Sometimes the designation of a perfume as a "chypre" can feel mysterious. Guerlain Mitsouko, Carven Ma Griffe, and Paloma Picasso Mon Parfum are all chypres, for instance, but each smells so different. If you are stumped as to how a chypre really smells and need an olfactory benchmark — and a gorgeous one, at that — try Aedes de Venustas Histoire de Chypre.
"Chypre" is French for Cyprus and was linked with perfume in 1917 when Coty released a fragrance called Chypre. Coty Chypre was one of the first scents to move away from replicating something recognizable, like the smell of citrus or flowers. Instead, Coty Chypre sought to create an abstract impression of a place. Cyprus, a Mediterranean island that had bounced between Turkish, Greek, and French control was annexed to Great Britain in 1914, just before Coty Chypre came out. The idea of the sea and mountains of warm Cyprus, with resinous plants growing in the rocky soil, must have seemed exotic and alluring to Europeans in the midst of World War One.
The traditional chypre has a tart bergamot opening which balances its patchouli, labdanum (rock rose), and oak moss base. A perfumer can add flowers to this structure to make a floral chypre. For example, rose chypres include Parfums de Rosine Une Folie de Rose, Ungaro Diva, and Agent Provocateur. Or, a perfumer might add galbanum, green notes, and sharp flowers like jasmine to make a green chypre such as Balmain Vent Vert, Yves Saint Laurent Y, Carven Ma Griffe, and the dear departed Dior Dior. Add a leather accord for Dior Diorling, Grès Cabochard, or Balmain Miss Balmain. Add peaches for Guerlain Mitsouko or Rochas Femme, depending on how it's framed. You get the idea.
If a perfume is a solid chypre, you can usually smell it in the dry down, if not sooner. Once any sharp topnotes have died away, a chypre adds a fuzzy lens over a scent, giving the feeling of smelling the perfume through a loosely knit veil of warm mohair. Not all chypres smell outstandingly chypre-ish. Some floral chypres, for instance, are more difficult for me to identify as chypres. Other chypres — Christian Dior Miss Dior is one — reach out and spank you with oakmoss.
Aedes' Histoire de Chypre, created in cooperation with Molinard, is a classic chypre of the spanking variety. Aedes' website lists Histoire de Chypre's topnotes as bergamot, mandarin, neroli, jasmine and galbanum; its heart as jasmine, Bulgarian rose, osmanthus, and iris; and its base as patchouli, oakmoss, musk, and amber. Dominique Camilli of Molinard, inspired by a 1920s Molinard formula for a chypre, created the scent to be sold as a limited edition at Aedes. (The story of Histoire de Chypre's creation, told in a style that had me looking over my shoulder for Fabio, is on the Aedes website).
Histoire de Chypre starts with definite galbanum, boosting the neroli and jasmine of the scent's topnotes, but I smell its patchouli, labdanum, and oakmoss blend all the way through the scent's development. After half an hour, the citrus and green start to fade and the scent's chypre base takes over. I don't really smell much happening in the middle of the fragrance, but I don't mind since the scent is so fresh and yet serious and so easy but so definitely from another time. Histoire de Chypre's main drawback is that it doesn't last longer than a few hours. However, I'm sampling it from a vial, a few drops at a time, and it might do better when sprayed. All in all, Histoire de Chypre is a beautiful hesperidic, green scent perfect for a summer night and a good reminder of what a real chypre is, as unfashionable as they might be these days.
Aedes de Venustas + Molinard Histoire de Chypre is available only at Aedes for $225 for a 100 ml Lalique spray bottle of Eau de Parfum.
Disclosure: Aedes de Venustas is an advertiser at Now Smell This.
Just beautifully done, Robin. Informative, evocative and just generally fascinating — i.e., par for the course.
Love the *reaches out and spanks you* phrase. You nailed it vis-a-vis Miss Dior et al. Maybe one day I'll even be spankable myself; until then, I will content myself with the gentle strokes of milder chypres, and dream of more exciting adventures ahead.
Just a terrifically valuable article. Thanks, R.!
OMG. Angela!!!! So sorry! Early in the morning, before that crucial second cup of coffee, and didn't even check the byline. It is YOU who are brilliant!!!!!!!!!!! (Of course, I've told you that a dozen times before, so no big surprise. . .)
xoxo
R
Only on my 3rd cup of tea, so at the moment for all I know I *did* write all that, LOL…I usually figure it all out around about cup number 5.
Oh, golly. NEED. WANT. MUST HAVE.
The bottle is pretty, too.
Ha! “a classic chypre of of the spanking variety.” Love it! I need to find a way to fit this prhase into my everyday vocab. 🙂
Hey, out here on the west coast this late riser is just getting started on her first cup! But thank you (and I'm sure you're plenty spankable).
The bottle is really pretty, but I wonder how reliable the atomizer is. I know if I had a 100 ml bottle of anything it would last for years, so I need to know that the atomizer is up to it. In any case, if my budget can't handle a full bottle, I'm planning on buying a decant.
Yeah, I hate that it's an atomizer. I'm amazed the guys at Aedes went for one … they know better, or were they being all about aesthetics?
Loved your “fierce green chypre” post, too. I majorly love Eau du Soir.
Once I stayed in a cheap hotel in Paris where the man at the front desk spent a lot of time watching soccer on t.v. When I came back one evening I asked him how his team did that evening. “Ils les ont fesse!” he said (Imagine an accent aigu over the last “e” for “they spanked them”). For some reason that always stuck with me, and I try to use “spank” every once in a while.
I also love Eau du Soir and am totally wild over Corps et Ames. Something about a green chypre is so fascinating.
I might be mistaken, but I thought the Molinard 1849 series (same bottle design) came with an “optional” atomizer? If you look at the photos on the Aedes website, the first Molinard pictures shows regular caps, then if you go to the individual perfume pages, you see the atomizer. But I don't know.
Thanks for helping me understand what chypres are all about. I was getting confused – I knew I liked some things that were considered chypres, but not others, and was trying to understand why. Your article made it make more sense to me.
And this one sounds really lovely – too bad it's so expensive.
Chypres really can be confusing since it's not always easy to smell the common link between them. One sniff of Histoire, though, and you know for sure you're dealing with a chypre, even if you doubted your ability to spot them before.
I just called Aedes, and here's the scoop: Histoire is now out in a limited edition of 400 bottles, all packaged like the photo above with the squeeze atomizer and no option for another kind of top. However, Aedes is working now on a new package for Histoire once the 400 current bottles run out, but they don't know yet if the bottle will have a regular atomizer or one like it has now (or a different kind). The new bottle will be inspired by old Molinard deco bottles, blah blah blah. And it will still be sold in 100 ml, not smaller.
Wow, a great review of chypres ('fuzzy veil' – lovely) AND we get to learn the French for 'spanking'!
It's evening here and I've finished my coffee allotment for the day, boohoo.
It always makes me so happy when a chypre is admired. Ever since I was old enough to distinguish one type of fragrance from another, I've been strongly drawn to chypres in all of the many types. I guess I'm just a fool for the bergamot/labdanum/oakmoss combination. When I ponder your description, it seems to make sense that chypres would appeal to me. I'll always choose a Renoir over a Picasso, window sheers over drapes, and I'll seize any chance I get to wear a hat with a veil. I like my angles rounded and my hues smudged. So it does make sense that I'd like scents that manifest themselves as though wafting through gauze.
And you know what? i'm just a wee bit glad that chypres aren't fashoinable….it makes me feel elite, mysterious and special. lol
Thank you for yet another thoughtful and well-crafted review and for putting another great, plump lemming in my “need to have” basket. 🙂
I just saw that the Perfumed Court does have decants of this, so we're all saved (or at least I am).
Thank you! Make sure you use the French for “spanking” wisely!
I have such a hard time using 100 ml of anything, even my very favorites. Decants are a life saver.
I never thought about the connection between liking blended, soft things and chypres, but I think it's true for me, too. Give me a velvet over satin, firelight over halogen, or Nabokov over Hemingway any day.
Trying to figure out what else I can describe as “of the spanking variety…”
Thanks so much for this lucid sketch of chypres. I think I have been confusing/conflating them with those sharp green galbanum scents–now I see there is more territory to cover. What would you say is the historic relationship between chypres and aldehydic scents? Somehow I think of them together, but perhaps that's just because I feel spanked by most aldehydes.
Well, there is definitely a whole class of green chypres that are sharp and loaded with galbanum (Vent Vert and Ma Griffe come to mind right away), but these are outnumbered by floral, leather, and fruity chypres. Their common thread isn't a green kick for a top note but rather an earthy, furry bottom.
Plenty of chypres have obvious aldehydes on top and smell grandly French to me (Diva is an example) but plenty don't. When I think of a scent that is classified as aldehydic, I think of the sneezy, tingly top of it.
And let's hear it for furry, earthy bottoms! (Still having trouble with the sneezy, tingly tops.)
I understand aldehydes and chypres are different scentwise, I was just wondering about their historic connection. To put it another way–do some of the great perfumes in each category come from the same era? Or is it more of a progression — chypres coming first, aldehydes following and embroidering?
Feel free to tell me to do my own research, LOL.
Spanking and furry bottom. Stop, you! 🙂
Whatever do you mean?
😉
I can't remember the last time I got “spanked” by a perfume, but from the looks of your review, A, it sounds like it's time for a good one!
This fragrance must be beautiful! I just wish it came in a smaller 50 ml bottle and at a cheaper price. 🙁
Hugs!
I think I sense another Aedes sample order coming on. why oh why did my perfume obsession peak AFTER my trip to NYC?!
And all this talk of spanking and furry bottoms is going to put me into therapy for years to come, but I have to say that I'm glad to know french for “spanking”. Rosetta Stone doesn't teach useful stuff like that. 😉
Wonderful review! I had thought this might not have enough “oomph” for me, so my expectations were suitably low when I sampled it. However, within an hour (and it took some self restraint to wait that long) I had ordered a bottle from Aedes. It's one of my favorite new scents and I'm pretty sure that come December I'll still be listing it in my top ten or even top five faves list for 2008.
Well, I'm pretty sure that aldehydes have been used in perfume a long time, but the first time they used as an abstract note in and of themselves rather than as a booster for other notes was in Chanel No. 5. And that was in 1925 (I think–I should double check that) which was after Coty Chypre (1917) came out. Is that the info you're after? (Or do you just want me to reference another body part?)
If there's a connection between the first chypres and aldehydic scents, it's that both types of fragrances were abstract and not mimicking natural odors like flowers, leather, lemons, wood, etc, like just about every other perfume of their time did.
Or even a 30 ml bottle! I know just what you mean. It smells so good and costs so much….
Sounds like it's time for another trip to NYC–or Paris!
You should have seen the desk manager at the hotel. He needed a shave, was up a few beers, and leaned across the counter and said, “They SPANKED them!” (In French)
I think Histoire will be great on a summer's night when there's some moisture in the air. I'm so jealous that you have a bottle now.
You have the best stories!
Beautiful, beautiful review! And en excellent discussion of chypre. BTW when I stopped by the store in January we could *not* get the stupid bulb atomizer to work, although the bottle was almost full. Three of us took turns trying. For some reason I am remembering the others (at Aedes) with bulb atomizers and the ones at Bendel with regular atomizers, but could be wrong.
Anyway, now you've written the review I wish I'd done!
Abstraction–that's the link I was after, thanks Angela. And of a particular kind of mood — have to think about that one for awhile.
Though anytime you want to reference another body part…
That's what I was afraid of with those atomizers! If it doesn't work now, how well will it work in 5 years, because I know I'd still have the bottle then? Grrr. With any luck the new bottles will have regular atomizers. I'm sure I won't be able to afford a bottle before the 400 bulb bottles run out.
You are so nice about my review. I'll go look for your review now.
I'll keep that in mind…
You are so nice.
A, thanks so much for checking. Too bad they're not planning to do a 50 ml, I'd be very tempted.
I hear you, sister.
Thanks for the great writing about chypres–especially the green ones. I've always loved green chypres, even while fruity-florals threaten to drown us in lychee and apple accords. A good green chypre is not easy to come by–just today I had to fight with an SA at NM because she wanted me in the new Dior and I wanted a bottle of Sabi. I had to find the Sabi in a shelf in the back, but ahhhh, it was worth it!
Oh, my review was crap. I went back on that Monday (Tuesday?) to resniff it and they are closed that day. I remember thinking it smelled good but expecting something with more oomph, but that's hardly a fair judgment based on one sniff with a faulty bulb — I'd have put on a lot more to smell it properly. So I guess I will have to do so again!
Paris sounds like all kinds of fun, but I'll have to leave any credit cards behind. Imagine the damage I could do…
I think I would have just dissolved into giggles right there. Being french is funny enough, but a drunk frenchman mentioning spanking- especially in a sport's context- too funny! Completely great review, though. As a total novice, it's nice to be educated a bit. 🙂
I bet you were smelling a lot of different scents, too, which makes it hard. Well, get yourself a sample and give it another go. I bet you'll like it.
With the dollar in the tank right now, it's hard to imagine a trip to Europe. But I would love love love to go now.
Sabi! That's a good one, and I'll have to try it again. Have you tried Frond? It's from an Irish company, and it's another fresh green chypre. In a swap I recently got my hands on a sample of Dior Dior, and it's another fabulous green chypre.
You, of course, Robin, are brilliant, too.
Haven't tried Frond,l but if it's a fresh green chypre, i am on patrol! Haven't sniffed Dior, Dior in a long time. I will admit that some green chypres go sour on me. But i'll have to sniff out Frond. After all, I could grow frond of it.
–Q
(*groans*) I'm so jealous you thought of that first.
At the end of a long day, struggling with the elements and a few other things as well, my accumulated crankiness focussed on chypres — that is, the refomulations, mainly. I want a wonderful new chypre to wear, and I don’t know how I missed this marvellous article when you first wrote it…but thank you, I’m off to try some Histoire de Chypre!
I’d love to know what you think of it! Hope that crankiness gives way to appreciation.