Posted by Angela
on
12 March 2008
Last night before I went out for a drink with a friend, I sprayed one Eau de Toilette on my left wrist and another on my right wrist. I went into the living room, held out my arms wrists up, and said to my friend, “What do you think of these perfumes?”
She sniffed each wrist and said, “This one smells kind of light and alcohol-y. That one is a diva. It's really strong and reminds me of something…”
“Leather?” I asked. “Yes!” she said, “Like shoes.”
“Well,” I told her, “They're the same perfume: Diorling by Christian Dior. This one —” Here I pointed with some disgust at the wrist with the light, fizzy scent, “Is the new version. The other one is the old one.”
Paul Vacher, the nose behind the sublime Miss Dior, created Diorling in 1963. Diorling is a leather chypre with its leather front-loaded…
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Posted by Angela
on
31 July 2007
In 1927, Jeanne Lanvin asked André Fraysse to create a perfume for her daughter’s 30th birthday. Fraysse was only 27 years old, but with Paul Vacher’s help he created what is often recognized as the second great aldehydic floral fragrance, and one of the five most esteemed in the world: Arpège.
Hubert Fraysse reformulated Arpège in 1993. I haven’t smelled the original Arpège, but the consensus seems to be that the reformulation is a respectful play on the original. Combining Osmoz and Basenotes’s information for the newest version of Arpège yields topnotes of aldehydes, bergamot, neroli, and peach; a heart of jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, ylang ylang, coriander, and tuberose; and a base of sandalwood, vanilla, tuberose, vetiver, patchouli, and styrax.
Where Chanel No. 5 is languid, Arpège is full-bodied. If No. 5 is a vase of summer flowers, then Arpège is that same vase three days later, flowers ripe and spicy, with a dirtier base…
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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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