Montana Parfum de Peau

1986

Jean Guichard

Parfum de Peau leaves me with mixed emotions. This a perfume with multiple sharply distinct personalities, and it is hard for me to decide if I like the entire experience or if it fails to come together as a coherent whole. This review is based on a parfum mini, a tiny cobalt blue version of the beautiful helix bottle that fits upside down into a small plastic box. I think this is vintage, because I don't believe the parfum is still available, but I am not certain of its exact age. I see other minis online that are frosted glass rather than blue. On me. PdP opens with an acrid and peppery smell of marigolds (the scent that makes marigolds a natural pest repellent in the garden). Luckily this opening doesn't last very long, perhaps ten minutes, so I don't drive away house pets and family members. The next phase is a classic strong leather. At this point, PdP smells a lot like Cabochard and Azuree to me. The leather phase fades gradually, in about an hour or two, but it is eventually replaced by the third, final, and longest lasting phase of PdP on me (about 10 hours or more...this stuff really lasts!) which is a slightly sweet and smokey bouquet of flowers (with no single floral note standing out forcefully). There is a very faint tang of clean, salty sweat in the background, but I get no more leather in the PdP drydown, unlike Cabochard and Azuree, which remain lovely leathers to the end. PdP is a fascinating, unusual scent that surprises you throughout its long wear time, but it may be too moody for me.

Pierre Cardin Choc

1981

Francoise Caron

Just when I am sure I don't need another vintage chypre, I try Choc and I realize that there will always be another exploration of this genre that I will be happy to add to my collection. My bottle is the EDP, just like the one in the main photo. Choc is an extremely well executed chypre, and it suggests to me that I should now make a point of trying other perfumes composed by Francoise Caron. The opening is a fresh and invigorating splash of citrus and bergamot, but it is not too sharp or an extreme "choc" to the nose. It develops into a complex scent, in which I get a touch of rose and other flowers (but this is definitely not a rose chypre) but mostly green and herbal notes. I do not really perceive any civet or musks, but perhaps they serve as foundation that I am not noticing since I do not object to stronger animalic notes. No powder, either, if we take that to mean soapiness or dryness. Choc really distinguishes itself in its big finish...a super long drydown of absolutely wonderful oakmoss and sandalwood. In this phase, hours after application, Choc is truly unique.

Notes on Perfume and Primitive Acquisition

I've always found it a bit worrying when collectors try to rationalize their acquisitive tendencies with passionate accounts of the real market value of the things they crave.  We've all seen how this goes, right? Those television shows featuring hoarders who claim that their collections of baseball cards, Beanie Babies, and action figures are actually a college fund for their children or investments to secure their retirement? 

Every so often, my perfume-obsessed brain  marches down this slippery slope.  I see a vintage perfume on That Auction Site, and I am thinking..."I am not really interested in that perfume...I don't like the bottle...Those notes all wrong for me"  BUT then..."I could get it for a good price and swap it" or "It would be a good subject for a blog post."  I try not to act on these impulses, but I don't always succeed.

Eventually, the perfume collector realizes that she already has more perfume than she will ever be able to use in her lifetime.  I tell myself that this is perfectly fine.  The bottles I leave behind will just go back into The Vintage Perfume Circle of Life, to be rediscovered again by another collector.

My Vintage Perfume Obsession

Blogging seems to be one of the best ways to deal with a vintage perfume obsession. Non-perfume obsessed family and friends can tolerate only so much of the perfume fanatic's incessant burbling about notes, drydowns, bottle forms, and fatal dates of reformulation.  Time spent blogging about perfume directly reduces the time spent trawling the Internets to learn even more perfume arcana or to find more vintage perfumes.

Online perfume communities and perfume blogs were my gateway into vintage perfumes, and I hope that readers may find this blog entertaining and informative, too.  I welcome comments, questions, and discussion!