I’ve been stalking these mean streets long enough to have known the time when hippies doused themselves with rancid patch oils. Back then in Montreal, there weren’t enough punk rockers for us to be scary. Hippies used to spit on us.
So patchouli and I didn’t get off on quite the right footing. Its going bourgeois with Opium in late 70s only added constant olfactory assault to threats of injury by stoners.
Now patchouli’s cleaned up its act. It’s fractioned and dissected to remove the musty-camphory notes, until it smells like chocolate. And there’s way too much of it around.
But I’ve been smelling it in 9 out of 10 new perfumes. Especially in combination with berries – Melisand61 came up with the term “fruitchouli” to designate the combo in her comment to the post on YSL Parisienne. We have Angel’s enduring popularity to thank for fruitchouli.
And then there’s the increasingly popular rose + patchouli combo. If I smell another patchrose I think I’ll start spontaneously oozing oakmoss from stigmata – because that’s it, isn’t it? Bereft of oakmoss, perfumers have been looking for another way to ground their fragrances, give them a little darkness and earthiness. And that’s patch, which for the younger generations doesn’t have that musty old hippie association, except as a Woodstock-revival fantasy.
I wish patchouli were on the endangered species list like Mysore sandalwood – but then, that would mean facing lots of synthetic patch, and I’d be probably be moving to Halifax.
Yesterday, I got two compliments on Pure Oud, but one was prefaced with: "You smell like patchouli." I had no idea if she was being complimentary or derogatory. I can't wait to start wearing Straight to Heaven again to see what kind of reactions I get. Talk about a patch monster.
RépondreSupprimerI wish immortelle were endangered. I just really don't get the attraction of smelling like curry. It's just FOOD on me. Yech. I hear its in Pure Oud, but I don't get any from it. I am also a lavender hater. Can't stand it in fragrance, and the fougere genre in general. I do make it a point to test new ones when they come out, but I always reject them. I understand and respect its role as a major component of many fragrances (especially male), but it just gives me a headache and a weird, back-of-the-throat gagging sensation. I wouldn't like it to disappear from the earth though :-)
I am sharing in the patchouli hate recently, too. It seems to be showing up everywhere, and even trips me up in things like 31 Rue Cambon. Strangely, I don't mind Angel, though. Somehow the outrageously trashy combination with fruit and vanilla seems to work for me. Or maybe I like patchouli when it is flagrantly camphoraceous, and not when it has been edited into a sort of dull muddiness.
RépondreSupprimerBilly, it's not so much patchouli I object to as its ubiquity. Especially in the fruit/rose combo. It's just all over all the new feminines.
RépondreSupprimerAnd I hear you on lavender. Though I can do it in Jicky and a couple of other blends (that Kilian one, and Pour un homme), I can't stand the typical masculine fougère.
Immortelle... is an acquired taste. None of my full-bottle scents feature it so I guess I'm not a fan.
Jarvis, I hope this rant doesn't ruin rue Cambon for me! It's just the lack of imagination the use of it shows that annoys me, not so much the material in itself. As you say, it's that dull muddiness that's annoying.
RépondreSupprimerIt's strange, the few notes I don't like or can't wear are too unusual to become truly annoying. I think, as you say, it's ubiquity that really does something in for me. For me that's the clean musk in the bottom of nearly every department store frag on the market. It seems strange to be annoyed by such an innocuous scent, but somehow it manages to be both bland and intrusive--I find it as irritating as a tween pop song playing in heavy rotation--especially when it shows up at the bottom of something I've really been enjoying. Argh.
RépondreSupprimerI would say quinoline -- the synthetic "leather" note -- when over-used, which is hard not to do. Recently I smelled one of the Boadecia scents (don't remember which one) which was so loaded with it that the effect was bitter, acrid, more like a tanning chemical than leather itself.
RépondreSupprimerDihydromercenol, which screams "bracing men's after-shave!" no matter what it's in.
Strong melon. I can't even tolerate a ripening real melon in the kitchen -- always makes me think that the DH forgot to take the garbage out.
I used to detest patchouli, until the current deconstructions and reassemblies of the note. Sometimes it's interesting now. But it's amazing how many Millennial Hippie young women still wear that sour, old musty headshop oil.
Alyssa, then definitely you've got a problem. I can't think of one recent scent that doesn't have at least a small dose of clean musk. Even JC Ellena's started using it (in Eau de Gentiane Blanche).
RépondreSupprimerOlfacta, IBQ can be overdone, no doubt about it (not everybody is Germaine Cellier).
RépondreSupprimerAnd I'm amazed at the hate melon gets... I remember talking about it with Michel Roudnitska, who said the smell (or was it flavor) of melon was rated very positively in many countries according to international surveys. I wonder if it's a perfumista gripe, because of the association to Calone?
Oh yes, it's in pretty much everything! But I do think when it's employed more skillfully (and, perhaps, with a bigger budget) it stays more firmly in the background, as a kind of universal binding ingredient (the way canned mushroom soup once functioned in suburban kitchens) and I find it tolerable then. I only sigh a little a bit.
RépondreSupprimerStill, I'm happier with a dominant background note of oakmoss (hah!) vetiver (also in everything, I understand) wood, especially sandalwood(synthetic or otherwise), leather, amber (sorry) or yes, even patch (sorry again). It's part of why I never came around to perfume until I went in the back door of niche...
Alyssa, the musk option is often a sign of creative laziness, I agree, and not my favorite dominant base note either.
RépondreSupprimerPatchouli is kind of taking that road too, though it'll never be as ubiquitous: it seems to be a shortcut to any Angel descendant that ever was or will be.
As we've discussed before, I think the melon thing is a knee-jerk response to the association with Calone. But not all melons are Calone melons! And Calone is only vaguely melon-like to my nose. For me, the problem with the Calone-overdose is the smell of brackish water. Meanwhile, melon as in Michel's Emotionelle, or in Papa Roudnitska's Diorella or Le Parfum de Thérèse has nothing to do with Calone, as far as I can tell.
RépondreSupprimerAs for the ubiquitous white musk, I sniffed the four new Tom Ford white musks, and unfortunately, could barely smell anything. I'm assuming I must be anosmic to some of these clean musks. Who knows what I'm missing?
I've always been a fan of patchouli. Before I got into perfumes I owned (and still do) a bottle of the oil. I generally enjoy it when it shows up in something I like, like an old friend. And yesterday I bought a bottle of Coromandel because it was there and I was knocked out by its beauty. I find it hard to enjoy in fragrances where it's been "cleaned up". I'm a fan of strong animalics anyway, so maybe I just like my perfumes to carry some heft. But when I get that chocolate species of patchouli it's annoying! I keep saying, quit trying to clean this up! But, I am also not actively smelling tons and tons of things (although I try because I'm in that perfume stage where I'm trying to smell as much as possible.) I hear you on the rose-patchouli combo, though. That seems to be popular. However, Black Aoud is one of my all time favorite perfumes, which of course contains the rose-patchouli (the aoud helps). So far, I'm not complaining about its presence, as long as it's the good stuff...
RépondreSupprimerJarvis, so the new Tom Ford musks are out? Pity you can't smell them, I'm quite curious.
RépondreSupprimerGuess I'll console myself with some Roudnitska melon...
Jared, I'll wager rose-aoud is the next rose-patchouli.
RépondreSupprimerAgain, it's not the material itself I have issues with, it's the cliché it's becoming. Like pink pepper, for instance. As though you constantly heard the same type of arrangement on songs by different artists. Which you do, I guess. It's the perfumery equivalent of mainstream FM radio.
First off, RIP, Lux Interior.
RépondreSupprimerSecondly -- "Hippies used to spit on us." BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!!!
Yes, the patch thing. Getting good & bloody sick of it myself. The one good thing is being able to point it out to people who are wearing something patch-heavy and watching the horrified look steal over their faces. I always loathed Angel, but it was more for the chocolate than the patch -- just cannot stand a strong chocolate note. I've also never particularly cared for lavender (old dirty clothes) and the thing that really sends me over the edge is violet. I can't bear it. (I'll maintain to my grave that a sample of Aimez-Moi tried to kill me.) And am sick unto death of the fruity-berry thing. STILL it seems like everything is the fruity-berry thing. It's the My Little Pony of perfume, I just can't stand it.
PS -- my verification word whaddyacallit is "junck." How funny is that?
Amy, I *did* think a lot of Lux Interior here. Maybe i could entitle a post "goo-goo muck". or "goo-goo musk"?
RépondreSupprimerI believe the chocolate in Angel *is* the patch (plus ethyl maltol).
And, yes, the fruit'n'berry thingie just turns every perfume into an overpriced -and non-sudsy - shower gel. Au secours!
Ah, patchouli fatigue. I'm with you. Particularly in the ubiquitous fruitchouli scents and yes, the patchroses too. Like you, I'm not a patch-hater. I can think of one or two scents featuring patch that I like quite a bit. MPG George Sand comes to mind. Even Montale Patchouli Leaves as a solinote, although that one is tempered quite a bit by resinous amber. Like almost any other note, if the treatment of it is good, I can at least appreciate the fragrance.
RépondreSupprimerMy gripe with the current trend is two or three-fold. 1) The overuse of patchouli is verging on the ridiculous. Same with pink pepper and white or clean musks. Borrring. 2) The patch note, cleaned up and combined with the fruity-florals smells thin, murky and synthetic. 3) Some of the fragrances that I see defined as "modern chypres" because of the inclusion of a citrus, a floral and patch just don't cut it. The structure just isn't there. They simply lack the gestalt of a chypre.
As for other rant-inducers? Very few. Calone is certainly an anathema, but as Jarvis mentioned, non-calone melon is an interesting scent to me. I like Emotionelle in small doses and Pierre Bourdon used melon to nice effect in scents like the 2005 Ferre. Clean musk is overused, but again, properly done, it is nice. That said, in my brief testing of the Tom Fords, I liked the dirtier one, Urban Musk, the best.
Melissa, you've pretty much summed it up for me too! Very curious about that urban musk, though I'm not the hugest musk fan.
RépondreSupprimerWell, perhaps not quite a summary. An essay? I seem to have strong opinions about this topic. I miss my oakmoss!!!
RépondreSupprimerGosh, you took the words out of my mouth. I love the full force patchouli deployments like Borneo, but this weird, prettified, polite patchouli seems so weird to me, so ubiquitous. I think it must be the assault on oakmoss which has made it so common. My other note or gripe is a certain vetiver so many reformulations seem to be drenched in. It all boils down to a variation of the same principal smell on me. Culprits which come to mind are the latest Arpege, Mitsouko, and Caleche.
RépondreSupprimerDoes somebody know what that scratchy chemical note that smells like synthetic wood is? The worst offender I've found is Alfred Sung's Paradise, but I believe it's also featured in YSL Cinema and Mediterranean.
RépondreSupprimerThe patchouli game is not over. :) There is now Lumière Noire (Francis Kurkdjian) that I've recently reviewed and I'm curious how you will perceive that perfume.
RépondreSupprimerI'm bored not about the material but about the lack of inspiration, or the constant repetition of the main melody (rose-patchouli). Other decades had their aldehydes, now we have this accord that was put even in candles.
Melissa, I miss my oakmoss too, though the new Lauder "white moss" isn't too bad -- let's hope we smell more replacement accord!
RépondreSupprimerBrian, yes, it's that same vague woodiness... Spayed basenotes!
RépondreSupprimerAnonymous, those aren't the scents I'm most familiar with, but that scratchy woody amber feels ubiquitous as well. Ambroxan or something of the sort, I'd wager.
RépondreSupprimerOctavian, I couldn't agree more. It's the cliché it's become that grates me. I'll be smelling that new FK soon!
RépondreSupprimerwow, thanks for the full-on Lux! These pics make me wistfully think of high school craziness. The Cramps were a part of that soundtrack.
RépondreSupprimerAhem, where were we? Yes. Well, I really like patchouli in most forms, except the really clean versions-- as the results are quite abrasive and completely unnatural, in a bad way.
I also have a really hard time with:
'clean musks' 'white musk', whatever they're called. It all makes me think of laundry and deoderants and scented feminine hygeine products.
The candy floss chemical in a lot of popular fragrances that suffocates like a cotton candy blanket over the face.
And on a more specific note- heliotrope. I've disliked every fragrance that has it as a dominant note.
If these were struck from the face of the earth, I would not mourn:
RépondreSupprimerMelon, specifically Cantaloupe.Nah, any melon. In any form. Curry or any plant with a clever name that still smells like curry. Moth-killing cedar. Musk: skin, crystal, pink, fluffy or any other name they give to stuff that smells like a urinal cake. Incense that smells like ashes. Creosote. If I want to paint my fence posts, I won't use my perfume.
There! that felt better.
Dea, that candy-floss chemical is ethyl maltol, first prominently featured in Angel (that perfume has a lot to answer for).
RépondreSupprimerAnd I feel the way you do about heliotropin -- can't wear it (and so, though I like them, none of the Kenzo Flowers).
All those -- clean musks, heliotrope, ethyl maltol -- I perceive as "fillers". They're often used in a lazy way, to cut on the work on a formula. And as crowd-pleasers.
Quinn, it's interesting that you perceive the synthetic musks to smell like urinal cakes (do you mean... er... the used ones?). Some people do pick up a urinous note from certain musks.
RépondreSupprimerAnd cedar, I suppose you mean the headache-inducing, pencil-shavings type? I find that the Atlas cedar used in, say, Fém du Bois is a lot more approachable.
Dehydromircenol is the first.
RépondreSupprimerThe second is a synthetic iris note which causes me bad headaches. I don't know which one is exactly, but I recognize it as soon as I get at the heart accord of a fragrance. It was used mainly from the mid '90s generally in combination with rose, and fortunately I don't smell it as frequently today.
And the third is (I saved the worst for last) rose. Ok, I said it and now everybody will start shouting at me, but I had to come out. No kind of rose, no perfume with rose in medium or huge quantities. Only Paestum Rose and the Rose by Le Labo (that is, Rose perfumes with the smallest quantity of rose, hidden and constrained). The rest is completely out for me, I simply can't stand it (not to tell anything about rose absolutes... they make me feel completely sick). Sorry, I felt I HAD to tell you even if I am the only one. Would you forgive me? :-)
B & B, there's nothing to be forgiven. It's a matter of personal taste! I'm not a huge rose fan myself but I do wear some of the biggest roses on the market, Nahema and Une Rose, so go figure... Personally, the one I can't do in high doses is amber.
RépondreSupprimerI am used to the reaction: "How is it possible that you dislike roses? NOBODY dislikes roses! Are you sure you are from planet earth?" "Yes" "Are you sure you smelt different rose perfumes, i.e. the right ones?" "Yes" "Even natural rose oils or absolutes?" "Yes". "Oh, I'm sorry for you then, it's such a pity!".
RépondreSupprimerSo, thank you for your different view on this, and for sharing your amber with my rose ;-)))
D, I'm so happy that you put a name to a note that has been bugging me for years!! Ethyl maltol. YES!!! It's that cloying, thick, pervasive sweetness, together with oodles of equally pervasive musk, that makes me dismiss many mainstream scents in the first opening seconds. Those components -- oh, and let's add some vaguely fruity, thoroughly synthetic top and heart notes -- leave NO room for anything actually interesting!
RépondreSupprimerB &B, I'll go you one better: I can't do jasmine-dominant scents, though I adore the note in compositions. So there!
RépondreSupprimerRobin: ethyl maltol + musk + fruit = the core of most mainstream scents. Thank God there's a green wave coming on...
RépondreSupprimerHalleluja!
RépondreSupprimerI'm not a big fan of heliotropin-dominant scents either, and I just realized there is some vetiver-smelling base to the Tom Ford Private blends Japon Noir and Oud Wood that I'm not liking either. Never been a rose fan for that matter, glad to hear I am not alone.
RépondreSupprimerTara: so the rose-averse are coming out of the closet! ;-)
RépondreSupprimerI came to this post because I'm going to wear my Lumiere Noire Homme and Femme samples (because you just posted about another MFK) and I so enjoyed reading it and the comments! Learned a lot, too. The note I dislike strongly is lavender. Can't stand Pour Un Homme, for example. But I do like Jicky, I get more citrus than lavender from it.
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