Nuit de Bakélite Naomi Goodsir 2017

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8.1 / 10 242 Ratings

Nuit de Bakélite is a popular perfume by Naomi Goodsir for women and men and was released in 2017. The scent is green-floral. Projection and longevity are above-average. It is still in production.

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Main accords

Green

Floral

Woody

Spicy

Resinous

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Angelica root

Galbanum

Saffron

Heart Notes

Indian tuberose

Davana

Ylang-ylang

Base Notes

Birch tar

Styrax

Cade juniper wood

Karo Karounde

Labdanum

Musk

Perfumer

Isabelle Doyen

Ratings

Scent

8.1242 Ratings

Longevity

8.5212 Ratings

Sillage

8.3212 Ratings

Bottle

7.5184 Ratings

Value for money

7.580 Ratings

Submitted by OPomone, last update on 13.08.2023.

Reviews

13 in-depth fragrance descriptions

01/11/2021

4
Pricing 3
Bottle 10
Sillage 10
Longevity 8.5
Scent

Gold
541 Reviews

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Gold

Top Review 66

Lucky coincidences

Have you ever had a "moment of serendipity" while exploring a new scent?
"Serendipity" - this term, which could be translated as "happy coincidence", came to mind when I first took a closer look at "Nuit de Bakélite" and its creator Isabelle Doyen.

For Christmas, I received a wonderful book from my French friend called "Les Parfumeurs" - dans l'intimité de grands créateurs de parfum" (Harper Collins, 2018).
Here, ten great noses (including Thierry Wasser, Mathilde Laurent, Annick Menardo u. Jean-Claude Ellena, to name but a few) themselves talk about their careers and their profession, but also about very private things.
Isabelle Doyen is also in the mix (p.51-77).
I devoured the text written by her and was particularly pleased with her explanations of various ingredients of "Nuit de B.", as I always find it fascinating when perfumers explain their work.
In addition, there is a lot that I did not know about Madame Doyen, which makes me feel very close to her for personal reasons.
A substance has it Isabelle Doyen namely since her childhood (as well as me) very taken. And that is galbanum. The first perfume she wore as a teenager was "Vent Vert" by Balmain, created by the brilliant Madame Cellier. It contains a very strong galbanum note.
"I found it fascinating," writes Isabelle Doyen. (All the following French passages are translated by me, as the book has not yet been published in German).
"This fascination with galbanum never left me. By the way, it turned out that in Iran produces an excellent galbanum. Later in life, when I met my husband in Pakistan and I learned that he was Iranian, I told him, 'You come from the land of galbanum!' He didn't know what that was, so he just answered 'yes'. ."
It was clear that my future husband possessed a very special aura thanks to this earthy element...".
She goes on to write that her very special life scents include "Chanel No. 19", "Mitsouko", "Miss Dior" and "Femme de Rochas". Of course, these contain galbanum.
Another association with Iran represents her particular love of saffron. "Saffron is my oldest scent memory and because everything overlaps, saffron is also a scent associated with Iran, just like galbanum."
In "Nuit de B.", saffron and galbanum are found in the top notes immediately upon spraying on! Fantastic.
But the fragrance is made particularly exciting by the extraordinary "treatment" that Doyen gives the tuberose. On page 63 of the book "Les Parfumeurs" she speaks of four dreams that she wanted to realize or still wants.
"One of my dreams is to lie down in a field of tuberoses.... and because I have certain little obsessions, I would like it to be fantastic Iranian tuberoses. Tuberose is one of those flowers that hasn't been "destroyed" yet. They have not yet been used in cleaning products beyond all measure, unlike the lilac or the lily of the valley. There are flowers that have really already become caricatures that can repel us, although a small sprig of true lily of the valley can be extraordinarily beautiful for those who love this fragrance. To restore the delicacy of these 'destroyed' fragrances is, in my view, one of the most difficult exercises there is."
There is a very particular tuberose in "Nuit de B.," one that even I, who am not usually a big fan of the note, like. It's a green, airy impression. A tuberose that smells a bit like rootwork and medicine, but also evokes carrot and iris. The galbanum is very much present, especially at the start, but it continues to pull through the scent as it progresses, giving it a certain vintage green charm.
Some tree bark and birch tar can also be detected, but mainly the tuberose in its completely new green spicy guise.
By the way, I am not able to go into the "Bakelite" association, since the substance means nothing to me and I have no memory of the smell of an old tube radio or a telephone made of Bakelite.

"Nuit de B." is unlike any perfume I've smelled before.... (and I have tried many, many). Anyone who chooses this fragrance is wearing something new, something no one has ever created before in this form.
No wonder the fragrance has won various awards: "Prix de l'émotion de l'Olfactorama", "Expert Award of the Fragrance Foundation Awards", "Independent Prize at the 'Art and Olfaction Awards' " in 2018.
I find it particularly exciting that "Nuit de B." ultimately refers to two masterpieces by the great Germaine Cellier, namely "Vent Vert" (1945) and "Fracas" (1948).
In my view, the clever Isabelle Doyen therefore follows in the footsteps of Germaine Cellier with this outstanding work.
Isabelle writes thus:
"But sometimes, too rarely for my taste, one becomes aware that at a very specific moment in a formula, something like MAGIC takes place." (S. 68).
In "Nuit de B." that is really exactly what happens.

P.S. "Serendipity: the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or benificial way":
so glad I found this scent!
(and my husband, coincidentally also Iranian...).
P.P.S. And who sent it to me? The scent, I mean... a very special bunny. Thank you, my dear.

11/23/2019

7
Sillage 7
Longevity 8.5
Scent

Stanze

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Stanze

Top Review 43

In the soft glow of the tube radio

As a child I owned a radio from the company Nordmende. I can't tell today whether it was a Tannhäuser or a Rigoletto. A tube radio, anyway. I turned it on before I fell asleep, trying to find stations in the world. It had such great place names on it. The whole world was open to me, incomprehensible languages and exotic music. In the soft light of the optical display unit I read many a book (although I should have been asleep long ago). The dust on the tubes warmed up and the radio began to emit a slight smell of fiery dust and bakelite. As an amateur radio operator I can travel auditory and olfactory with Nuit de Bakélite to this area of my childhood.

Family tester M also confirms that Nuit de Bakélite smells like bakelite. Because he often broke through buttons on old devices (e.g. his Philips Uranus) and they smelled like Nuit de Bakélite. So maybe it doesn't trigger such a nice memory for him.

In a nutshell, Nuit de Bakélite smells for me flowery-woody-synthetic, because bakelite is synthetic. Not synthetic in the sense of fragrance. Family tester M claims that Nuit de Bakélite smells of new rubber boots at the beginning. That doesn't sound good, but I like it.

After spraying on, the projection is not as strong. But then it becomes much stronger (must first come to operating temperature) and goes back again after a few hours (if the dust is already partially burnt). Unfortunately Nuit de Bakélite doesn't last as well with me as with some others here, about 6 to 7 hours.

Nuit de Bakélite can be worn by woman, man and everyone else all year round at any occasion except sports. Of course, Nuit de Bakélite is particularly suitable for visits or work in technical museums, amateur radio competitions, 50s parties and flea markets

03/27/2021

10
Longevity 9
Scent

Mikadomann
11 Reviews

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Mikadomann

Top Review 51

Hell!

Nuit de Bakelite

I am fascinated by this fragrance now for months.
I have been trying to write a commentary on this fragrance for months.
For months now, I've been trying to put my associations into words.
For months I have been collecting keywords.
For months they've been slipping away.
To hell!

Well, so be it!
Just take that and do with it what you will!

It would never have occurred to me that this fragrance could smell like bakelite.
Of course it didn't. That's because Bakelite is a fully synthetic plastic that is manufactured industrially. It is odorless.

Maybe it's not so hard to depict nature in a fragrance. Everyone knows what a forest smells like. Many know what a cat smells like. But how do you transpose something that doesn't smell at all?

There are two things that clearly contribute to my perception of the scent I want to describe. They are
1. the comments and statements of the other forists and it is
2. the name of the perfume chosen by the artist who created it.

I have never been the first to describe a fragrance here. I have never blindly tested a fragrance without knowing its name.

"A fragrance for ladies and gentlemen" ... For all three genders.

Remarks of the others make impression on me. They co-determine my own impression that I gain from a fragrance. They plough the ground on which my associations fall and prepare it for my own images. It is exactly the same with the name of a fragrance.

I feel tremendously comfortable with this fragrance. It allows me to be a lot more.

I often wonder if the theme hidden in the name of a perfume was there first, and if the artist was trying to translate that theme into a fragrance.
Or is it the other way around? Did the artist create a work of art to which she now gives a name that best captures her olfactory impression?

You can't make odorless things smelly.

Rarely, I think by the way, has a name suited a fragrance as brilliantly as it does this one.
Nuit de Bakélite. Bakelite night...

When I describe a thing, I often start by describing its surface. When I translate a thing into smell, I may be translating its surface.

When I wear this scent, it feels like my shell is hard. I'm not made of Teflon. But when I wear the scent, I don't reveal my personality so quickly. It's a fragrance that keeps my secrets.

A bakelite night: Is without shadow. Creates strong outlines. Creates clear outlines. Is blue. Is green. Is metallic. Like the shell of a beetle. A beetle made of plastic.

I play mahjongg. Not the game you play on the computer to kill time that works like memory. I mean the wonderful game that was famous in the twenties and that has its roots in China. Today most of the tiles are made of plastic. The more beautiful games are made of fine wood. The first old games were made of ivory. Later then the stones were made of Bakelite.

I'm fascinated by this scent. Alienates me from me. Scent makes me think rather than feel.

Some perfumers are designers.
Some perfumers are artists.
Some perfumers are wizards.
Some perfumers are sorcerers.

I would never wear that scent on a date... But I would wear it on a date!

The music that goes with this fragrance is rattling. It speeds up, edgy, angular, whips. The notes describe the sound, not the melody. Suddenly it goes off and the lights come on and all the alcohol is dumped out on the floor.

You can tell exactly when something is special.

When you played the game in the twenties, you could lose a lot of money at it. In the big metropolises, people played it in the back rooms. Long cigarette holders. At dark tables. Lacquered. The wood of the tables-and the fingernails.

"Here's five marks. Go to the supermarket and buy me five kilos of love for it!"
"You can't buy love!"
You can...

It remains something artificial. Even when you look for help in the images of nature. Do I think of flowers by the scent? Anthuriums, perhaps. To me, one of the most unnatural flowers, if that even exists.

If you're lucky, you can still find one of these among antiques. You can feel the difference between plastic and bakelite quickly

"The world that is moons." Rilke

The Bakelite game pieces are spread out on the table and shuffled. When the tiles bump into each other, a sound is made: a bright click that in China has been compared to the chirping of sparrows. Mahjongg is called the "sparrow game" there.

The scent pyramid doesn't help me at all. I smell angelica, too. But what good does that do? I think all the ingredients only serve to create a flat surface that a dewdrop, rain, or bead of sweat would run down.

I remember a painting. A portrait of an expressionist. The woman's face red. Nose and chin pointed. Hair black like a triangular tower. Deep circles under her eyes. Lips shaped like lightning. If the painted woman had worn this scent, her face should have been painted green.

When fingernails over plastic cats, you can break off. When fingernails glide over bakelite, you feel as if you could dig them into the plastic and little moons would be left behind.

The surface of old Bakelite doesn't feel as cold as our plastic does today. It's cool in the hand and quickly becomes pleasantly warm and then there's something waxy about it.

The scent is a shape-shifter. A shape-shifter on my skin. He uses it as a projection screen for himself. In that way, it is the most egotistical fragrance I have ever worn.

Now I'm sure. It must be distinctly easier to bottle a walk in the woods than a craggy, angular lump of plastic.

There's no love story being told here, and there's no passion. Cool attraction, perhaps... But that will be gone tomorrow.

The first impression is a little smoky. But that's already the gentlest association.

The light shapes the surface. Bakelite does not shine. It is rather, as if the material swallows the light and throws back only the rest of the light, which it keeps left.
The surface shimmers. If there were a word: candle-cold...

The men have no hair on their chests. They have no hair at all - anywhere. They're shaved - all over. But this isn't about skin either. More like white, stiff linen. No: the stuff the shirt is made of must be more artificial.

I still smell that scent on me days later. On my hands and on my clothes. In my car. And whenever I smell it, I think: It's still there.

The amber night has seeped into its own darkness. Here is the ballroom in artificial light. Men with their hand on the ladies' knee and their eyes on the waiter's lips. Ambre Nuit would be laughed out of here.

You don't wear this flower in your buttonhole. You wear it in your belt buckle.

The knight does not wear armor of steel.

Now with all that, do what you will.
After all, the scent does that too...

03/16/2020

10
Bottle 8
Sillage 8
Longevity 9.5
Scent

FvSpee
246 Reviews

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FvSpee

Top Review 34

Bakelite~Night

I had been looking forward to the Nuit de Bakélite test, because I vaguely remembered having read many good things about it. However, because of the name I had expected a rather bulky, difficult scent. When the time came last night, it was (again) one of those rare moments when I knew I had an exceptional fragrance right under my nose. And a not at all bulky one at that. Nuit de Bakélite is of overwhelming beauty; a gentle but dense and tightly woven fragrance~fabric; dreamlike and wide awake, pacifying and invigorating; grounding and uplifting. This night is flowery, that much is certain; beyond that, my descriptive vocabulary fails here as well: There are no comparisons and no images, hardly any adjectives, and if there are, they seem too trivial. You can't go wrong with a characterization as 'green' with a lot of galbanum, but to be honest, I wouldn't even have thought of that on my own. Besides, it seems to me that everyone feels the Bakelite night differently, as if it were a mirror or a canvas, so that there would be nothing left but to subject oneself to the sensory experience
It is enough to have a look at the previous comments and short comments, most of which are fascinating, but hardly any of them agree in their description. I can't understand some things either, neither the dust from Parma's hymn, nor the (name-giving) resin from Stanze's whimsical memory. Therefore I have to ask again for understanding that I abstain from a description and limit myself to my almost mute admiration and enthusiasm for Nuit de Bakélite. And to a few paragraphs on secondary aspects of the fragrance, far enough away from the unspeakable centre that I can find words for it:

Naomi Goodsir is a brand that I didn't know until very recently, but I think it's worth testing. So far there are only about half a dozen fragrances. How Mrs. Goodsir has managed this, I do not know either. The lady herself seems to be a somewhat older and kinky Australian businesswoman with a penchant for the artistic, who "makes fashion and fragrances"; and for her small fragrance series she has hired two experienced perfumers from different "stables": Mr Julien Rasquinet and, for this fragrance, Mrs Isabelle Doyen. In spite of these "coincidences", the line is characterized by a uniform character: the fragrances impress as special, innovative and of high quality. They are all a little soft and dreamy, and despite all the artificiality (in the old, best sense of the word), at least in my opinion, absolutely wearable. The prices for niche fragrances are not yet in the red range (50 ml 140 Euro).

With a fragrance of this exceptional goodness, I take a closer look at the perfumer. Mrs. Doyen has worked almost exclusively for Annick Goutal up to now and is responsible for some very beautiful fragrances known to me, which I found so special and peculiar that even years after testing them, they are still in my nose, such as the almost simultaneously created, very similar and both very beautiful "Ambre Fétiche" and "Encense Flamboyant", the really very beautiful and unfortunately already discontinued "Mimosa" and the highly original "Ninfeo Mio" (which always makes me think of a delicious green salad with dill and lemon juice) Also the "Eau de Monsieur" is from her, which I bought once, but then found to be too volatile and too little special. I feel a connection to this artist, but the Bakelite Night should be her masterpiece
Although I had not yet had the bottle in my hand, I give him ten points. The glass is of clear, simple form, functional and yet beautiful; I love this kind of packaging, which is a worthy setting for a beautiful work of art. With the small bottle (50 ml), of course, the cap seems somewhat oversized and reminds me of a lampshade. A nice one though. Even more beautiful is the label, for which - especially for the typeface~Type and the extreme concentration, I would also have liked to give 11 points.

From now on I will also rate the name of the fragrance in every fragrance comment. This one gets an even ten. As the names of this series are all very beautiful, so is Iris Cendré (which is also a nice fragrance, by the way!). They would all be worthy of a beautiful, literary translation into German, which could then also appear on the label in gently historicizing letters. "Waechserne Schwert~Lilie" would then have to be the name of the fragrance just mentioned, and this one would have to be called "Nacht von Bakelit" or even better "Bakelit~Nacht", possibly with a double and diagonal wave as a dividing line, as found in some old prints. I don't know why this scent is called "Nuit de Bakélite", because it doesn't seem very dark to me, nor do I smell (unlike punch) synthetic resin. But the highest score is given because the name is short and yet tremendously concise. And even more poetic. My goodness, how beautiful this is: "Bakelite~night": what a picture! A night as black as bakelite, that old synthetic resin, from which 100 years ago the telephones with the heavy handsets and buzzing forks and the light switches with rotary knob were made; a picture as "pitch-black", but at the same time this tension of nature and artificiality: The night, when we think of a starry night or a love night, of original, natural, and then the plastic, which is again not a despicable and poisonous PVC, but an antique product of the chemical industry. As long as such names that hit the heart are still possible, how embarrassing are the garrulous word creations, for which the label must have excess length.

My assessment of poetic beauty and wearability of the fragrance is not undisputed. Mrs. von Spee perceived "aircraft fuel" as the predominant note, and professional co-tester B "Hubba-Bubba and toilet stones". Both rated Nuit de Bakélite on a scale from zero to ten at about minus three. To what extent this will influence my considerations for buying the fragrance remains to be seen.

I don't give ten points for the fragrance, if only to prevent Parma from becoming jealous. I'm not going to deny him his mistress.

08/07/2019

10
Scent

FrauHolle
58 Reviews

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FrauHolle

Very helpful Review 35

Aircraft propeller acquittal

First of all, of course, contradiction, to all 25 quick-time statement typists and virtuoso comment writers.
Tuberose may be in it, but it can't be smelled. Tuberose smells much rosier and more tubiger.

So let's get immediately to the main actor in the fragrance: Angelica root (or fem. Angelica root):
Poison.

Homoeopaths at that time (1905) were desperate for this witch's herb root, found by chance, quasi as a by-product of coal distillation, because even with a dilution down, or Potentiation on D 7634 still left some olfactory impressions on the test persons, who then settled down as a registered association, AWV (Angie-Wutz-Verein), and founded a perfume manufactory under the name 'Naomi Goodsir', in order to market the stuff, of which they now had enough, under a catchy name.

What a lot of people don't know: Waste products from this highly toxic (C6-H6-O.C-H2-O)x compound have been processed into all kinds of hard plastic knick-knacks for simplicity's sake, such as black telephones with turntables and detachable handsets. (affluent society, high-lift, and forklift)

So if you listen very closely to the bottle, you can still imagine it today, the quiet reputation of fountain pens, radios and printed circuit boards. Hach, I could write an audio book about it.

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