Way back in 2008, Erin wrote a post called 5 Perfumes for: Gourmand Deniers. Her selection emphasized gourmands for people who are wary of gourmands; in her words, gourmands "that camouflage their intentions". Like Erin, I don't think of myself as a huge fan of sweet, dessert-based gourmands, although as time goes on I find more and more exceptions to the rule. Today, however, I'm thinking about an entirely different kind of gourmand. Here are five fragrances that smell like food without calling to mind the conventional offerings on a dessert tray.
Lush The Voice of Reason: If Dinner by Bobo were still on the market (and if it is, do comment), it would surely take top honors in any list of gourmand oddities, but as a reasonably meaty substitute I offer The Voice of Reason, which I described in my review as "rather alarmingly meaty" — the opening smells, basically, like sausages in barbecue sauce. Admittedly, it dries down to something much closer to a conventional gourmand, but fans of wacky top notes should give it a try.
Hermès Vetiver Tonka: If there's another vetiver as edible as Vetiver Tonka, offhand I can't think of what it is (again, do comment). Plenty of toasted sugar and hazelnuts, but also plenty of vetiver, so that it smells foody, but not like dessert (although more than once, I've thought that it ought to be a cocktail). I used to wear it more often than I do now, but whenever I put it on, I'm brought up short by how entirely perfect it is.
L'Artisan Parfumeur Bois Farine: I did not set out to put two Jean-Claude Ellena fragrances on the list (he also did Vetiver Tonka), but that's how it worked out. Bois Farine is named for a flower that reportedly smells like flour, and Bois Farine does have a doughy undertone. Peanut butter mixed with hamster-cage shavings, though, is the more usual description. It spent a good long time in my purgatory basket before I fell for its charms.
Serge Lutens Miel de Bois: Yes, it does smell like honey, but you'd be hard-pressed to make honey smell less like dessert than it does here. I once bought a really strong buckwheat honey. It was nearly opaque black, like blackstrap molasses, and it turned out to be just short of inedible. I tried mixing it with a lighter honey, or just using less, but in the end, I just threw it out. That honey tasted like Miel de Bois smells. I don't know why I love it, but I do.
Demeter Beetroot: Simply put, the best root vegetable fragrance I know. Do you want to smell like root vegetables? You'll never know until you try.
Do comment with your own gourmand oddities!
Note: top image is sausage [cropped] by Waytru at flickr; some rights reserved.
I love buckwheat honey! I also wish I’d known how much I enjoyed Miel de Bois before it was confined to bell jars.
I can’t think of anything to add to this list. My first instinct was the inedible Borneo 1834 which I also wish I’d owned. A friend of mine told me it smelled like I was baking bread when I wore it. I think it’s much more strange than it purports, though.
I like it too! Did not mean to imply I didn’t. But that one “vintage” (or location) did not agree with me.
Interesting, did not think Borneo smelled like bread! But maybe it does. And IIRC, Santal Blanc was inspired by the smell of bread baking.
Oh, I see. Admittedly the ones I’ve had have never been that strong.
I can’t describe what Borneo smells like to me but it is very “eat me; don’t eat me.” Like caramel made with some sort of toxic botanical. :p
LOL — I will vote for the “toxic botanical” part! Borneo did NOT agree with me.
Serge Lutens is very good at the “eat me, don’t eat me” tension. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. Chergui I liken to sitting down to eat some luscious phyllo dough and honey treat only to have some unkind person tamp out their still smoking pipe tobacco right on my treat. I find the tension between the sweet and the tobacco nauseating. I love Lush Breath of God which is really BBQ and mango when first applied.
Yes, exactly — “eat me, don’t eat me” is the perfect description for many, Santal Blanc but also Douce Amere comes to mind right away, and Rahat.
Stinker_kit, I love that image. It reminds me of this:
http://38.media.tumblr.com/51c23b9e4ec855603c29b723097bf8a3/tumblr_n3t65mAtZh1sial0xo1_250.gif
Good old Cruella de Vil.
That is great, Jonas! Now I wonder what perfume Cruella would wear……
Responding to stinker_kit below, I imagine a modern day Cruella wearing M Micallef fragrances… The very sweetest.
Hermes just sent me a 4 ml vial of Vetiver Tonka. I get loads of burnt sugar from it. I love it very much but then again, I’m bound to love Vetiver anything.
I want a bottle of Demeter Beetroot so badly. I’ve never smelled it but I love beets so much that I’m sure I would like it.
The only gourmand I own is L’Artisan Méchant Loup which is nice enough, all honey and hazelnut. I just wish it would last longer.
I love beets, too. LOVE them. And I’m the only person in my family who does.
Same here. I eat them several times a week at least.
I love beets too. Do you guys prepare from scratch? My mother did: boil for an hour, cool, peel & serve in a vinaigrette dressing. I’m lazier–one of the local delis has a nice beet & snap pea salad.
I used to dice & roast them myself, but the already-cooked ones they have in the produce section at Whole Foods are pretty darned good, so I buy those more often now. Very convenient, esp. if nobody else in your family likes beets!
Am I the only one who eats beets raw?
Gosh Jonas. You can’t be the *only* one, but I have never so much as tasted a raw beet.
Jonas, I like them grated in a salad, although I don’t do it often enough. 🙂
That’s too bad. A lot of people seem to object to the dirty flavor but that what I like about them: that sweet, sweet dirt taste. I especially love them uncooked. Get a bunch of different colors and they make a beautiful salad.
In complete agreement! Their flavor uncooked is milder, I think, than cooked. They are so versatile.
Sweeter too. If you’re trying to convert a beetroot hater, try serving them raw. I think the shaker ones are better for the purpose.
by the way, Mals, I’m wearing one of your favorites, today: SSS Tabac Aurea
Yum, love Mechant Loup. Wish I had a bottle.
I got it along with Timbuktu and Fou d’Absinthe in a 3×15 ml coffret for a good price. I love the size.
Perfect.
oh, I adore beets. there’s a local restaurant that offers a beet salad with a gorgonzola dressing. It is simple decadent.
And I eat mine with arugula & honey goat cheese…about the same thing 🙂
Another beet fan, here. I also really like sauteed beet greens.
Sometimes I love gourmands, other time’s I’m like Olivier Polge and I don’t want to smell like what I eat, That is a big generalization of the gourmand category since there are many that smell nothing like food. It depends on my mood for sure.
I used to really dislike sweet gourmands. My tastes have pretty much evolved to include nearly everything. I should have stopped while I was ahead 🙂
the idea of a beetroot perfumes reminds me of Tom Robbins novel “Jitterbug Perfume”…I happen to love beets, roasted, or boiled, hot or cold but not sure what I would make of this fragrance…
an odd gourmand for me would be Jo Malone Agave &Cacao…almost thought about wearing this one for next Friday…my first wear of it I liked it (as it reminded me a bit of Hannae Mori which for me is a grown up gourmand and a love enough to drain a few bottles)…but then the second wearing of my sample made me a bit nauseous (and there are very few fragrances that can do that!). Not sure what it is in the notes that make it seem odd…..
A&C was an odd one, esp. for Jo Malone. I think of it as the exact middle of their “experimental” period.
I remember finding Jitterbug Perfume on a friend’s shelf and giving it a read. A very strange book. 🙂
I used to adore Tom Robbins…too old and too impatient to read him now, I think.
Jitterbug Perfume is one of the few books that I will re-read from time to time…..just love the craziness….and the live lessons underneath all of that……
Me too.
Robin, our tastes often coincide, and our preferences in the quirky-gourmand subcategory are no exception. Bois Farine is my favorite L’Artisan and one of my favorite fragrances overall (to me it smells like the just-broken-open shells of fresh peanuts). And I have fond memories of the Vetiver Tonka decant I had some years ago. That scent has such a chocolatey richness.
Another “nutty” favorite of mine is PG Praliné de Santal — which to me is roasted, *salted* nuts. What could be more delicious?
I must try Demeter Beetroot! Back in the day, I loved Demeter Tomato but tired of arguing with people who asked, “But why would anybody wanna smell like a tomato??”
PG is a great house for unusual gourmands in general, & they’ve done lovely things with cereal grains as well.
Was the Demeter Tomato really tomato, or tomato leaf? I assumed it was the “forerunner” of CB I Hate Perfume Memory of Kindness, which was really the leaf.
If it is tomato leaf then I really need a bottle!!!! and now off to research Memory of Kindness…
MoK is a really great bitter green scent. There isn’t enough tomato leaf in fragrance. Annick Goutal had a lovely tomato leaf note in Folavril but think that one got discontinued.
I believe AG “Passion” includes tomato leaf – love this one in the summer.
You are correct: It was tomato leaf. Which would make the critics yell that much louder, “Ewww, that’s even worse than tomato!” (I beg to differ.)
And I did own a bottle of Folavril at one time, too!
Definitely on your side with the leaf. It’s lovely.
I need to get some – either one or both- as well as Beet…They also had Tomato Seed, but it seems to be out of stock.
Stecca is very much a tomato leaf at the beginning – had a sample a couple years ago – time to revisit…
We love beets – sometimes we pickle them with hard boiled eggs.
I love the occasional pickled egg (and all beets). Can I do it myself without poisoning myself?
Hi Marjorie Rose – kind of late replying, but yes, you can. Google will show you the way.. .
I love your list (except Beetroot, but I dislike anything beet). Some more contenders: SSS Fireside Intense (BBQ), CdG Harissa (hot sauce), Lostmarch Lann Ael (Fruit Loops), and PG Cuir Venenum (Belgian ale).
HA — someone just now brought up Fireside Intense on FB as another excellent meat course fragrance. I had forgotten it! Great list in general, thanks.
Ditto on Fireside Intense…I think that was why Winter Woods came about…a “tamer” version of smoke….
Smokey scents frequently read as meaty to me, but I never got smoke in Winter Woods. It actually smells foody to me–like sweet candy musk… and I love it.
You know, I was trying to remember remember what smoky perfumes I’d liked and it hit me: CdG Black. Victoria at BdJ wrote that it smelled like a barbeque pit, or something to that effect.
Yes! Black has this smoldering-coals barbecue vibe. It’s very comforting. Voice of Reason smells more like a heap of marinated sausage: I’v never lasted past the opening notes!
I absolutely love black and would buy a bottle of it if I had a c-note in my hand. I regret not buying it when it came out. One of my top 3 from CdG.
I find it one of the more wearable CDG’s. I managed to convince a shop to sell me their tester…
I forgot one! Honore des Pres I Love Les Carottes! I may not like to smell like beets, but I love smelling like rabbit food.
I like that one too!
Honore des Pres had another one, Love Coco, that was a strange mix of coconut and cilantro. It wasn’t the usual suntan-lotion coconut at all. I should see if I still have a sample of that one somewhere.
I have I Love Les Carottes! It’s kooky and fun. Oh, also, Like This is another weird gourmand – lots of pumpkin.
I really like Bois Farine, too. Traversee du Bosphore took me longer to like but I came around and it is an oddball gourmand imo – a leather covered apple that morphs into Turkish delight.
I love that one too! I wish L’Artisan would get their mojo back.
I think this year’s Rose Privée is an encouraging sign as are the recent re-releases.
I admit I have not smelled it, but also think it does not sound at all like the sort of thing that made me love the house back in the day. But I will give it a shot 🙂
For sure. I still thinks it’s heading in the right direction (away from those pricey things in the squat bottles). Plus, it comes in 50 ml so it looks like they’ve relented on that point. Hopefully their next release is more out there/oddball.
Agree — don’t want those big squat bottles!
But also don’t want only the oddballs. I loved some of their beautiful florals — La Chasse, Jacinthe, etc. And the fun summer fragrances, which they don’t do anymore. Lately I think I am just often puzzled by what they’re trying to be or what market they’re trying to reach.
My fav l’AP discontinued frag is Orchidee Blanche. It was just perfectly lovely stuff. I have a small decant that I treasure!
I’m going to nominate Eau Noire for its licorice/coffee/curry vibe, all steeped in lavender 🙂
Agreed – it is the damnedest, strangest lavender ever, and just about the only one I love.
Union Celtic Fire smells like … burnt barbeque sauce to me.
It smells like barbecue sauce on me too
I need to try that one!
Fils de Dieu from ELdO contains a really great rice note and Dzhari from Phaedon pairs dates with clay (if I’m remembering right) and the combo of fir and chocolate in Seattle Chocolate from Olympic Orchids is also rather peculiar
Yes — the list needs a rice and/or grains entry. There is another perfume w/ a rice note that I just couldn’t think of. It will come to me next week, probably.
One of the Kenzo Amour had rice vapor? And Ego Factor has that Poopoo Doo that I never tried.
Oh, and OJ Champaca, the only OJ I’ve tried and that I love relentlessly.
Yes, I was thinking of Amour, too.
Incidentally, I was lamenting that I have *no idea* how much of that I have left. . . I have one of the olde white bottles, and it’s entirely opaque. Last time I used it, it seemed to be feeling like it was nearing an end. . . 🙁
Whoops! Ye Olde bottles, apparently!
Yes…but it is another, less conventional “comfort scent” — one that sort of smells like Thai food. It will come to me!
Is it Fils de Dieu? That one definitely has a Thai food connection, with all the lime and rice.
It does! But no, something more obscure. I thought it would come to me by now.
Ah! Like This! Adult (from the fenugreek) pumpkin croissont. Weirdly savory. I don’t personally care for it but I’m glad it exists.
Ditto me on the pumpkin pie accord in Like This!
It’s not gourmand per-se, but Le Labo Rose 31 always smells to me like I am sitting at a table with a massive red rose bouquet and a plate of excellent Mexican food. It makes my mouth water – probably the most successful pairing of cumin in a fragrance as far as I’m concerned. I never get nasty funky from that cumin as I normally do in most other frags with it – just wonderful Mexican food! The rose and cumin are made for each other.
Sadly, I get dirty socks from Le Labo Rose 31 🙁
Interesting!
I love foody gourmands – Profumum Vanitas, Traversée du Bosphore and Rahat Loukhoum in particular.
I like them too.
I love La Fin du Monde, and while there’s iris and other inedibles, you simply cannot escape that early buttery popcorn note. It gets much less foody with wear, and I actually smell more vegetal/herbal smells than the first time I tried it. Great stuff, and I wear it pretty frequently. ELdO has taken many terrific chances since they began, and this is one of those, by Quentin Bisch, if I recall correctly, the male perfumer featured in the BBC Documentary about fragrance.
I should try that one again.
L’artisan’s Coeur de Vetiver Sacre.
On me it smells of Passion Fruit. Yes, that’s right. That sweet and sour pulpy fruit. I have no idea why it does…
I love rooty vegetable smells!
I would also recommend I Love Les Carottes by Honore des Pres to those that are interested! 🙂
That’s a great one.
Weird gourmand? I’m a broken record, but I really like it: Womanity.
Good one.
I love this post and I agree with you on Vetiver Tonka and Bois Farine, when JCE goes off the deep end he really gets it right.
Someone mentioned Harissa by CdG above & a BIG YES, that one’s got the blood orange and the red pepper and the paprika, it smells like a bloody nose if that makes sense.
I will add to the list: Kiki by Vero Profumo – smells like someone dumped culinary lavender oil in a caramel frappuccino
A bloody nose, LOL…not compelling as a fragrance ad!
Looks like everyone covered the ones I thought of – Lann Ael (love the breadiness!) and Praline Santal, though I guess that one isn’t weird, just straight up delicious. Makes me want to lick my arm. SL Jeux de Peau made me laugh, it was so french toast-y. I know some people think CBIHP Burning Leaves has a cooking meat vibe, but I just think it’s sweet leaves and fire. Yum.