The one thing I was asking Frédéric, the only request I had, is not to have a perfume with a scent of a chocolate or vanilla, whatever, that is very a la mode at the moment, you know? That’s all about...gourmandize they call it. Like we can’t eat food. It’s forbidden, so let’s make the perfume smell like a chocolate. [...] If you want a chocolate, go buy a chocolate. Don’t go and perfume yourself with chocolate.
— Alber Elbaz on the new Alber Elbaz par Frédéric Malle Superstitious. Read more at Alber Elbaz Thinks Fragrances Shouldn't Smell Like Food: "If You Want Chocolate, Go Buy a Chocolate" at W Magazine.
Haha, Alber Elbaz nailed it! Just what I say. We’re all going to drown in a gourmand tsumani!
… tsunami.
It’s a very long trend! From my review of Edmond Roudnitska’s Diorissimo:
Roudnitska was disturbed by the trend towards the heavier use of gourmand & sweet notes in perfumery, which resulted from efforts to balance out the new, sometimes harsh synthetics:
Not only were we pushing perfumes in the direction of food, but we were also putting too many ingredients into them. It made them too complicated and muddled. (quoted in Perfume Legends, p. 111)
I get what he’s saying, and I happen to agree that I don’t like super sweet (or chocolate, for that matter) in my fragrances; but it’s just personal preference, it’s not because there is anything wrong with a fragrance that has chocolate in it.
To me, a scent is like a color. There is no wrong color. There is no wrong fragrance note: different strokes for different folks. It is only due to society’s connotations that the color pink, for example, is often seen as young and feminine. It’s really just one of the many colors we can choose from to wear or put on our house or etc. It’s unfortunate that the current trend is everything sweet. I think that’s as unappealing as everything pink.
I assume he is not trying to say there should be no gourmands, but that the current trend for gourmands is related to our fear of food.
Yes, I got that point. But I still felt he was making a further point about not wearing food smells..
Completely disagree!
Love me some chocolate or cacao note!
I want to eat chocolate, not smell like chocolate or caramel.
I have a few samples of sweetie fragrances I enjoy (the old Missoni is one), but I have to be in the perfect mood and moment to appreciate them, otherwise they wear me out.
I love Eau des Merveilles and a few other fragrances because they are deeply satisfying in a way that hits the delicious buttons in my brain but without the smell of food. It’s a deliciously inedible balance.
That’s like saying if you want to smell good you should shower instead of perfuming yourself. There’s peach and apricot in the fragrance, so why down chocolate? Hmm.
Yes!
Kind of a silly/lame quote.
Tried this one yesterday and while it’s well done , it really wasn’t me at all, was almost a scrubber