Friday, January 4, 2013

Perfume Primers: Orientals for Beginners (and not only)

Oriental fragrances draw upon the lore and mystery of the first perfumes used by man, full of materials derived from plants and tree resins, the thick and sacred unguents conceived and used in ancient Egypt, Greece and Cyprus, Mesopotamia and classical Rome. On the wall of the temple of Horos, at Edfu, perfumed mixes appear, among which the scared Kyphi, burnt in early morning and at evening. In Exodus God gives Moses instructions on how to compose a holy perfume for him and another one for his priests. The tear-shaped drops of the myrrh resin stand in Greek mythology for the tears of a girl transmuted into a tree by the gods. Leaning over my archeological notes, I'm never less than amazed by the wealth of scented concoctions used for sacred but also for purely hedonistic purposes by the ancients.


The invention of the "modern" oriental however is an olfactory trope of the late 19th century, made possible by the invention of two important synthetics: vanillin and coumarin. The coupling of ladbanum/cistus (a traditional resinous plant material from the rockrose, used since antiquity) and of vanillin produced what we refer to as the "amber" note. (You can read all the data on amber in perfumery on this link). Coumarin was synthesized from tonka beans; it has a sweetly herbaceous, cut hay scent.

The timing was crucial: The first oriental perfume to really capture the market was Guerlain's Shalimar although Coty's Emeraude is also a prime contenstant (In fact the two were launched in the same year, but Shalimar had a  legal battle with another firm, making the formula into a numerically-tagged bottle for the space of 4 years before relaunching with the original Sanskrit name).
The roaring 1920s were a decade when society in Europe was really taken with the orient. The East conjured up images of unbridled passion, exoticism, khol-eyed beauties and addictive substances. It was the time when Herman Hesse published Siddharta, the West's first glimpse of Buddhism, and F.Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby, a paean to the newly established American prosperity and its pitfalls. Theda Bara had already lain the path to cinematic vamps to follow, such as Pola Negri and Clara Bow with her bloody-red dark cupid's lips immortalised on black and white vignettes, while Paul Poiret had produced his own phantoms of the harem paving the way to modern fashions. It was the time of Les Ballets Russes, set to music by Stravinsky and Poulenc with sets painted by Picasso and Georges Braque. In short Orient was meeting Occident at the seams.

Historically modern oriental fragrances are roughly divided in two groups in terms of their formula: those that are based on the "ambreine" accord and those based on the "mellis" accord. An "accord" is an harmonious blend of fragrant materials that are smelled together, like a musical chord, producing a seamless, unified impression, something more than the sum of their parts. It's very useful for the perfumer to have at the ready a few thought-out harmonies as a building block for the composition they're working on.

  The "ambreine accord" is a harmonious blend constructed through the juxtaposition of fresh bergamot, sweet vanillin (synthetic vanilla; ethyl vanillin which is 4 times more potent can also be used, as in Shalimar), coumarin (smelling like mown hay), and warm civet (originally an animal-derived secretion from the civet cat with a very erotic nuance), plus woody notes and rose essences. The perfumes which are constructed on this basic structure include the legendary Guerlain Shalimar, Must de Cartier and Calvin Klein Obsession.

NB. Please note the "ambreine accord" is NOT to be confused with the ambrein molecule, i.e. the chief scent element of "ambergris", the material produced by sperm whales found floating in the ocean. [Refer to this link for details on ambergris.] Interestingly enough the ambrein used in perfumery is extracted from purified labdanum [1], hence the confusion between the scents of amber and ambergris for many people.  

  The "mellis accord" on the other hand is constructed through the tension between benzyl salicylate (a compound with a faint sweet-floral-veering-into-musky scent, often included in "beach/suntan lotion" smells), patchouli (essence of exotic patchouli leaves), spicy clove (via eugenol) and lily of the valley (traditionally via the aromachemical hydroxycitronellal). This is boosted with other spices (notably cinnamon), woody notes and coumarin (a crystal derived from tonka beans).
Perfumes composed around the mellis accord include Estee Lauder Youth Dew, Taby by Dana, Yves Saint Laurent Opium, Krizia Teatro alla Scalla and Coco by Chanel. Perfume professionals refer to this group as "mellis" perfumes, but since this is difficult to communicate to the consumer, and because the eugenol (sometimes communicated as clove and sometimes as carnation) and cinnamon give a spicy tonality, these oriental perfumes are classified into a sub-genre called "spicy orientals".

To the above "accords" other elements can be added to further emphasize the exotic and warm character of the composition. These include more ambery notes (based on labdanum), sweetly balsamic notes (utilizing materials such as benzoin, opoponax and Tolu balsam) as well as castoreum (another pungent animal-derived note, this time from beavers) and rose & other flowers' (jasmine etc) essences.


These are historically important olfactory harmonies that have resulted in classics and some modern classics. The combination of two accords within the same formula or the invention of new accords coupled with the previously used ones is producing novel experiences and pushes perfumery forward. This is how perfumers have come up with new sub-categories within the oriental family of fragrances, such as the gourmand perfumes etc. But we will tackle those in an upcoming perfume primer.

Ref.
[1] New Perfume Handbook, N.Groom 1997

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Perfume Primers: concise intros for beginners

16 comments:

  1. Anonymous17:35

    Great article! Spicy Orientals are one of my favorite categories in perfumery and it is fascinating how the ingredients come together to create such wonderful "recipes" for the nose. Happy New Year!
    Ramona

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  2. Mellis and Ambreine - new for me. Thank you for yet another fascinating post!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Miss Heliotrope05:18

    Interesting - even though I know these arent my favorite perfume styles (not dislike, just not as me as others).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Perfume Designer12:11

    I love this perfume. I know Guerlain too much they make their perfume in Dreux in France.
    Thank you for this article.
    Marie

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  5. Ramona,

    I'm very partial to spicy orientals myself (in general I love spicy fragrances, they can be spicy aromatic, spicy citrusy, spicy floral, whatever, it's a sure bet)
    Glad the article highlighted something you enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bradamante,

    you're most welcome. :-) And thanks for commenting.
    Outside of professionals, no one refers to these perfumes with those terms, but I personally find it very interesting to explain the rapport between structure and effect, in my opinion it opens up a whole new level of appreciation to the perfume wearer.

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  7. C,

    naturally everyone is allowed to their preferences. (Thank God, IFRA hasn't restricted that yet) :-P
    It's just neat to know, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks Marie. Interesting!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous21:08

    Thanks for the article!
    I was just wondering - isn't it 'Emeraude' that was launched in 1921, not 'L'Origan'?

    Vlad

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  10. Vlad,

    you are correct. It's Emeraude I had in mind. L'Origan is technically a floriental (if that could be said of perfumes as early as 1905)
    Thanks for chiming in!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Merlin20:03

    Hi, I am loving this series of articles, Helg!
    I was wondering whether any later orientals fit into one or the other category? For instance, L'ambre d' Merveille, L'air du desert, and a zillion others...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Merlin,

    glad you're enjoying, that's kind of you to say so.

    L'Ambre des Merveilles strikes me as a classic "ambre" in mold (vanilla-labdanum-patchouli) done exceptionally well, exceptionally refined, very very pretty; one could also peg it as a savory one thanks to retaining the ambergris saltiness of the original Eau de Merveilles (genius!) (NB.see Gourmands entry in Perfume Primers for a footnote on savory fragrances) as contrasted to his Ambre Narguile which takes amber into the sweet territory (a proper oriental gourmand).
    L'Air du desert is rather reminiscent of ancient perfumery in its use of resins and balsams. (and no wonder it was Tauer's second perfume when he was very influenced by that tradition)

    There are of course a zillion later oriental perfumes around; it might be fun to sit down and classify them all one day.

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  13. Merlin12:55

    Sorry, I was a bit unclear! What I meant was does either of them feature either the mellis or the ambreine accord?

    ReplyDelete
  14. M,

    one would need a gas chromatograph to answer with 100% accuracy in those matters, LOL! For some perfumes this "work" has been already done and the industry knows about these things. For others it can only be an informed speculation. ;-)
    Tauer uses lots of ambreine (natural, from cistus labdanum) in his perfumes, FWIW. One might say it's a mellis as it shares some aspects.

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  15. Anonymous11:08

    I love your articles and this one is, as usual, so very informative and richlt evocative. One thing I found funny was the 'scared' kyphi. Wonder what that smells like..??

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous02:16

    Merlin, I so enjoyed reading your comments. I love the original le de givenchy, patou's caline, balanciaga's. Paris, quadrille and zibilene. Most of these are hard to impossible to find. I am so happy to have found you at last!

    Neri

    ReplyDelete

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