Pierre Guillaume speaks of Papyrus de Ciane, the new Parfumerie Générale

Monday morning. The first floor of the Café de Flore in Saint-Germain-des-Pré is quickly filling up with chic Left Bank intellectuals. Pierre Guillaume strides in, shaking the sleet off his coat. This man, whose existed I once doubted -- I found him too prolific and way too decorative to be so gifted -- really does have the dark French movie star looks of those beefcake pictures on his Facebook wall, but today he’s fully clothed, and definitely more talkative. As I'm quite a chatterbox myself, it's all we can do not to stray from the purpose of our meeting, his new Papyrus de Ciane.

Pierre Guillaume composed this "vegetal green sheath" as a setting for the legendary Mousse de Saxe -- a de Laire base composed to set off isobutyl quinolin, which is found in Caron's Nuit de Noël. In fact, "Mousse de Saxe", a name that had lapsed into the public domain, now belongs to Parfumerie Générale, and Pierre Guillaume is toying with the idea of launching an "off" line of historic bases, non-IFRA compliant and conceived solely as objects of contemplation... Starting with the Mousse de Saxe, of course (to know more about it, click to Octavian Coifan's dazzlingly erudite post).

Just for that idea, you'd want to smother Pierre Guillaume with kisses. He probably wouldn't object: after all, he says he composes perfumes to be loved...

Talking scents over hot chocolate and the Flore's classic Pouilly Ladoucette...

A Scent by Issey Miyake, Untitled by Martin Margiela, Cristalle Eau Verte by Chanel… Papyrus de Ciane comes smack in the midst of a green wave, isn't it?

I felt like doing green. When A Scent came out, we'd already carried out the dermatological tests. I was pretty worried! But actually, they're very different. Everything I’m composing right now is more green than hesperidic. Just as some time ago, I felt like doing vanilla or oud. We launched L'Eau Guerrière in 2008 and the following year, the market was flooded with oud. I'm glad I came in at the start of the trend, even though I live out in the sticks!

What set you off for Papyrus de Ciane?

I wanted to re-appropriate the Mousse de Saxe, to turn it into a Pierre Guillaume: something that would please me, because when I compose perfumes, I only think of pleasing myself. It's a totally selfish process.

But there were a lot of birthing pains. This base is so invasive, it has so much personality that depending on the dosage, it can dominate all the other notes. In Papyrus, we put in 5%. Even 6% would have been too much, and would have pulled it towards something that's already been done. I really tried to use the Mousse de Saxe for its aura, its cachet, its elegance, the quality it can distill into a fragrance. It is a kind of olfactory multi-plug, like all the other de Laire bases: Ambre 83 or Bouvardia. Or Prunol... They offer so many possibilities.

As Octavian Coifan explains in his post about the Mousse de Saxe, those bases pretty much spelled out the future of perfumery.

They are fundamentals. I couldn't do without them, just as I couldn't do without bergamot. The Mousse de Saxe is a perfume in itself, it's gorgeous. I'm not saying I could wear it, but to contemplate... I'm not sure I could have a Van Gogh in my living room either. For me, the notion of perfume as a work of art raises that issue.

It was while I was trying to find a new cradle for the Mousse de Saxe that the idea of green imposed itself as I was correcting my trials. I'd started out with a slightly ozonic floral, but I completely changed my tack because it was too dissonant: it became contemporary art. I try not to lapse into the conceptual with my perfumes. I want them to please, not to be too intellectualized, and that isn't easy. I'm often tempted to do these beautiful things that are un-wearable. My notebooks are filled with formulas that would delight you as a perfume erudite, but I need to connect with my customers...

I still get the feeling you often flirt with difficult, un-pretty or uncommon notes in your compositions.

Certain types of ugliness can be mesmerizing.

Have you used real Mousse de Saxe?

Yes, because I've had access to the original de Laire bases and I've worked with "old-timers", the seasoned perfumers who worked in the wings… They taught me the tricks of the trade.

I tried not to disfigure the formula while remaining IFRA-compliant. The base itself isn't IFRA-compliant but the percentage at which we've used it is.

The Mousse de Saxe is a very rich, very dark note, with the licorice aspect of quinolins. Geranium brings a freshness, a roundness, it gives amplitude to the note. That's what's so fabulous from the technical point of view. The problem is that in a composition, this amplitude eats up all the other notes. And the high quantity of quinolins makes it smell a bit dated on skin. Using Silvanone, a blend of macrocyclic musks from Givaudan, softened it. It makes it more modern, more immediately likable. Closer to what I feel like smelling on a woman's skin right now. I also tamed it with a captive base called Nevenolide, a white, cottony, very powdery musk to add even more softness.

The "roots" give off balsamic notes that smell a little like benzoin...

There is no benzoin, but you're right, there is a slightly smoky balsamic effet. It gives a base to the fragrance. In most green perfumes, the tail-end of the heart notes act as base notes, rather than there being a real base. I like a fragrance to have a beginning, a middle and an ending. I don't like it when it's just the complexity of the heart that acts as the drydown. That's what I don't like about A Scent: a first burst that determines purchase, a very catchy floral heart, and then, in the base, not much going on, just the heart notes dying out.

A Scent, like Cristalle Eau verte, is deliberately built to be baseless.

I call those "basket-case perfumes": they only have top and heart notes. I wear those when I want to freshen up after the gym -- I work out every day from 12 to 2... Usually, I don't wear fragrance except when I'm testing what I've been working on. I have very tricky skin, everything turns on me. On the other hand, that means my stuff is usually pretty stable.

Like all your fragrances, Papyrus de Ciane is an androgynous creature.

I have that ambiguity inside of me. If I were asked to compose a typically feminine fragrance, I'd be bored to tears because I couldn't enjoy wearing it. Just as I would be with a basic masculine fougère... Monsieur smells of lavender and mint, madame smells of orange blossom and rose, I can't stand that. When I composed Felanilla, for instance, I wanted a non-gourmand vanilla, one that would be different. It ended up being my number 5 best-seller, despite being expensive and having very off-putting top notes. I like it when things get a little messed up, when they get a bit out of hand.

I've often noticed that in your fragrances, whether it's the chocolate musk of Musc Maori or the white beer note in Cuir Venenum…

In Musc Maori, the musk is ethylene brassylate glycol, which has a toasted bread facet. The white musk is a mug of Nestlé Quik! I thought it would be fun to drag musk into the breakfast nook! The ethylene brassylate glycol is there to dilute the chocolate: it's actually a base, lactaine, that brings about this very brief chocolate facet. But the perfume doesn't stop there. Chocolate comes in during the second half of the top notes, lingers a bit at the start of the heart notes and then they turn into an abstract bouquet of linalool and rose oxyde, which create a bursting soap bubble effect. Then it falls back on a classic light amber scheme. But the fragrance doesn't actually leave a chocolate smell on skin.

Chocolate is actually a pretty complex smell, with civet facets…

Cocoa absolute is vegetal civet. When you squish the bean, your fingers smell like ass!

It also smells a bit like castoreum…

That’s the fun of it. It tails off into so many different things, and it’s that treasure hunt that’s so interesting. We had a perfume in the collection, a kind of joke called Haramens. It was an oud accord with a crème anglaise [light custard sauce] tinged with cardamom and it was un-wearable: an unidentified olfactory object, a UOO! You can always do weird stuff, but I’m happier when the girl who doesn’t know much, or the guy at my health club, tell me “When I wear that perfume you gave me I feel like I’m wearing something beautiful.” It’s just raw emotion, a message you’ve put across. I’m proud of that feedback. It’s basic narcissism. It’s « love me ». That’s all !

I get the feeling that Papyrus de Ciane references the history of perfumery – whether this was deliberate or not. First the galbanum, which anchors it to the green chypres of the 70s – N°19, for instance, or Private Collection…

There was something sexual about the perfumes of that decade, but not sexual-dirty. There’s a picture you put up on your blog [Charlotte Rampling as the Venus in Furs by Helmut Newton] that epitomizes what I feel about 1970s perfumery. You can’t see anything, but it’s very arousing. 1970s perfumes had that subliminal power of sexual suggestion which I don’t find in the perfumes of the 1980s. Culturally, I have no perfume references for that decade, nothing that makes me say “If only I could’ve done that…”

The green top notes really feel like dark sap.

The galbanum we used isn’t essential oil, it’s a Givaudan base. It’s an interesting galbanum because it doesn’t evolve into fatty or ugly notes on skin. But it has a bitterness that is emphasized by the vetiver in the base notes. It creates a kind of bitter brightness that really pulls the scent towards vegetal notes.

The heart notes undergo this really weird transformation. They start out with a watery aspect then as they evolve they morph into aromatic-leathery facets reminiscent of Cabochard or Bandit, the second set of classic references of Papyrus de Ciane.

And what do you think produces that leather note?

I’d say mugwort and incense.

Bravo! There is mugwort, and cistus labdanum essential oil, which I always use to obtain the leather note. This is what allows me to segue into the leather note of the Mousse de Saxe: it’s the bridge. With oleoresin incense, clove oil, a bit of lavender and vetiver. The heart is marquetry. A juxtaposition of little notes to go from galbanum to Mousse de Saxe. The watery facet is created with iso-E super and hedione… Hedione is like a ventilator for me, a scarf in the wind, it makes the other notes rise. The mugwort, vetiver and lavender are what give this vegetal sensation, carried by hedione. There’s no calone, no floralozone. It’s all suggested, and that was the toughest thing to achieve. When I was done with the heart, I was so happy with it I was almost tempted to launch it as it was.

The fragrance seems to be built like a fugue. The green axis goes from top to bottom, from the bright-bitter galbanum on top to the dark, mossy Mousse de Saxe…

…which has something damps and a bit cold about it. Its darkness fascinates me, but it’s not an off-putting darkness, it’s not scary. You feel like rolling around in that black moss.

Papyrus is lovely in cold, dry weather. It’s a springtime perfume, but not a summer note at all because of the chypre heaviness of the base notes.

Are those references to the history of perfumery deliberate?

Of course. How can you describe a green scent? I didn’t study at ISIPCA and I never learned the theory on how to make a green scent. My culture arises solely from my olfactory experiences. Classic perfumery is what speaks to me. If I’m a perfumer, it’s thanks to my grand-mother. She bought a lot of perfumes. I’m an only child and an only grand-child, so inevitably, I was spoiled rotten. When I went to her house, the first thing I’d do was to crash into her closet to smell her latest purchases. My references may be dated, but I need perfume to tell a story. I’m not saying today’s perfumery is less beautiful or less interesting, because then I’d be an old fart. I’m just saying that sometimes, it forgets to tell a story. It’s aimed at those modern women who go to the office in a helicopter while swishing their hair around… But it’s forgotten how to tell a story. My perfumes always have a beginning, a middle and an ending. They’re very long, like peplum films, they have a lot of things to say, they’re very talkative. If I were to compare my work to another artistic field, it would be cinema. My inspirations are more visual than olfactory. I don’t give a damn about composing a lily or a tuberose, it has to be an interpretation. A tuberose growing out of the tar of the rue de Rivoli. What I love about those old perfumes is their evocative power. You feel the perfumer is taking you by the hand and taking you on a journey. And depending on your state of mind, it’s never the same story.

If you could draw Papyryus de Cyane, what shape would it have?

[Pierre Guillaume draws a papyrus, with a fan-shaped head, the umbel, the stem and roots.]

The umbel: galbanum for the vegetal facet. Neroli sweetens and tempers the top notes. Bergamot smoothes down the green elements and makes them prickly at the same time. Salicylates for the solar facets. So it’s a green, vegetal, solar and prickly burst. The neroli, bergamot and salicylates act as bridges to the sap in the heart notes.

The stem: a very linear, straight heart with an aquatic feel; a canvas of vegetal notes that “smell simple”; a marquetry of lavender, mugwort, clove and incense…

The roots: the base has a mossy, earthy, rooty aspect due to the Mousse de Saxe; vetiver acts as a bridge to the Mousse de Saxe; plus the musks.

In other words, the structure of the fragrance reflects its name?

It’s a papyrus scheme: with the same structure, a green solar top, a linear heart and a mossy base, you could even compose other perfumes. Just as you have a fougère accord, you could have a papyrus accord.

Papyrus de Cyane is now available on the Parfumerie Générale website, and will be launched at the brand's usual points of sale from March.

Picture: Courtesy Pierre Guillaume