15 gennaio 2011

Blind Sniff Roulette #1: Choc de Cardin

I was doubtful about which fragrance was right to start open this game: vintage or new? Niche or commercial? Anyway I wanted it to be something emotional, so I searched in my olfactory memory: my mother used to wear this fragrance during the most beautiful summers of my teenage.  The creator is Françoise Caron (Hermès Eau d'orange verte, Kenzo pour femme, Commes des Garçons series 1 red: palisander) that in 1981 conconted for Pierre Cardin this particular scent named Choc de Cardin that also according to Luca Turin remains one of her forgotten masterpieces. The fragrance, sold in Italy till mid 90's and then retired from the distribution, nowadays in France can be found in its n-th reformulation even in supermarkets. The one I gave you is one of the past formulations that's almost identical to how I remember it in the mid 90's.
This well balanced feminine chypre melts seamlessly in a classic style several sensatons. In fact you connected it mostly to classic or jazz music. Above all it's dominated by the greeness that all of you have perceived (mediterranean schrubland, classic garden, etc).
The perfume opens with green notes (lemon, bergamot, thyme, basil, sage, cardamome) very striking and grows with more and more complex facets, fruity(peach, aldehydes) that nobody detected, floral (iris, rose, jasmin, lily of the valley), animal (honey, civet, musk), woody (sandalwood, patchouli, oakmoss) and ambery notes. Somebody detected also lavender in the topnotes and a leathery vibe maybe due to a shady oakmoss coupled with animal notes.
I'm not surprised that nobody thought about a strongly feminine scent, in fact it's a chypre with a bit temper created with a strong and serene woman in mind, a classic beauty, but nowadays it could be pulled off nicely by many men. And now your answers...


Marcopietro
This first fragrance opens with powerful citrus tones with bright notes of cedar and resins that could also be sage or mugweed. The whole calms down rapidly, I feel emerging an accord I cannot define (lavender? narcissus?) from which come out green notes of a blooming garden and pale woods, I smell echoes of citrus again and then slowly it develops a dense and shady note, like a slight touch of sweet leather on a vetiver base. In the end I smell fresh and aromatic notes, almost mentholated or anised maybe given by a bit of patchouli. On me there's a dull sillage while lasting power of pale facets is noteworthy, leaving a nice clean and sheer sensation in the base that can be smelled for hours. It's a very intimate restrained fragrance, but in the complex I like it.
  • if it'd be a colour? A beautiful yellow, pale yet warm. It's the dawn light, the sun reflection on the dew.
  • if it'd be an animal? Soft and delicate enough to remember a flight, the flitting of a butterfly after the initial burst.
  • if it'd be music? A concert, nothing frenetic or romany tic but something crystal clear, it makes me think about the domain of discretion and harmony, something neoclassic. Vivaldi, one of his bassoon or oboe and orcherstra concerts, with that nice warm tone among all the archs shining.
  • if it'd be a place? L’orangerie at Versailles, with espalier of climbing trees geometrically interleaved by tamed and pruned branches according to coded techniques, flowerbeds marked by small pebble paths and stones, lines highlighted by wooden or crock pots. A beautiful bright green backdrop scattered with roses, lemon trees and officinal plants, all framed by balustrades, stairs and solid architectures. Nature indeed, but regular and ruled by the man.
  • if it'd be a cloth? A silk shirt, soft and flowing, a white drape like in some Canova sculptures.
  • if it'd be a movie/book? Jane Austen "Pride and Prejudice" and the movies taken from it. Sedate young ladies lovely welcoming the friends, stiff youngsters riding horses, proud of their role, the apparent calmness of a society full of codes and several accepted customs with a creeping hidden anxiety.
  • if it'd be a personality (historical, public,...)? It reminda me of a temper just appearently affected, frivolous, a man about town, a dandy self confident about his value. A cicisbeo feeling well in salons where to discuss about poetry and philosophy, an edonist able also of heroic exploits: Lord Byron.
Marzipan
Your number one it's a big rebus. It has something that escapes me, each time seems like remembering me something else, then pouff, it vanishes. Today it's the second time I try it, the first time it was gone in a while. Anyway Mary would say it's butch, citric and aromatic.
My replies are about the sensation of a classic perfume, a little bit retrò, conjuring up a male figure very conservative for dress and manners, a man from the good old days that uses to live in his magnifiscent luxury and habitudes. Not the pleasing tobacco from the clubs, nor the softness of vanilla, just the slightly acid of the citrus and an indefinite bitter dryness.
I'm sorry I'm not able to say more, but every time I try it, it repels me. Let's try and see if I can give you an idea


  • if it'd be a colour? Pale blue
  • if it'd be an animal? A loir
  • if it'd be music? A slow
  • if it'd be a place? A golf course
  • if it'd be a cloth? A waistcoat
  • if it'd be a movie/book? A book by Woodhouse
  • if it'd be a personality (historical, public,...)? Jeeves
Saraprfms
The vial #1 is for sure the one I liked most of all.... if I'd have good memory about a year ago, I could think about Les nuit d'Hadrien, a citrus scent but in a green way, aromatic and not trivial like most in that family... Matchings to this perfume are positive and lively images, words and sounds. It's an unusual citrus juice, sparlking, luminous yet green and very fragrant... to me it recalls clear skyes and warm days of spring or early summer, you cannot avoid thinking to sunbeams warming the fragrance, smells of aromatic plants, brackish pine grooves  and above all freedom and few rules to obey.

  • if it'd be a colour? Green is the colour of the perfume thanks to aromatic and green notes I smell and I don't know them.. if it'd really be Les Nuit d'Hadrien, the note could be cypress(in fact this perfume could fit with this tree). Green overlooks almost immediately the citrus component and stays there till the end.
  • if it'd be an animal? A squirrel, small and sweet as it moves freely and happily in the environment I see as the main part of the fragrance, the green and smelly brackish pine groove warmed by the sun.
  • if it'd be music? Crocodile rock by Elton John beating the sensations passing by, yellow in the beinning and later green, the energizing and joyful atmosphere it creates (we're for sure on vacation, not at work, everything is possible)
  • if it'd be a place? A pine groove close to the sea, like in our maremma toscana.
  • if it'd be a cloth? A pair of jeans, free time, warm season, pic-nic, long walks and motorbike races.
  • if it'd be a movie/book? Mediterraneo by Salvatores conjures up the same colours and the same feelings, the sparkling and luminous atmosphere, nothing is defined and all the situations can change in a while.
  • if it'd be a personality (historical, public,...)? The vibrant and pure satire without taboos of Bill Hicks, a pleasant and energizing tension like the one I feel in this perfume.
Tamberlick
The scent opens with a masculine fougère start of citrus and lavender and develops with a more aromatic and slightly woody strength, but it's the base that mostrly got my interest. The fragrance ends with beautiful, soft and powdery leather notes that keep going on all the previous notes. So it made me think to:
  • if it'd be a colour? It'd be lilac: all the notes, I don't know why but they suggest me the colour lilac, a colour where there's a whirl of lights with light blue, yellow and green flashes.
  • if it'd be an animal? A peacock: because all that colours can be found in the feathers of a peacock;
  • if it'd be music? It'd be... Jazz! It's the fougère part that makes me think of Jazz, but...
  • if it'd be a place? It'd be a night club in L.A. where you can find at the bar Philip Marlowe: that'd due to the leather and suede part recalling me a muffed night club, when Marlowe used to go there. But if Marlowe would wear this fragrance, it'd be covered of alcool and smoke smell, as they are his addictions. It's easier to think of smelling it on another unremitting policeman: see point 7;
  • if it'd be a cloth? A pair of velvet gloves: again it's the particular leather notes suggesting it. Indeed the ones that could wear a refined musketeer and the Court of the King of France. Therefore the choice of the book...
  • if it'd be a movie/book? The three musketeers by Dumas father. but...
  • if it'd be a personality (historical, public,...)? It'd be Dick Tracy: yellow trench, leather holster and levelled submachine gun, I like the idea of Dick Tracy soaking himself in this scent, before going down on the streets to catch Big Boy.
Want to know something? This scent is almost exactly how I always thought the first old real Piguet Cravache would smell as it was created by Jean Carles...

Woody Freak
The first thing that came to my mind opening the vial was: Male! This is a scent that matches with the standard masculine perfume for sure. Even if I'm one of the main supporters of the idea that every scent can be unisex, I'm not that strict to deny the fact that some perfumes immediately makes you think of male or female.
I think I got it, no, for sure I've already smelled it, I don't exclude I could own a vial or a decant. To reply Mags questions better not to think too much so let's try:
  • if it'd be a colour? Green. I smell citrus, woods, a leather touch, an aromatic touch, maybe some vetiver with its metallic tone like earth, like stone... or maybe as my partner thinks, celery??
  • if it'd be an animal? A tortoise(earth, stone). If it made my partner think about a donkey maybe it contains animal notes, maybe the ones I call leather.
  • if it'd be music? By instict I'd say it's a vintage, for its classic style, but not mannered so I say string sonata.
  • if it'd be a place? A wood
  • if it'd be a cloth? Despite it makes me think to leather notes (but slightly huh!), if it'd be a cloth it'd be a scarf... because it's pungent like the luminous air of a snowy day, because it's slightly humid, like the cold air you breath wearing a scarf covering your nose.
  • if it'd be a movie/book? It's difficult to associate it to a book because the literature I like usually are complex, cerebral or dramatic... all the opposite of this perfume... I'd need a light book, sunny, with a love story in the background, not a real romance... I hope Mags will forgive me, but I really can't find any book matching with it... there's anyway a musical that's also a movie perfectly matching with it and it's Mamma mia... above all the musical I've been so lucky to see in Milan.. But let'd think about the movie everybody knows... It's splarkling, joyful, sunny! I can't explain better but if the movie could have a perfume, it'd be this one for sure.
  • if it'd be a personality (historical, public,...)? Paola Cortellesi, a woman with balls, everything she makes she did it flawlessly. She plays many grotesque characters, but she as a woman it's classy and has manners I envy.. that's why, despite I think it's more a masculine scent, it'd be for sure Cortellesi.

<Blind Sniff Roulette #2>   <Blind Sniff Roulette #3>

2 commenti:

Anonimo ha detto...

Oh I love this game... And I love Choc.My aunt used to wear this. It reminds me a little bit of Gucci Rush 2 anda lot of Montale Chypre Fruité

Magnifiscent ha detto...

Choc has defintely something in common with chypre fruité, here it's all just more aromatic.
Glad you liked the game memoryofscent! Hope to see you participating maybe next time :)

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