7ᵉ Sens

Septième Sens

Sonia Rykiel 1979 Eau de Parfum

Perhaps the most carnal of chypres I ever laid my nose on, Septième Sens is not only so very sensuous but mysterious, almost cabalistic in its design. It's as tortuous and erotic as a Fassbinder film, exploiting lust through its lecherous gaze. It's like a man in a sailor hat and y-fronts blending civet, castoreum, and plum paste with mortar and pestle, under bright, confrontational aldehydic lighting. It's a bar and brothel, it is cocktails and just plain %@! It's a major no-no that I give a resounding yes to.

The slurry of sex is peppered with sticky honey and pin-prick narcissus and devilish dianthus, a narcotic nectar that seems well suited for a 2am jaunt for some mischief. It's the mist through dark wooded patches, damp, sweaty moss mounds, silhouettes lurking after hours, strange angels peering through like voyeurs under the moonlight. It simmers down into the sexiest skin scent, like cigarettes after sex, nuzzle-into-hairy-chest-or-arm-or-who-knows-what, and when one ends up wherever, the possibilities are endless.

Sonia Rykiel. No, she may not have been one of the prettiest designers of her time who shaped the world of fashion. She had the most piercing and cold gray-green eyes I had ever seen. Even then, she wore a Smoky-Eyes look. Her coral-red hair always looked like it had just fought with a cat. The primary color of her clothing was predominantly black. She mostly wore dresses and long skirts. On her thin lips, which usually bore only a half-smile, bright red lipstick stood out. And her pale complexion already appeared ghostly and not exactly healthy. Her personal look would today be described as Black Avant-Garde in fashion. No, she was not the prettiest, but she was one of the most charismatic, mysterious, and remarkable fashion icons of the 80s. She brought knitwear to the runways of the world and became internationally famous with her black-and-white creations. In 1979, she launched her first fragrance called 7e Sense. A perfume in whose fine mesh one can quickly become entangled! Sometimes we get closer to a designer than we might like by wearing their perfume. Sometimes we look so deeply into their soul that we feel we might drown in it. But some perfumes are not just worn; one is carried by them. Or, as in the case of Sonia Rykiel’s 7e Sense, simply swept away and enveloped by the deepest, protective darkness!

7e Sense
The perfume initially starts off quite harmless with masses of fragrant aldehydes, but that changes soon. Overzealous jasmine and various other floral notes from cloves and daffodils rise up. Fruity notes sneak in. A light sweetness gently resonates. In this case, it is the ripe scent of peaches. All the previous notes linger in airy heights for a while until they are literally torn down to the earth. Dark tones of patchouli come forth like gloomy shadows. It smells of damp, warm earth and gently smoky peat. The scent of darkest green-brown moss mingles with herby-spicy coriander leaves. Everything is underscored by a deep olfactory, animalistic growl from leathery castoreum and sour civet. Comparable to a predator that threateningly lifts its lips and shows its fangs, from which a deep, warm, menacing or lustful rumble emerges. Here, danger literally hangs in the air!

Conclusion
What is the best comparison for 7e Sense? It is most comparable to a solar eclipse. One's own radiance is darkened by the perfume like through a fog of mysterious, fragrant anti-matter. One is almost swallowed by it. But not entirely! A delicate, glowing outline of personality remains. This may sound terrible, but it is by no means so. Through this powerful shadow that lays upon one, one feels very safe and protected inside. Calm, silence, and incredible strength pulsate at the center of the darkness. One feels almost a little invulnerable! Whatever Sonia Rykiel wanted to convey with her signature scent will likely remain her secret forever. It seems to me that she created this fragrance solely to protect herself. To protect herself from what lurks out there! She has woven such a fine, tightly-knit, black net of melancholic and dark notes that the fragile soul behind it almost disappears. 7e Sense by Sonia Rykiel is, personally speaking, one of the heaviest, most mysterious, profound, and unfathomable perfumes I have encountered in a very long time.

And that... may mean something!

She's not crazy, she's different.
- Sonia Rykiel-

When it dusk
When the night awakens

Then it gets eyes
The darkness

The full buds break open

Releasing their nectar
Covered by long shadows

Slowly the earth opens
And spicy mist rises

Dull wood shimmers
Wet with honey-brown resin

Ripe fruit falls softly
Dipping into dark warm moss

Flexible movement
Lurking in the grass

All senses tense
The heart beats in sensory ecstasy

The owl cries
Morning approaches

Twilight preserves
The mystical dream

This idea scares me. The 7th sense for everything? Or is it sometimes just a gut feeling, an instinct? Feelings, sensations, experiences. To sense something and not be able to explain it. If we could, we would be almost perfect. There are no perfect people, and if there were, everything would be boring, empty, and without contradictions. We wouldn't need psychiatrists or psychologists anymore. Every day we would float on pink clouds with harp sounds in the background.
But even the 6th sense is ghostly. After all, Haley Joel Osment saw dead people in "The Sixth Sense." I don’t want to see dead people, not even those who have long since passed away and whom I loved dearly. They leave me alone, and that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s also because I am neither religious nor spiritual.
Let’s stay briefly with some senses. It is also said: “The 5 senses are no longer in harmony.” I am currently experiencing this with my mother, who is slipping away from me more and more.
Oh, I don’t want to bring anyone down here. So why am I writing this? Because this fragrance has touched me deeply.
At first, I thought Aldehydes! Soap foam! Beautiful but wonderful soap sprinkled with lots of flowers. Odd to pack this into the top note. These flowers compete with each other, and for a while, I think they are drowning each other. Stay a while, you are so beautiful! They linger, but then add fruits to the mix, which bothers me a bit. The plum dominates a little. But that passes quickly. Get lost and go into a jar of plum puree!
What are you? An animalistic oriental? A cat in green pants and red curls is tapping with Papa Beaver on Beaver Castle, while he sucks on his sandalwood cigar and rubs his mossy legs with patchouli? Not an oriental! An animalistic chypre of its time! However, the animalic aspect is cleverly woven in here. It floats along but does not dominate!
Septìème is dark, but not gloomy. All-encompassing and enveloping with warm velvet. Difficult and demanding!
Sonia Rykiel (1930-2016), daughter of Jewish immigrants to France, built an empire in the 1970s with avant-garde knitwear. The company went bankrupt in 2019.
About this perfume, she said: “Wearing a perfume means extending oneself, merging, and immersing into something. It means leaving something behind that causes wild strangers to turn around twice. The first time to look and the second time to wonder what they have smelled.”

In the dark, the light awaits seekers. Those who do not know what they are searching for. Or that they are even searching at all. They know nothing and only feel. Something is different, something is missing, a hole gnaws at the soul, even though everything seems to be in order in the life outside.
And this void inside seems to say to them: "Set out on your journey!"
Those (non-)seekers, who may be found by something out there - or within - follow a secret magnetism. That drive within us, described by Abraham Maslow, the founding father of Humanistic Psychology, as the need for growth, the need for self-actualization, and ultimately for transcendence.

When this unknown destination finds you, it will dissolve at the very moment. And yet you continue to feel its embrace. What you were missing - of which you previously did not know you were missing - was always there. You just couldn’t see it because you were searching in the outside world for representatives of your longings. Those that could never satisfy you; for they were hollow, just like your inner self now. When you reach for them, they crumble to dust, which they had previously scattered in your eyes. Blinded in this way and dazzled by external shine, you wandered aimlessly through your life. The mind, of course, sees it differently, like a thrown stone that believes it can fly because it wants to. You can already sense it: a crash landing is pre-programmed. It is not a misfortune, not a failure - even if it often feels that way - but merely a logical consequence. An opportunity to recalibrate the compass.

Such a break shakes our self-image and worldview as well as our established standards for knowledge, success, and partnership. We stand on shaky ground. The alarmist self senses a catastrophe as soon as it loses control and seeks quick exit strategies. But the way out leads THROUGH - as C. G. Jung knew. And this THROUGH transforms the break into a breakthrough. Into a space of new possibilities. It is a kind of zero position, where we initially feel lost; a radically open in-between. But from here, a real fresh start is possible, a departure into a new, expanded version of ourselves. A rapture, like being reborn, an ascent like a phoenix from the ashes. And it is the still warm ashes of the break-landing that now provide us with the buoyant thermals...

____________________

The scent journey of 7e Sens reminds me of such a break-through-departure process. It begins friendly and familiar vintage-perfumy with plenty of bright aldehydes, fresh, green, and dark-floral. Life is in order and goes its usual way.
Gradually, first doubts gnaw through, subtly undermining the easy-going vibe. The previous roadmap seems no longer fit for purpose.
Olfactorily, after the cheerful KN, it becomes darker, ripe-fruity, and soon slightly disharmonious, as if a string on the musical instrument were out of tune. But the others are not yet. Overripe floral notes seem to evoke this impression. They too sing of the end of something that has been.

Soon dark dissonances cast their shadows over the proceedings and soon dominate it; life is urinating on your leg - apparently, highly dosed Zibi and Bibi take on this task.
Question marks float through the room, the familiar has given way to the unknown. A no man's land, not empty, just unknown. New assignments must be found to feel at home again.
Endure, just don’t run away... THROUGH!

Patience is also rewarded by the scent journey. The angular, strict animalic notes gradually recede, and the breakthrough to the harmonious side of the base is finally achieved. It initially presents itself as dark green-spicy and coriander-soapy, soon pure musk emerges, more warming than demanding animalic, supported by soft-aromatic sandalwood.
Like a reward, like an embrace, the deep softness of the amber-grassy base gifts itself to you. Caressing, pleading, and enchanting.
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Special thanks again to @Estefania