveals its barbs in this composition and could thus, together with the feline creature, become very unpleasant for sensitive or untrained noses.
For this amber color certainly does not come from nowhere and stands here for powerful, self-assured femininity: And that already in 1917 - Just imagine that!

However, the rich, mature floral splendor of noble roses, together with the overflowing sensuality of white jasmine, rises against this harshness and is further supported by the velvety, powdery depth of orris root.
It is not a "battle of giants" that can be discerned in the scent development on my skin, but also not a soft cuddly blanket:
"Chypre" is simply a dreamily beautiful, lovingly and skillfully refined work of fragrance art!

Besides the already mentioned oakmoss, labdanum, the resin of the beloved rockrose (one day, one of these plants will move onto my balcony!) plays a significant role with its headstrong, bitter scent note as a concluding fragrance component.

All these fragrance notes harmonize in a league of their own and unite to create something very special:
For the younger generation certainly a "No Go," for us older ones a very special "nose treat":
For we experienced the time of opulent fragrances and lush colors in the world of couture, whose incomparable, floating harmony of all components and the irretrievable freedom in every relationship:
We experienced/lived these fragrances day by day!

Incredible that "Chypre" has already been "in the bottle" for more than a hundred years; one could almost call it the "mother" of all chypre fragrances.
Maybe it is.
In any case, it is so timelessly beautiful and a true delight!

A particularly dear friend of mine generously gifts me with many vintage fragrances and, although I only asked for a sample, the original bottle of François Coty's "Chypre" ended up with me and has carved out a large place in my fragrance soul with its golden-brown contents.
Rarely can I pass by it without treating myself to a sniff of this magnificent content.

This dark blonde, mysterious fragrance being with all its facets is a very special composition.
Perhaps I would not have appreciated it in my younger years: Today we have both matured and I love it!

Here it shows once again: It takes time to understand special beauty!
I am grateful that right now seems to be the right time for our encounter!
So I will spend some more time in the vintage phase with magnificent fragrances:
Let whatever new and mainstream come, what will!
We live our very own personality together!

Finally, I get to test the fragrance I've been curious about for decades.

Ever since I read "The Artificial Silk Girl" by Irmgard Keun, this Chypre has not left my mind. Perhaps because that was when I started to become interested in fragrances, and I was the same age as the protagonist of the book published in 1932:
Doris, a pretty young woman (18), from "humble beginnings," hates her job as a stenographer and dreams of becoming famous, a "glamour," as she calls it.
She can only afford a bit of luxury through wealthier men, who are sometimes nice and sometimes not. One of the nicer ones, a little chubby man who is apparently a sales representative for perfume and cosmetics, gifts her large bottles of Coty's Chypre.

Through her mother, who works as a wardrobe mistress in the theater, she gets a job as an extra, but Doris wants more: To stand out better at an audition for acting school, she "borrows" the very expensive fur coat of an older, wealthy woman from the wardrobe, which fits her so perfectly that she absolutely cannot bring herself to return it.
Fearing the police, she flees to Berlin, with little luggage, the fur coat, and Chypre.
In the Berlin of the Weimar Republic, it's not easy to get by; her life is a rollercoaster, and a ritual for lifting her spirits is to indulge herself and the fur with a "scent of Chypre."

Now, while testing, I can very well imagine this dark green, animalistic Chypre, the "Urchypre," as a fur scent. (And no, I have never owned a fur coat. No woman looks better in it than the previous owner)

I found it striking that civet appears in the top note, and not just as a fixative in the base.
Perhaps this creates a bit of the illusion of wrapping oneself in a soft, protective coat that smells pleasantly of fur and leather. (My skin loves civet, which smells so wonderful in its diluted form.
Balsamic sage supports the dark green effect of oakmoss, which here does not come across as scratchy at all.
Even rose and jasmine seem to contribute mainly their dark and animalistic facets!
Refined and slightly brightened by orris root, which thankfully has nothing powdery about it.

I find the very "concise" ingredient list remarkable, with which Coty has composed such a beautiful fragrance. One reason for this could be that each of these natural substances already has a complex composition on its own.

Coty's Chypre is a perfume completely without "residual sweetness," no kind of dessert. Nothing that screams "taste me."

Coty's Chypre is a benchmark, a perfume that gives presence but also demands it.

By happy "coincidence," I came across a scent that has interested me for a long time. Even though it is "only" the slightly weaker concentration of this original gem, it is so impressive that I simply MUST express my thoughts about it!
First, there is the bitterness, which also includes a tiny bit of sweetness. Like meadows with many different herbs, grasses, and flowers. Then it has a green radiance. Similar to old desk lamps that were almost ALWAYS green.
And just as lightly dusty as these old, interesting interior pieces is the fragrance that the ingenious master perfumer Francoise Coty himself composed. And that was at the beginning of the twentieth century.
A very slight animalic note comes into play, which probably comes from finely dosed civet. And then later this silvery-gray shimmering oak moss, hanging down in long cascades from trees, which simply contributes a very special timbre and stands in "contrast" to the citrus-herbaceous introduction in the top note.
A "raw chypre," which later experiences numerous variations in many forms throughout perfume history! From oriental to green to floral, woody, aromatic... and... and... and.
ALL have this citrusy introduction. And ALL have a mossy-earthy base. Yet the "in-between" is left to the imagination of the perfumers, so much so that it is hardly possible to count how many fragrance companies have launched HOW MANY chypre scents. And it is all Francoise Coty's "fault," whose clever and skilled nose created something new that other colleagues only dared to attempt after him.
THE root of ALL chypre fragrances. And a magnificent raw diamond with many carats!!