dimanche 6 juin 2010

The Life Aquatic with Ensoleille-moi by Mathilde Laurent for André Gas



Tuberose, civet and cumin have their fans and foes, but calone is almost universally loathed by the online perfume community, barring the Green Irish Tweed fans at Basenotes, to the point where melon/aquatic bashing seems to have become a Pavlovian reaction

In a valiant quest to push back the boundaries of my tastes, I decided to put myself in the hands of some of the perfumers I most admire (professionally) and like (personally), and test the waters or rather, scents featuring an aquatic note, starting with Mathilde Laurent’s Ensoleille-moi for André Gas.

Gas is a somewhat infelicitous name for a perfume brand, but it happens to be the one André Gas was born with. Born in Marseille, the earthy André Gas was studying engraving at the Paris Beaux-Arts when the protests of May 68 broke out: his teacher’s studio was commandeered to print posters designed anonymously by top artists of the time, bearing slogans that have become classics: “Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible”; “Enjoy without Fetters”; “It is Forbidden to Forbid” and “Under the Cobblestones, the Beach”. André took the latter literally and high-tailed it to the Côte d’Azur in his Citroën, to sell the costume jewelry he’d been making out of lucky charms on the beaches. He ended up at the haute Boho village of St-Tropez, made fashionable by Brigitte Bardot, and it was from there that he launched his funky, ethnic line of costume jewelry. He was already retailing Fracas in his shops when he decided to launch his own fragrance. After several attempts with a young perfumer friend of his son’s, also in the business, he struck gold: Mathilde Laurent, fresh out of Guerlain and not yet hired by Cartier, had become available.

That Ensoleille-moi (which could be translated as “Sun me up”) had to be a beach scent was obvious, given the brand’s Tropezian roots. It is likely Mathilde Laurent had already been working around the idea at Guerlain: Ensoleille-moi has the easy-going vibe and airy texture of something that could’ve ended up as an Aqua Allegoria.

The scent is worked around the monoï note, a classic of French beaches: tiaré blossom (a gardenia-like Polynesian flower) steeped in coconut oil. Except that in this case, as André Gas grumbled to me when I met him in Marseille, there is actual tiaré absolute in the formula – Mathilde was used to the lush Guerlain budgets and didn’t bat an eye at including a hefty, costly dose of it. As a result, Ensoleille-moi smells lush and milky, with lashes of ylang-ylang, vanilla and salicylates (usually called “solar notes” in press releases and typical of French tanning products) and a touch of saltiness. But what’s most surprising about it is the huge proportion of calone it contains. In fact, there’s so much of it that it becomes invisible: the scale literally changes the perception of the note. It’s as though it had been used to blow up the other notes, its melon facets sucked up by the banana in the ylang, the metallic ones melding with the musk. It also brings an impression of coolness to a blend which might otherwise be too cloying. It isn’t. In fact, it barely registers as an aquatic, which is probably why I can happily douse myself in it – and this from a woman a squirt of L’Eau d’Issey could transform into a pile of ashes. Only goes to show no material should be rejected outright.

I’ll be pursuing my aquatic explorations. But don’t expect a review of Cool Water. I’m not that selfless.

Meanwhile, on to you: what are your conquered aversions? And is there any aquatic you actually like? Now's the time to come out of that closet!



P.S. To all the lucky recipients of the Vamp à NY samples: they were shipped on Thursday June 3rd. Don’t forget that on June 23rd I’ll be expecting feedback: I’ll remind you all closer to the date.


30 commentaires:

  1. My conquered aversions are actually two notes: vetiver and patchouli.
    I started to love vetiver thanks to Écume de Rose by Parfums de Rosine and now I long for a full vetiver fragrance.

    Patchouli is even more difficult to me, but I fell in love with Nombril Immense by État Libre d'Orange, so that must mean something.

    Aquatics? I own and enjoy Eternity Summer 2005 Edition. It's a floral-aquatic better than the rest of CK limited editions.

    Other aquatics of my liking are Parfums de Nicolaï L'Eau Mixte and the above mentioned Écume de Rose.

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  2. Isa, there are several outstanding vetivers on the market. My two favourites are Les Nez's Turtle Vetiver (a limited edition which is no longer available, but the second variation is on its way) and Chanel's Sycomore. Frédéric Malle Vétiver extraordinaire and Lalique Encre Noire are marvellous as well.
    I'm not a huge fan of patchouli dominant fragrance but I've fallen hard for one that has quite a dose of it, Cartier XII L'Heure Mystérieuse.
    I wouldn't peg L'Eau Mixte as an aquatic though, as far as I know it hasn't got a drop of any marine-note material...

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  3. I forgot to mention Un Jardin Après la Mousson, which I own and enjoy a lot in summer evenings.

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  4. For me its the Fruity! I've gone from not actually really knowing that there was peach in my adored Mitsouko, to thinking someone put a lolly in a bottle of the EDT I bought a few years ago (this nearly killed my perfume love off) to getting my ya yas out fully and loving Pulp. It actually was one of the Cartier Hours, the fruity one, that turned me!
    The years of disappointed 'fruitless' (!) ramblings through perfume departments, loathing that wierd neon fruity thing (I now know its cassis) that was in seemingly everything, have been turned on their head by niche fruit....
    And the riveting education I've had on the blogs and in say Turin's book has made me realise that the fruit note done well is something that I love in everything Mitsouko to Lyric to Pulp!

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  5. Birch tar - it both repels and attracts me. I used to dislike it, but now the attraction is winning out.

    For an acquatic, I'm trying to decide on one of those Sel Marin type scents with vetiver and marine notes. I'm holding out until I'm able to sample Miller Harris Fleurs de Sel.

    Also, I've been testing Stephanie de Saint-Aignan's Embruns d'Ambre recently, and I think I may need that one.

    Glad you are exploring this seasonal theme, and love the BB pics!

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  6. Ce commentaire a été supprimé par un administrateur du blog.

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  7. Great idea Denyse- bravo to conquering those materials. This fragrance sounds pretty fascinating. Summer seems the perfect time to branch out into calone-infused waters. Tiare, too, is a note I'm unfamiliar with, but that's about to change since a sample of Manoumalia is on it's way to me.

    Leather is still the forbidden territory for me. I've branched out a bit into that. Montale's Oud Cuir d'Arabie no longer holds the revulsion it once did, and my recent purchase of Derby has also helped turn me bring me into the S&M closet. Cuir de Russie is also on it's way to me, and I feel if that doesn't turn me, I'm a lost cause! All the same, the whip cracks....

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  8. I strongly disliked choya nakh (roasted seashells) on first sniff, now I love it, and I've only seen it used by Anya McCoy and D. S. Hurwitz. Calone? That smell drenched my university days; how could we look so grungy and smell so...fresh? Ack!! I am sorry it is the key scent of my generation, it gave me migraines then, it does the same now. As you say, it's a Pavlovian response at this point....
    -Marla

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  9. I'm afraid a full-bore aquatic is still too much for me to want to wear, even when I respect a fragrance. I find Laura Tonatto's Oltre to be a bold and interesting fragrance ( pine, seaweed, muguet, and aquatics - and it really smells like just those things ), but a full day and its aquatic chill just depresses me.

    However, I love the delicate touch of what I'm presuming is calone in Malle's En Passant, so perhaps aquatics are just a sometime-thing for me, best appreciated as a light seasoning rather than a hefty main course.

    Patchouli seems to be a common hate, but for me it was more of a love gone wrong. In my early teens my mother started using patchouli oil to scent the laundry, which was first very pleasant until I'd smelled dirty socks and underwear smelling of BO mixed with patchouli one too many times, and from then on I could no longer smell patchouli without having a slight gag response. Through a gradual increased exposure in the past few years to perfumes that contained small amounts, I can appreciate patchouli almost as much as I did at first, but the association of patchouli with "dirty" is very strong, and to this day patchouli smells more dirty than civet - or any animalic - out of pure association.

    As you might imagine, Givenchy Gentleman was a biiiiig mistake of a blind buy for me!

    Mint was an enemy for a while, but thanks to Balmain's Ebene and Czech & Speake's Cuba, these days it's more like an eccentric friend who's mostly crazy but occasionally entertaining.

    Ever since I fell in love with Fille En Aiguilles, all of my former bad feelings towards pine are gone. We go on tandem bicycle rides and talk about forestry these days.

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  10. Winn, I guess to me there's fruit and fruit. I can't recognize myself in predominant berry notes, but the lactonic fruit like peach and plum that you find in classic chypres are marvellous.I did think that Cartier L'Heure Folle was a wearable berry scent for me though, so I understand how you could have gone down that rabbit-hole to follow it!

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  11. Anonymous, I think the Heeley Sel Marin, TDC Sel de Vétiver and MH Fleurs de Sel are very interesting variations on the smell of the seaside, which I would associate more with the Atlantic coast.

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  12. Pitbull Friend, I entirely understand! My own process comes from the desire to understand the aesthetic choices of perfumers I admire, from a critic's point of view. I also find that our tastes evolve through exposure, often to smaller amounts of a note we don't like -- it worked that way for me with aldehydes. And, yup, it makes it even harder to keep track!
    Tastes are strong criteria in the definition of personal identity so as you say, a lot of people cherish their aversions because they're personality-defining.

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  13. Jared, I myself am inclined towards the softer leathers rather than the butch ones (Montale? can't do them). After all, leather is really a view of the mind since it is re-created by the perfumer, and there are so many different ways of doing it. Cuir de Russie is still top of the list for me: it's also an iris, and quite floral.

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  14. Marla, though my college days were past by the time L'Eau d'Issey and Angel came on the market, those are the ones that trigger revulsion. I can admire them, but I think it's just a matter of overexposure. Oddly, the scents that were fashionable when I came of age, the big powerhouse florals of the 80s, don't trigger that reaction, possibly because none of my fellow students wore them.

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  15. Galamb Boromg, I love this patchouli-laundry story, particularly for the utterly counter-intuitive idea of actually scenting something that should smell clean with such a camphoraceous/musty odour. But I can understand how the association could become... regrettable. It's probably imprinted too strongly in your circuits to overcome!
    I remember patchouli from the days when the pot-smoking girls at high school used to smear themselves in it. Fortunately the grade used in perfumery is much better or I'd gag.

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  16. I hope you don't have to delete this comment as it's a bit premature, but I just got my sample of "Vamp" and WOOT WOOT WOOT!!!!! I can't wait to send my comments on this beauty, and I thought I hated tuberose....
    -Marla

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  17. Marla, so glad it made it in good condition, and no, I'm not deleting anything. Actually, the opening of Vamp and that of Ensoleille-moi are not dissimilar.
    And "WOOT WOOT WOOT" seems to be a perfectly healthy reaction...

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  18. Wow , you actually made this sound wearable !! I must try it .
    I usually cannot wear vetiver , but there are a few scents in the Webber collection that are teaching me to enjoy it .
    Your bottle of Mystery perfume went out last week too . I am so looking forward to your analysis .

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  19. Carol, Ensoleille-moi is a great perfume, and as I said, the aquatic note is so huge it's out of sight.
    Looking forward to getting that bottle.

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  20. I just love the name "Ensoleille-moi," I find that delightful for some reason and I'd try it just for that.

    I never had much problem with patch as a note. I suppose the patch I smelled in well-done fragrances was so very different from the head-shop patch oil I'd been exposed to previously that they didn't even register as the same thing, so I didn't have the aversion response when I ran across it. The berries, the cumin, the calone -- I've found all of them in various places to be acceptable or downright good.

    But. I still cannot bear violet. I don't know why, I just loathe it. Anything more than a teensy little bit of it is a death knell for me.

    Jared -- I have faith in Cuir de Russie, but my newest leather love is Le Labo Patchouli 24. Give it a shot, it's beautiful -- the cuddliest leather I've ever worn.

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  21. I have two aquatics that I like quite a bit.
    Beth Terry Creative Universe Mare is one the use of the sea salt and avocado accords make it really refreshing.
    The other is i Profumi di firenze Brezza di Mare. There is an added anise note that somehow goes well with the rest of the aquatic milieu and makes it feel less insipid than other aquatics.

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  22. Now see, Amy, to me Patchouli 24 doesn't read as a leather at all, but as a daisy chain of smokiness...
    Perhaps I shouldn't say, because I don't want to spoil your iris, but it's very very close to violets. Oops, now I've said it.

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  23. Miami Mark, I know neither of these... the brands never made it to Paris, I guess. See, there's hope for aquatics yet, if done in an imaginative way.

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  24. Jennifer, I think melon gets dissed by association with the overly aquatic notes, but a well-done melon note, like in Le Parfum de Thérèse or Parfums DelRae Emotionnelle, I find absolutely riveting.
    The white florals you name are amongst my favourite, and quite a far cry from the big clear-the-room florals of the 80s that must've turned many people off. It's always overexposure that does it. I'll bet if L'Eau d'Issey or Poison came out now in a little niche house and had no associations for us, we'd be marvelling at them.

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  25. Denyse, what you've said about overexposure is exactly right. I was fortunate to be living in a relatively remote place when Gucci Rush came out and only tested it recently. I find it so beautiful, and had that exact thought, i.e., if it were a niche fragrance I'd discovered, I'd be raving about it on all the blogs. Yet I'm certain that If I'd been overdosed when everyone was wearing it, I'd hate it by now. (Nonetheless, I am afraid to wear it anywhere, since it's SO loud :-)

    Also, thanks for your thoughts on Sel Marin, etc. I forgot to sign that earlier comment. ~~nozknoz

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  26. Nozknoz, I'm quitr a fan of Rush as well (it could easily be an Etat Libre and was in fact co-authored by Antoine Maisondieu - it's got his signature style with aldehydes) but it's not easy to find an occasion to wear it>

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  27. Hee. I wear Rush all the time. To places like the grocery store. It's so wrong it's right. It makes me smile.

    D, I have loved the name of this fragrance, and now you make me want to try it. But I have a linguistic question and apologies if I'm unclear: I find the English mental translation, "sun me up," incredibly whimsical -- I mean, that's a huge part of the charm for me. It's quirky and perfectly clear while being totally unfamiliar as an expression. I am curious, since you speak English and French so well as to understand nuance: does the name (in French) convey the same sense of peculiar whimsy? Is it an expression that someone might actually hear in French conversation?

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  28. March, I'd say the expression does in French: it's an imperative, like "embrasse-moi". except you never use the verb "ensoleiller" in that form, addressed to a person. Usually the past participle is the most employed, to mean sunny. You could say "mes enfants ensoleillent ma vie" my kids make my life sunny, but not ensoleille-moi except in a whimsical way. I kind of added the "up' cause it sounded better than "sun me".

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  29. It's interesting, my second son had partial deafness, and the only things he could smell were very strong, so when he smelled Angel, he loved it! He could smell Iso E Super, no problem. One of the only things he could smell for many years. When the deafness was corrected, surgically, he disliked Angel, he wanted softer scents. But he'd already bought me an Angel gift set in London ("So you smell pretty Mama!"), now what to do with it??? Still, I'm glad he can discriminate scents now....

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  30. Anonymous, that's quite fascinating... Scents needing to be loud when sounds were muffled...

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