loewenherz
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loewenherz
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The Scent 'from Over There'
One of my best friends grew up in Prenzlauer Berg (where she still lives today) - at a time when it was still gray and not the 'snobby neighborhood' (quote from that friend, next to whom a family from Esslingen now lives) that it is today. Recently, we were together at the flea market in Mauerpark ('Oh no - really? There are only tourists there!'), where she bought four large jars of Brandenburg honey (which I had to carry), and I got nothing. And in the midst of the hustle and bustle, she suddenly held a small bottle up to my nose and said: 'Hey look - this is what mom used to have.' It was a perfume called 'Schwarzer Samt' (made by 'VEB Chemisches Kombinat Miltitz' - doesn’t that sound so much more sensual and passionate than 'Guerlain'?), and I thought (and then said): 'What? Perfume? I thought you had nothing?'
For 'We had nothing' (her favorite phrase when it comes to anything before 1990), Schwarzer Samt smells like quite a lot. I would claim that the contents of that bottle were still good (the seller wanted forty euros for the half-full, small bottle and only very reluctantly let me test it) - and it didn’t smell at all like what one would imagine the scent of the GDR to be (though I couldn't really say what I would have expected). Schwarzer Samt neither smells overly dark, nor like velvet, but is a heavy, sultry floral scent with rose (with a distinct old note, maybe it was already slightly off) and a chypre base note that does not differ significantly from familiar (Western) perfumes. Clearly not a scent of the present, but nothing characteristically real-socialist smelling.
Conclusion: let someone say again that nothing can be found at the Mauerpark flea market. Maybe I should have taken it after all...
For 'We had nothing' (her favorite phrase when it comes to anything before 1990), Schwarzer Samt smells like quite a lot. I would claim that the contents of that bottle were still good (the seller wanted forty euros for the half-full, small bottle and only very reluctantly let me test it) - and it didn’t smell at all like what one would imagine the scent of the GDR to be (though I couldn't really say what I would have expected). Schwarzer Samt neither smells overly dark, nor like velvet, but is a heavy, sultry floral scent with rose (with a distinct old note, maybe it was already slightly off) and a chypre base note that does not differ significantly from familiar (Western) perfumes. Clearly not a scent of the present, but nothing characteristically real-socialist smelling.
Conclusion: let someone say again that nothing can be found at the Mauerpark flea market. Maybe I should have taken it after all...
Updated on 01/02/2018
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