Annick Goutal Songes: Dreams of Heated Flesh

I’ve always though Annick Goutal’s perfumes, explicitly inspired by her family life, could be divided into the opulent, romantic “mama scents” (Passion, Grand Amour, L’Heure Exquise), the tough, virile “papa scents” (Duel, Sables, Eau du Fier…) and the fresh, cute “daughter scents” (Eau de Camille, Eau de Charlotte, Petite Chérie…), with the citruses (Eau d’Hadrien, Eau du Sud) occupying their time-honored role in Latin families, as splashes to be shared by everyone…

Songes is firmly anchored in the mama category. The kind of yummy mummy who’s still madly in love with her husband, walks with a lazy hip-sway, swims in the nude and takes catnaps in a hammock for two while the girls are kept busy by the nanny…

And with Songes, mom’s clearly on a holiday. With its salicylic cocktail of tiaré, ylang-ylang, frangipani blossom and vanilla notes, it smells of French summers (salicylates were used as sunscreen before the discovery of more effective ingredients).

This is a huge, fleshy scent, almost oily in its creaminess, but it wears softly: white flowers divested of their diva attitude, relaxed and lazing in the sun. The fruity jasmine is mostly obvious in the opening, along with what seems to my nose to be a very brief, slightly singed note I sometimes get in white florals – other people have commented on a rubbery smell which is definitely jasmine essence. Tuberose isn’t listed but there’s something green and mentholated up there that sure smells like it. Then the tropical flowers quickly take over. Their sweetness is cut through with vetiver and incense, all the way into the amber-sandalwood-vanilla dry down. Then it smells just like sun-kissed skin after dusk.

When Songes came out, my boyfriend loathed it instantly and the samples went back in a drawer. Now the boyfriend’s out of the picture and my love affair with Manoumalia – which could be Songes’ little sister gone native, with its creamy tropical flowers underscored by earthy vetiver – inspired me to pull the samples back out. When those were gone, I bought a bottle and the body cream (which I warmly recommend). Oddly, I remember Songes as being much stronger and much more jasmine-y when I first tried it. Any of you Songes lovers out there have the same impression, or is it just my tolerance to big florals that’s gone up?

Image: Irving Penn, Summer Sleep, New York (1949)