Carnet de Bal Revillon 1937

The Revillon family was originally a furrier business that launched its first perfumes in the 1930s (which also applies to the houses WEIL and Durer, although Durer only post-war and more leather than fur)

The furs at that time, due to the chemicals used in tanning and further processing, had such a penetrating smell that the manufacturers included fragrances to mask the mauvais odeur. (For example, at Weil, the fragrances are even named after furs, i.e. Hermine, Zibeline, Chinchilla Royal, Antilope, etc.)

Carnet de Bal is also such a fragrance, strong, heavy, wicked... that can definitely compete with a Vol de Nuit, Scandal, or Shocking from the same era.

Carnet de Bal is the French word for "dance card," yes, such a thing used to exist... and seems rather repressed and bourgeois in today's time, which cannot be attributed to this fragrance at all. Its pronounced animalistic base note strikes me as very erotic and even androgynous.

The last remnants in my surely 30-year-old bottle must have long gone off, but it still allows for conclusions about a magnificent masterpiece of its time. The original extrait bottle resembled, quite illustriously, a cognac snifter and was also used for the first version of the Revillon fragrance DETCHEMA.