videecco

The war is over, I've worked in pants in an arms factory and cleared rubble in my town. My girlies and I did it all without the help of men. Now society wants us to go back to the kitchen. But I keep a spirit of freedom and joy in my soul in this spring of our lives. Some of my friends wear l'Air du Temps, which came out a year apart. We are young and the new era is full of promises. A new wind, tenderly green like a young shoot, is sweeping up the past.

If I were a young woman in 1947, this would be my perfume. It bears an air of kinship with Hermès Iris Ukiyoé (Ellena, 2010) while not being the same.

I'm testing the vintage and the current side to side. Difference wise, the vintage has a more proeminent galbanum in the opening. This use of galbanum at such a high concentration was a first with Cellier being a ceiling breaker in the world of perfumery. Without being flippant, yes, the vintage is better.

My favorite vintage so far in testing some of Les Cent Onze Parfums Qu'il Faut Sentir Avant de Mourir.

Smells like the colors: green and orange. Vibe: light, young, and cheerful.

I don't want to smell like a cupcake. Ever. I'm an intellectual in my late forties, come on! (read it in a tongue in cheek tone)

But I just found my vanilla perfume.

It's dark. It's stark. Almost goth.

La Treizième Heure from Cartier opens in a haze of wood smoke and a healthy dose of birch tar. Think Naomi Goodsir Bois d'Ascèse. Complement it with the faintest whiff of earthy patchouli. I'm not a fan of this patchouli either but in La Treizième Heure... the subtle, ghostly, transient note just clicks perfectly into place with the rest of the composition. It's not a base, fixative note as you'd expect.

I've always told myself that if I found a perfume that imitates raw, fermented ethiopian vanilla pods, without an ounce of sugar, I'd cave. This is it. It's exactly that. No cupcake in sight, or if there is, it sat by the campfire, by the roadside, in a leather jacket, under many dark starry nights.

This perfume is more than the enumeration of its notes. It's black magic. It changes depending if you apply it on paper or skin, revealing an evasive, polymorphic nature.

French readers can read a beautiful text about it in Les Cent Onze Parfums Qu'il Faut Sentir Avant de Mourir.

Discovering La Treizième Heure almost makes me regret that we are easing into spring. But all good things come to those who wait.

Smells like the color: Black. Mood: Dark and sensual.

This is a perfect study in contrasts: warm and cool, bitter and soft, bright and dark. Like a spring day where you get snow, rain, sun and warmth in the same 24 hours.

It opens with a hit of bitter, green, bright galbanum and neroli, not unlike Décléor's Néroli skincare line. Then the narcissus deploys, never equine nor animalic. Soft, blue, powdery, addictive musks and a hint of orris close the narrative.

There is a reason why this is in Nez's Les cent onze parfums qu'il faut sentir avant de mourir: there is nothing quite like it. Too bad it was discontinued, but not surprising either. It's out of the beaten path for a "cologne".

Overal a deep, calm, cerebral dream.

Smells like the colors: orange and blue.

This is as green as you can get. It begins with a blast of bitter, green galbanum, fresh cut grass, tomato leaf, and cracked pea pods. It dries on smooth, clean, federative musks.

Matches my distant memory of GAP Grass, but better.

To me Corsica smells like a bouquet of aromatics, but not this. But it is a beautiful perfume nonetheless, very wearable, even addictive, and a favorite for rainy spring days.

Smells like the color: lime green.

A very innovative powdery, not relying on orris root or violet, but on a molecule called Orivone, according to Nez's Les cent onze parfums qu'il faut sentir avant de mourir.

As a child, I would tag along with my parents when they'd visit historical place after historical place. All had this smell of old, dry wood, and some of these being mills, you could still smell the flour. Bois Farine is all that to me.

Unsurprisingly, given my olfactive association, it has this regressive quality to me. I've been using this fragrance in times when I needed comfort or to favor restful sleep as an overnight scent.

Yes, it does smell like flour, like the flour that fills the air when you scatter it on a wooden working area to roll out or knead the dough. A dry, toasted, non-sweet almond is also present, peeking discreetly in gourmand territory. And the woods are wonderfully dry, dry, dry.

Although discreete à la Ellena, it has a treatcherous trailing and can fill a space after you have left...

Smells like the color: blond wood/beige