.

…what remains of her is her fragrance.

What would the perfume house of Chanel be without Jacques Polge? Of course, there were Chanel perfumes before Polge. But he has done so many of Chanel fragrances and had such an infinite impact on the olfactory aspects of the Chanel brand that it is hard to imagine a bottle with Chanel written on it without the content being if not created than poetically surveyed by Polge.

“I am a lover of poetry. What would reality be without its poetic dimension? Even if you do not read poetry, it plays an important role in everyday life. I am a lover of fragrance, and fragrance is a form of poetry. It doesn’t speak, but it gives so much.” Jacques Polge

Jacques Polge was born in 1943. During his childhood he spent many summers in Grasse, which he has said what made him aware of the possibility of pursuing a career within the perfume world. It was in 1978 that he became the house perfumer of Chanel and took over the role from Henri Robert who created, among other perfumes, the last perfume in Gabrielle Chanel’s life, No. 19. Before coming to Chanel, Polge worked at what is now Givaudan (then Roure) and before that he did an apprenticeship in Grasse after taking his degree in English and literature. 

When Polge came to Chanel he took it upon himself to both treasure and renew a perfume brand synonymous with the world’s mot famous perfume, Chanel No 5. This perfume was in fact the first perfume launched by Chanel and there are of course many myths and stories about it’s creation. It was created by Russian-French chemist and perfumer Ernest Beaux who Gabrielle supposedly met through her lover Dmitri. Dmitri knew Ernest Beaux as Beaux was the favorite creator of bespoke perfumes for the Russian court.

With Chanel No 5, Gabrielle Chanel, like many other times, challenged what views, offers, restrictions, aesthetics should be associated with men or women.

Eau de Noël

An unusual man brought up the matter of what fragrance to wear for Christmas. By now I suppose you have all made your choice for today, (I would love to know what it was). Tomorrow we will all make it again. So, my thoughts on this are as follows.

Christmas is a beautiful holiday that offers a wealth of inspiration for self-insight and care for others regardless of how or where you spend these days. It is a special time and therefore deserves a special fragrance, This does not mean complicated fragrance. Just a deliberate choice. (Which on the other hand is the way I wish more people looked at fragrances all days of the year but anyway).

Here are a couple of examples of things to consider when picking your Christmas fragrance.

5 ways to give perfume as Christmas gift

I get this question these days:

”I would like to buy my man/woman/wife/husband/someone perfume for Christmas, do you have any recommendation? Which perfume should I get?”

I love the idea. In theory. But my answer is: no, I don’t have a recommendation for a specific perfume for your partner simply because I have no idea how your man’s/woman’s/wife’s/husband’s/someone’s skin smells like, feels like, what temperature it is, if they sweat salty or sweet, where they put on perfume, when… what makes them laugh or blush or swear... and a million other things. So my general recommendation is: buy something else.

There are however 5 exceptions:

1. You are a perfumer and have created the perfume yourself.
2. You are not a perfumer but have created the perfume yourself.
3. The gift is a bespoke perfume. You give the chosen beloved person a session with a perfumer who will create a bespoke fragrance with them for them. Miller Harris and Mandy Aftel for example offer this service.
   
   

   

   Photo: Miller Harris

   A much simpler more popularized lot less expensive version is offered by the Perfume Studio. Mandy Aftel also offers bespoke perfumes, you can read more about how it works at Aftelier here. If you go to Paris you will find this helpful. 
4. The person who the perfume is intended for has already tried fragrance x and wants it/has had fragrance x before and misses it/for some other reason really wants fragrance x. For example, if you went to Paris and she spent an hour at Guerlain falling in love with Spiritueuse Double Vanille but didn’t get it because you were in a hurry or maybe it was too expensive. Well, then of course it is very romantic if you call them and have it shipped right to her skin for Christmas. 
5. The fragrance your buying is an icon or comes with a story that makes it an evidently interesting part of a perfume collection regardless of whether the recipient will wear it or not. It is just interesting to have. Examples of perfumes like this for women are Joy, Chanel No 5 and Shalimar. 

But generally, apart from in situations like the ones mentioned above, I do not really believe in giving perfume as a gift. The reason, is that wearing and selecting the ingredients that blend with your skin, its chemical composition and your soul – is a precious and intimate thing. Perfumes, like personalities, are not random, not generic and they are not about what is new or trendy or whose last name is on the bottle. If you think it is, that's not very strange as this in fact is how the media talks about perfume. There are top ten lists, there are what’s new lists, there are perfume bottles that match the latest Marc Jacobs bag or Dior shoes. But perfume is not just something you put on yourself the way a garment is. A garment comes in a ready size that fits your body and the material is the same regardless who wears it. It wrinkles on you, it wrinkles on her.

Perfume is different – not just seems different – IS different on every person. It exists with you, blends with your temperature and skin.

And Audrey Tatou.

Ah, that last sinusitis post was so boring I need to post something more to compensate.

I have noticed that a shorter version of the Chanel no 5 film from 2009 with Audrey Tatou has started to appear on television again... Not an easy challenge to create communication about this iconic fragrance.

If you ask me Audrey Tatou is perfect for the job. In my eyes she has all of the indescribable innately French combination of sweetness and feistiness. A blend of soft and hard that I also associate with Chanel. And a very stylish sort of freedom. Audrey Tatou also embodies the entire range of the femininity palette from sophisticated seductive to poetic playfulness. And then I also think she is one of the most beautiful women in the world, plus in this film she has a hair style to die for.

Not to mention they have used one of my oldest elegant-sad-song-crushes: I'm a fool to want you with Billie Holiday.

If you want to read more about Chanel No 5 check my tags. Think also probably I will do a post specifically on this parfum des parfums someday soon.

Donc, je vous laisse ce soir avec...

Olfactory depression

I have sinusitis. It's been going on five days now so I am guessing it will stay with me at least five more. Apart from headache and a general feeling of tiredness and a heavy cold...it has also removed my ability to feel smell, scents, odors. I feel like I am walking around in a strange numb bubble. Don't use perfume because I don't want to irritate any inflamed part and because I wouldn't feel anything anyway. Have no idea how other people smell.

Since my sense of scent provides me with no inspiring impressions whatsoever I have turned to intellectual stimulation instead and started reading a book on pheromones. To be continued. Should be interesting.

Good night sleep well, smell well.

Coming home to Kilian

Found this waiting for me in an envelope from France when I came home. Bliss.

On perfume and work meetings with your lover

I think it began in school, when we read about Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

They started my fascination with couples that share both heart and brain. The couples that, apart from the romantic bond, physical attraction and private journey, also take an active part in each others professional and intellectual developments and platforms. And by that I don’t mean couples that work in the same office or company. I mean something much more intimate and profound. Sometimes one is the leader or guide, sometimes the other but with power balance.

It’s not what suits everyone. But for me, it is what I aspire to be and have, regardless of whether it is during 2 months, 2 years or 20. Just as it is important to have your own mental space in a relationship, it is also a beautiful gift to see your passion and goals embraced by another person’s soul and mind. I believe in this as a way of enriching relationships, as a way of building relationships, as a way of discovering the designated nature of a relationship and as a way of preserving the non-transient values of an ended romantic relationship. 

The perfume world has a few examples of couples that share both private passion and perfume passion. The first one that comes to mind is of course Luca Turin and Adriana Sanchez. Adriana Sanchez had a blog, and scientist Luca Turin was one of her readers. One day in 2005 he posted a comment. They met and started talking about their mutual passion for perfumes and fragrances. The conversation eventually led to love, marriage and a book. In 2008 they released “Perfumes – The Guide”. 

There is a really nice interview with the couple where Tania Sanchez says: "We made a bet as to which was the worst fragrance in the whole book." They must have so much fun together. There are so many ways to have fun together.

Another perfume couple is Lynn Harris, the founder of Miller Harris and her husband Christophe. They met... in Grasse, (of course!) though at that time he was not in the perfume business. Today however they develop Miller Harris together. Lynn Harris and Miller Harris deserve an entire post. Her story is beautiful and inspiring. In this article about her she says:

 “Somebody looked over me, and this guy was so persistent. And it was love at first sight. He's like my guardian, he's very patient and a very special person to me. Best of all, I could share my love of fragrance with him, which is not true of many men.”  In their home, he cooks becuse she can’t have hands that smell of garlic at work.

Speaking of marriage. The name of Givenchy’s Amarige is the anagram for “mariage”. The bottle was inspired by a blouse that Hubert de Givenchy created for his muse Bettina Graziell. (Notes: neroli, rose wood, violet leaves, citrus notes, gardenia, mimosa, melon, peach, plum, cashmereon wood, tonka Bean, vanilla. Nose: Dominique Ropion.)

There are several perfumes that were made by a nose with the heart. In the Byredo range, there is  Blanche, which Ben Gorham created for his girlfriend when she was sensitive to strong scents. A famous dedicated perfume is Le Parfum de Thérèse which was created by Edmond Roudnitska in the 1950's as a tribute to his wife. For a long time the only person who could use this scent was Thérèse as the composition was a secret. After many years however, she shared the formula with Frédéric Malle. It is still made and sold by his perfume house as a fragrance for both men and women.

Speaking of marriage - and of sharing passion and creativity. There is a recent interview in Swedish Dagens Nyheter with director Jonas Åkerlund who often works with his wife, Bea, a renowned stylist. They prefer to work together as they inspire each other and reflect each other’s creative and aesthetic worlds. In the interview Jonas describes how they both make each other better at work, and how their private life is at its best during shared projects because when they are separated they are “apart, not in sync and in different worlds”. I think this describes it so very well.

One of my favorite creative couples is jewellery designer Efva Attling and her wife singer and writer Eva Dahlgren. Both of them are extremely strong, talented, sensual, inspired and successful in what they do. In an interview with Eva earlier this autumn Efva was asked to describe her and said: "We have the most fun when we travel and meet people. Then we also become new to each other and find new things to tell each other about. We talk about everything, It’s possible that I talk more about my business than she does about her writing. I never insist on finding out more, I let her tell me things if she wants to. We really fill eachothers gaps. I have evolved enormously." The last sentence is my favorite. I believe we sometimes underestimate the value of the feeling in relationships. I think it's not unlikely that Efva Attling could make a fragrance. It is likely that it would be made with great care and very elegant.

You might think that this post went off topic or that I lost the red thread. Well, I like to live life with many threads of different colors and many red ones as well. They are all part of the same pattern. And hey… this is my blog.

The next post will be on giving your beloved perfume for Christmas. I think you will understand then why I wrote about these things tonight.

I leave you with a good night in the form of one of the most beautiful songs ever written in Swedish. It's by above mentioned Eva Dahlgren. Why does not someone make films about fragrances that look like this? It is not a very far-fetched idea... The song is "Vem tänder stjärnorna" which means "Who lights the stars". Sleep well.

Scent and sensibility

I love this article.
I generally love all articles about Ellena. But this piece of writing gives so much more.
It is written by Vir Sanghvi and from Hindustan Times.

"Most of us wear fragrances because they smell nice. But Ellena’s scents appeal to those who want a little bit more than ‘nice.’ They tend to be bought by people who want to smell ‘interesting."

Ambergris

I know you have heard of amber. The word appears often in the perfume world when talking about oriental fragrances for example. Makes me envision nature caramel. Then you hear of ambergris. I am guessing many of you assume these two are, if not the same thing, that at least linked to each other. A very logic assumption and it seems even the perfume industry sometimes likes to blend the two (on purpose?). They are not the same… And the difference is significant, so my suggestion is that you keep an eye on which one it is that you are going for when looking for a new fragrance. I will definitely do a post on amber soon but tonight it is time for the nastier of the two.

I will admit, I was a bit surprised the first time I googled ambergris. This, for example, is the first sentence that you find if you look it up on Wikipedia:

Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of and regurgitated or secreted by sperm whales.

If you follow this blog you might have gotten accustomed by now to the fact that perfume and animal secretions have a lot in common, and accepted that probably you have had both one and two of them on your skin. You have also probably noted that most of these secretions are replaced with synthetic options nowadays. But not always. Perfume houses are not always enthusiastic when it comes to defining whether they use synthetic or natural ingredients but I have heard that for example Creed use natural ambergris. Some people are put of by this but in my opinion, if the animal is not harmed and the synthetic option can be allergenic – then nature’s gifts are definitely my preference.