It’s not often that a fragrance lives up to its marketing. Vero Profumo Rozy does. Vero Profumo puts forward the gutsy, earthy Roman film goddess, Anna Magnani, as the fragrance’s inspiration. Despite the namby-pamby impression the name “Rozy” gives, the perfume is all glamour, attitude, and sweaty lip — and tenderness. Like Anna Magnani herself. You'd never call her attractive, but you can't get her out of your mind.
Rozy Eau de Parfum, created by the house’s founder, Vero Kern, includes notes of rose d’orient, lilac, peach, passion fruit, honey, tarragon, powdery notes and sandalwood. (Rozy also comes in a Voile d’Extrait, which has notes of rose d’orient, tuberose, cassis, honey, spices, sandalwood and labdanum. It also reportedly comes in an extrait, but I can’t find it for sale anywhere. If you've tried the Voile d'Extrait or Extrait, please comment!)
My first thought on smelling Rozy was that at last I’d found a worthy substitute for the discontinued Annick Goutal Mon Parfum Chéri par Camille. The fragrances aren’t twins by any means, but they both demand 1940s black rayon dresses that wear the way Joan Crawford only wished they would, with a power that is at once yielding and unflinching.1 Rozy is gentler and greener than Mon Parfum Chéri, but you have to take both on their terms, and the terms best suit film noir heroines.
Rozy Eau de Parfum starts out green and dry, with an undercurrent of rose, but it’s the rose’s crushed thorns that show up best. Or, imagine tearing into a tight rose bud with your fingernails until you reach the tightly packed stamens at its center. That’s the rose that shows here. It’s green and tannic and barely admits to being a flower.
Passion fruit — a common material in many of Vero Profumo’s non-extrait formulas — acts as the medium for the rest of Rozy’s muscular show. It creates a vaguely fruity body for the big characters Rozy entertains, including an intensely herbal body, wet lilac, and the barest hint of urine-like honey. Rozy’s herbal quality almost smells like pulverized marjoram, and it reminds me of the feeling I get smelling old chypres, the vicious chypres that no one (save Vero Kern, maybe) would dare make these days. Those “powdery” notes? I don’t smell them a bit. Rozy would eat them for lunch.
Rozy Eau de Parfum lasts all day on my skin, and it's strangely lighter the more I apply. It keeps its attitude, too, never devolving into a sweet, woody pillow like so many fragrances do. It marches on, demanding stiletto-heeled boots, irrational statements that make so much sense at the time, and the right to challenge whatever you say.
Madonna wanted to be Rozy in the 1980s, but she drifted with commerce. Lady Gaga might get there when she’s 80. Anna Magnani, though, she had what Rozy is all about.
Vero Profumo Rozy is available in 50 ml Eau de Parfum ($235), 50 ml Voile d'Extrait ($250), and 7.5 and 15 ml Extrait. For information on where to buy it, see Vero Profumo under Perfume Houses.
1. Old rayon can be a nightmare, I know. It holds body odor in a way that should be studied by NASA. I swear, Bess Truman was in the White House when the stink on some of my dresses was manufactured, yet it is still going strong. After many years of experimentation, here’s what you to do rid old rayon of B.O.: Step one, spray the affected spots with vodka. Usually this won’t work, but it’s worth a try. Step two, hang the dress over your bathroom door, and twice a day for ten days, spray the smelly parts with Nature’s Miracle (a pet odor removal product). This will usually work with repeated applications. If this fails, here’s the 100% effective method: soak the garment overnight in strongly salty water. Then rinse it out. The problem is that you might have just shrunk the dress a size and created big, rusty patches.
Yowza – rayon dress maintenance! I think they used the same base-rayon materials to make those completely indestructible school sports uniforms from the 70s and 80s – no matter what you did, they always smelled bad, lol! Maybe back in the day, everyone smelled of rayon fused BO, so no one noticed… or they needed stronger perfumes to cover it up!
Rozy sounds wonderful – I still have a few dribbles o!f Mon Parfum Cheri par Camille – and it never sat well on my skin, even though on paper it should have. If Rozy is a greener lighter version of this, then it will go on my must try list. I see a lot of comments about it, so it must be something specail.
That old rayon is tough, nice-draping, long-lasting material, but oh can it hold odors. I never buy a 1940s rayon dress without sniffing the pits.
If you do try Rozy, I’d love to know what you think!
Mon Parfum Chéri is back. They only have the eau de parfum, but it is back on the Goutal site.
This fragrance sounds really gorgeous, I will have to try it.
Hurray for Mon Parfum Cheri! I’m so happy to hear that.
I think they changed the packaging: the wonderful deep ruby bottle is gone. However, it looks like one can find the discontinued packaging on ebay and maybe discounters.
MPCpC was one of the strangest AGs. I wonder if they’ve lightened it or toned it down, as they did the packaging. Glad I have my big, ruby bottle!
As long as the fragrance is out again, I’m happy. Although I admit that ruby bottle is nice!
Interesting! I have a sample of the Voile d’Extrait, and would not have said there was a huge amount of similarity with Mon Parfum Cheri, other than a certain retro spirit. In fact, it most reminds me of Etat Libre d’Orange Rien for the first ten minutes. The honey note is particularly strong in the heart and base in the Vd’E and I would say it sounds less herbal than the EdP. It is fairly linear, too, though. I really like it, I thought it one of the most interesting launches to me so far this year, but it sounds as if I’ll have to try the EdP, as well, since they’re different.
Thanks for weighing in on the Voile d’extrait! Now I’m curious to try that one, too. I didn’t get much honey from the EdP, really.
Bought Rozy edp this summer and the voile d’extrait is different enough that I wish I could have afforded both
That’s how I feel about Rubj, too!
This post is equal parts lemming inducing (Rozy) and hilarious (rayon dress). Thanks, Angela!
I had second thoughts about including all that odor removal information. But I figured it was only a footnote–plus it was info hard-won!
I watched The Rose Tattoo a few months ago when I was watching all of the Oscar-winning Best Actress movies, so this was fun to read with Anna Magnani’s performance in mind. Bet it is even better to wear while watching the movie 🙂 Thanks for a great read!
I’ve never seen the movie, and it looks right up my alley. I finished my Rozy sample, but I can huff the empty vial while I watch…
I’m pro this kind of huffing 😉
Her performance really stood apart from the other Oscar winners for me, and I could see a perfume inspired by her being the same way.
Now I’m totally imagining a whole line of perfumes dedicated to Oscar-winning actresses, though I guess a number of them already have their own/inspired one. It could wind up in some strange places depending on interpretation – Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched? Kathy Bates in Misery? Some perfumer with a sense of humour could have a field day 🙂
Maybe Etat Libre could run with that one! (The Misery or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nests fragrances are terrifying to contemplate, though…)
I saw Anna Magnani live in the theatre in a piece called “La lupa” (The She-Wolf). The main point of the story was that she is a middle-aged widow who has an affair with her daughter’s boyfriend, and all the drama that that causes! I think that her perfume would have been Yatagan mixed with human sweat in unshaved armpits.
Wow! What an amazing performance that must have been.
Rozy edp and Voile d’Extrait are really different, and I found the VdE much more appealing, probably because there was something in the edp – either the peach, the passion fruit, or a combo of the two – that didn’t wear well on me. But I love the honey, spices, and cassis along with the rose in the VdE. It made it to my FBW list after only one wear.
That’s a tremendous recommendation! Thank you for weighing in on the Voile d’Extrait.
I haven’t tried the Rozy’s yet, but Mito VdE made my to-buy list after one sniff too. I find the different concentrations of each one different enough to warrant being different perfumes entirely, so I know I’ll need to smell all those I haven’t yet to definitively establish my to-buy list 🙂
I also find Rubj to be markedly different in its different concentrations. I adore Onda. It repulses me and draws me in in a way that’s irresistible to me.
Rozy is on my ‘to try’ list for certain as I’ve never been disappointed by the quality of any of Ms. Vero’s fragrances.
My mother went to college in the late 1940s and I was lucky enough to inherit her enormous trunk of clothing from her college years, untouched from the day after graduation when she shipped it back home to her parents’ house. (She was married the day after graduation and got a whole new trousseau, as was customary back then, so she no longer needed her college clothes)
Antiperspirant, to the extent that it existed then, wasn’t terribly effective, and when you bought clothes, they were meant to last. So the smart young lady spent hours sewing perspiration guards into her blouses and jackets and dresses, and changed them whenever necessary. I can’t imagine the amount of work this must have required, but I can certainly understand the practicality of it.
I’ve made some inroads on that trunk of vintage clothing. There is a lovely grey wool coat with red velvet trim with a cinched waist and wide skirt that I often wear in the winter. Several of the sweaters and a couple of mid-calf length sheath skirts (much like today’s pencil skirts) also get some wear now and then. I was fortunate to be built so much like my mother in height and proportions. It has been a great deal of fun to resurrect these clothes.
Lucky you! What I’d give to have inherited a trunk of clothing from the late 1940s. The coat sounds especially entrancing. I bet you look marvelous in it–and it’s wonderful that you can enjoy your mother’s things.
Oh! Lucky you! That’s the inheritance of daydreams Teri- I’m super envious but very happy for you! That coat sounds divine.
I was very much looking forward to Rozy and have samples of both the EdP and voile d’extrait. I find the two versions VERY different – I don’t think I would have identified them as the same perfume in a blind test.
I don’t care for the EdP at all – it smells sort of musty or dusty to me. I think the lilac, fruit and herbs don’t work for me.
The VdE reminds me of a softer Caron Tabac Blond until the drydown, which is more like the “dirty” basenotes of Onda extrait. I don’t notice the fruit, and it smells more like sandalwood. I sort of liked the VdE (until the drydown). But I’ve already got Tabac Blond and En Avion, so I don’t have to risk that drydown.
Neither reminded me of AG Mon Parfum Cherie par Camille, which to me is like a Goth Iris Gris (iris and peach) with patchouli. But I guess I can see a kinship, now that you mention it.
Of the recent roses, Ann Gerard Rose Cut is the one that I’ve liked the best, at first sniff.
You make the Voile d’Extrait sound irresistible! I’ll definitely seek out a sample.
I agree with you about Rose Cut. A replacement bottle of Cuir de Russie is my next perfume purchase for certain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Rose Cut comes after that (listening, Santa?).