It smells like Pledge!
Have you uttered these words before? Or
indeed, toilet cleaner, cheapo air fresheners, little hanging cardboard car
de-funkers and washing up liquid?
Some olfactory joy for the 50s housewife
Certain notes are synonymous with ‘eau de
toilet cleaner’ and it’s sibling domestic hygiene products. This is the sweetly scented land of pine,
lavender, lily of the valley, lilac and lemon and lime. Perhaps it’s a scent
phenomenon that those of us in our middle and older years will understand more
readily, being that there are some mighty clever folk working in labs to create
increasingly exotic aroma chemicals for the home (or British seaside B &B) nowadays.
My gorgeous Asda own brand washing up liquid bears a distinct resemblance to
Comme Des Garcons – Incense Avignon, which I’m sure can’t be a coincidence.
Eau de toilet cleaner is not necessarily an unappealing thing. In fact, I find myself attracted to all of the above notes and will
actively seek them out for a sniff. There’s a reason they’ve become commonplace
in popular domestic products. That is because they bring the outdoors inside.
If my bathroom emits the whiff of a wood in springtime I’m rather chuffed! The
almighty turpenic pine of Serge Lutens - Fille En Aiguilles reminds me of those
pine scented little hanging car-tree thingamees and Ecover ‘Pine Fresh’ toilet
cleaner. I’ve worked my ecstatic way through 40 mls of it. I’m also a fair way
through a large beloved bottle of Penhaligon’s – Lavandula (Pledge lavender
furniture polish).
So here are some thoughts on two of my
favourite fragrances that have bravely defied the hygiene connotations and made
magnificence with the familiar household notes of lilac and lily of the valley.
Van Gogh's Lilac Bush
Firstly, is Olivia Giacobetti’s nostalgic creation
for the Editions De Parfums Frederic Malle collection – En Passant, a lilac
scent with some extraordinary notes. En Passant translates as ‘in passing’,
which is an unusually relevant name. A lilac tree tends to ambush you with it’s beguiling fragrance as you pass by. A walk through a suburban neighbourhood can be
delightful thing if you are lucky enough to encounter one of these heady shrubs
cutting through the smell of, well, not much. If you get really lucky you’ll
find one close to a recently cut lawn and be in all kinds of olfactory heaven.
En Passant features an eclectic mix of
lilac, cucumber, petitgrain and wheat, an unimaginable combination. But how
this works is to make lilac ‘more lilacky’. The accompanying notes are not
intrusive but they do add a kind of ‘after the rain’ sensation that takes me
right back to countryside of my childhood. En Passant is a hyper-realistic
lilac, bearing the oily green quality of the real thing. Crucially, it’s
delicate and it wears close to the skin which stops it being an almighty
headache of a fragrance as soliflores can often be.
It fits into the category of ‘journey
scents’, i.e. that which allows your imagination to create a dreamed up
location rather than smelling ‘like perfume’. I can imagine En Passant scenting
the scene for Rene Magritte’s surrealist painting ‘Empire Of The Light’. Alike
honeysuckle, lilac throes out it’s come hither beauty on a warm summer evening.
When I peer at the intriguingly illuminated house in this picture, I can sense
the unseen apparition of it’s garden. It would smell like En Passant.
Magritte, Empire Of The Light
Another vividly natural scent is Caron’s
ethereal Muguet Du Bonheur. This is a long way removed from the lily of the
valley that we associate with those old fashioned solid gel air fresheners, so
popular in budget hotel bathrooms.
Alike En Passant, Muguet Du Bonheur is
spookily realistic. I use the word ‘spookily’ in that lily of the valley has a
slightly supernatural feel to me. Perhaps it’s because we find it emerging
magically through the forest floor as the light of spring emerges from the dark
depths of winter. In France, sprigs of lily of the valley (Muguet) are gifted
on the 1st of May as a symbol of good luck for the year ahead, again
carrying a bewitched connotation.
Ludmila Anderson's spooky muguet
Caron’s interpretation of this lucky flower
is vibrantly green, oily, sappy and soapy. A spritz of this scent post shower
is capable of making me feel euphoric at 7am, quite a feat in that there is
very little that can bring me out of my grumpy night-owl slumber with anything
resembling joy. ‘Outdoorsy’ scents are my favourite genre and this one contains
a clear whiff of the country life. Just for a little while, I can pretend to be
off to explore the woods instead of battling through the city traffic to work.
Caron’s fragrances are always complex
multifaceted creations. Within it’s composition, Muguet Du Bonheur hints at
lilac (which comes across slightly anisic here) and woods (sandalwood).
Although there is no oakmoss in the composition, a ‘mossy’ note can be
sensed in the general earthy
quality of the scent.
I tried the current version of Dior’s
famous Muguet scent - Diorissimo recently, which smelt ‘like pleasant perfume’. In
comparison, Caron’s Muguet smells like some sort of picnic in a pastoral
paradise.
The soapy aspect could be described in this
one of Degas’ bather paintings. As his elfin model bathes, a shaft of sunlight
from the window illuminates the room and casts a green and white reflection across
the water. She is outdoors inside.
Bather, Degas
To read more on the lovely Muguet, take a
peak at this romantically penned post over at The Black Narcissus. It’s rather
good.
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