Posted by Angela
on
7 March 2011
We stopped at the estate sale on a whim. A friend and I had just spent the afternoon on a rainy hike. The dog was sacked out in the back seat. A hot bath and nap waited at home, but a sign to the estate sale beckoned from the main road. “Do you want to stop in? It should only take a minute,” I said, fibbing just a little.
My friend was a good sport and pulled over in front of the modest house. Since it was late on Sunday, pickings were slim. The remaining furniture and lamps showed a grandmotherly house that had its last major redecorating in the early 1960s. A card table held a dented cocktail shaker and some gold-rimmed highball glasses. A box of greeting cards, used, sat on a coffee table. Some were written in blue fountain pen that had started to fade to brown. Two partially-full boxes of spiral incense from Japan kept recipe booklets company on an end table. Hanging on a bedroom door was a full Shriner’s outfit, from booties to cap.
All this was intriguing fodder for the imagination. (Did she travel to Japan at some point and bring back incense, then discover she couldn’t get the darned things to stay lit? Did she throw the cocktail shaker at her randy brother-in-law and that’s why it’s banged up? Did her husband die in a freakish fraternal lodge-related incident involving miniature cars?) But it wasn’t why I came to the sale.
Then I found it: a quarter ounce of Lucien Lelong Indiscret extrait…
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Posted by Angela
on
9 February 2009
I thought I was doing pretty well at the thrift store this weekend. I'd already scored a sapphire blue quilted bathrobe from the 1950s with a full skirt and black passementerie and I'd snagged a 1960s soap dish made of laminate with tiny shells suspended in it, but my big find was around the corner: a bottle of Schiaparelli Shocking “Eau de Parfum Mist” for two bucks. “Shocking” was scrawled across its hot pink label in the same kind of font that came out of the back of Samantha's broom in the opening credits of Bewitched. Even better, it still smelled all right.
That night before I settled in to watch an old movie (in my new robe, naturally) I sprayed the vintage Shocking on one arm and the new Shocking on my other arm. “Shocking” is right! They were two different fragrances with only a vague family resemblance, more like cousins than sisters. Charming cousins, for sure, but you wouldn't mistake one for the other.
Schiaparelli Shocking was released in 1937 and was developed by perfumer Jean Carles, one of the creators of Christian Dior Miss Dior and the nose behind Dana Tabu and many of the Lucien Lelong fragrances. Shocking was packaged in a bottle shaped like a torso, and supposedly modeled after a dress form of Mae West that Schiaparelli had in storage…
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Posted by Angela
on
11 August 2008
Welcome to a week of reviews of drugstore classics. It seems fitting to start the week with a review of Dana Tabu, one of the most loved, reviled, illustrious, and cheap of the perfumes you'll find at the local Walgreen's.
In 1932, Jean Carles, the nose behind such genius compositions as Christian Dior Miss Dior (with Paul Vacher), Carven Ma Griffe, Schiaparelli Shocking, and many of the Lucien Lelong fragrances, created Tabu. Legend has it that Dana, originally a Spanish company, gave Carles instructions to create a perfume that would suit a “puta”, or prostitute. Tabu was Dana's very first fragrance…
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Posted by Robin
on
12 September 2005
Miss Dior was released by Christian Dior in 1947, shortly after the success of his groundbreaking “New Look” collection. It was Dior’s first perfume, and was created by either Paul Vacher or Jean Carles (or possibly both), under the direction of Dior’s childhood friend Serge Heftler-Louiche. The fragrance notes include gardenia, galbanum, clary sage, aldehydes, jasmine, rose, neroli, narcissus, iris, carnation, lily of the valley, patchouli, labdanum, oakmoss, ambergris, sandalwood, vetiver, and leather.
Miss Dior was said to have been influenced by both Chypre de Coty and Vent Vert (see Michael Edwards, Perfume Legends). It starts strong and sharp…
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Posted by Robin
on
17 May 2005
Ma Griffe was launched in 1946 by the design house Carven. It was created by nose Jean Carles, who had apparently completely lost his sense of smell by that time (see Michael Edwards, Perfume Legends, p. 96). The fragrance notes are gardenia, greens, galbanum, citrus, aldehydes, clary sage, jasmine, rose, sandalwood, vetiver, orris, ylang ylang, styrax, oakmoss, cinnamon, musk, benzoin, and labdanum.
Ma Griffe is classified as a floral chypre. The top notes are an aggressive burst of greens and citrus notes…
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