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Estee Lauder White Linen ~ fragrance review

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Estée Lauder White Linen vintage advert

Mention Estée Lauder Youth Dew, and a chorus of “my grandma wore that!” arises. Estée Lauder White Linen might get a similar response, but this time about mothers, especially if those mothers joined the PTA, kept a tidy garden, and knew how to spray-starch a shirt. At one time, it seemed like every shopping mall exuded White Linen. Now, you rarely smell it, except maybe when you lean in to kiss Aunt Phyllis on the cheek.

Sophia Grojsman (the nose behind Estée Lauder Beautiful and Spellbound, Lancôme Trésor and Yves Saint Laurent Paris, among others) developed White Linen, and it launched in 1978…

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Inside the Perfume Cabinet ~ Jana

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To many of us — especially those in love with vintage fragrance — Jana has the dream job. She owns The Fragrance Vault in gorgeous Lake Tahoe. Besides selling what’s on the market today, she carries rare, discontinued and vintage fragrance, and estimates she has more than 8,000 bottles in stock. Marshmallow, her half-malamute rescue, greets visitors. Anytime she wants, she can sample from decades of Caron Bellodgia or sniff Shiseido Nombre Noir.

Jana says it took her a long time to discover perfume. She grew up poor, splitting her time between her mother’s home in Rhode Island and her father’s place on a Native American reservation. In her teens, she moved in with her Italian grandmother, who was “hard-working, formal and quite glamorous” and who had bottles of Chanel Coco and Diane Von Furstenberg Tatiana, among other fragrances, on her dresser…

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Paco Rabanne Calandre ~ fragrance review

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It’s barely February, but my daffodils have buds, and clouds of daphne perfume lurk in pockets on the street. It’s not yet the spring of Easter egg colors and Guerlain Chamade, and it might snow again anytime. No, it’s a sort of pre-spring. It’s the perfect time for the knife-edged green beauty of Paco Rabanne Calandre.

Perfumer Michel Hy developed Calandre, and it launched in 1969. Its notes include aldehydes, bergamot, green notes, geranium, orris root, jasmine, lily of the valley, rose, amber, oakmoss, musk, sandalwood and vetiver. (Michel Hy was a genius of the green chypre — he also worked on Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, Yves Saint Laurent Y and Balmain Ivoire.) In French, the word “calandre” means “grille,” as in the grille on a car or a radiator. It also means “mangle,” a machine that irons linens when you feed them through its long rollers…

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Top 10 Winter Fragrances 2018

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Winter is a great time to wear vintage fragrance. Something about the gorgeous-yet-unfashionable waft of an old perfume is perfect when the wind bites at your face and you’re swaddled in wool. In my opinion, wood fires, old movies and long nights all deepen with a vintage fragrance on your wrist.

Here are my top ten fragrances for winter, each at least 50 years old. If you’re new to vintage fragrance, you might be put off by how hard they can be to “read.” Let me warn you, though, once you get a taste for them, they can be addicting. I look forward to hearing about your favorite winter fragrances — vintage or not — in the comments. If you can think of modern takes on these fragrances, please comment! And do check out the winter lists at Bois de Jasmin, Grain de Musc and Perfume Posse…

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Caron Fleurs de Rocaille ~ fragrance review

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Caron Fleurs de Rocailles vintage adverts

In the 1992 movie Scent of a Woman, Al Pacino, playing a blind, cranky aesthete, walks across a college campus in autumn. He and his companion cross paths with a woman and talk politics for a moment.

Al Pacino’s nostrils quiver. “Fleurs de Rocaille,” he says (in a terrible accent).

“Yes,” she replies.

“Flowers from a brook.”

“Yes.”

As Pacino walks away, he says to his companion, “Don’t tell me. About five feet seven, auburn, with brown eyes….”

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