There are two accepted ‘interpretations’ for skin scents, in fragranceland.  Of course, there’s the category which seeks to conjure the actual smell of skin.  (In general, skin that’s just come out of a hot bath and been talcum-ed dry, rather than dirty, post-roll-in-the-hay skin, however.)  Others hum at such a subtle vibration, pulsing gently with every heartbeat, that they’re only really discernible by someone who’s positioned their nostrils very, very close to your body.  This ticks both boxes:  gentle, delicate, understated – but also, evoking that can’t-tell-it-from-real-skin warmth.

For once, it actually makes sense for a fragrance to seek to recreate ‘skin’.  Carita has long been the destination salon for soignée Frenchwomen seeking complexion perfection – and is now also a global skincare brand.  So:  a skin fragrance…?  Anything else would have been seriously off-message.

Now allegedly – allegedly, because I just don’t get this bit – there’s bergamot in the overture.  And something called ‘paradisone’ – which is actually new to The Scent Critic, but turns out to have been previously used by Carita’s creator Alberto Morillas in his collaboration with Olivier Cresp on Valentina de Valentino.  Digging around for info about this innovative molecule, I found an evocative quote from another perfumer, Arcadi Boix Camps from Auram Art & Perfume:  that a perfume blotter of paradisone, wafted in in a room of seventy cubic metres, ‘diffuses the space with the angelic aromas of one million flowers…’

I’m just not sure about the million flowers, but the ‘angelic’ quality, yes:  there’s a Ladurée macaron sugary side to Carita – like the sweet breath of someone who’s been illicitly snacking on marshmallows and dolly mixtures.  But it is not, I repeat not, in the least ‘icky’.

More tangibly, perhaps, Morillas hasn’t stinted on the iris, the violet and the heliotrope, which swirl mistily at the fragrance’s heart.  It’s that trio which delivers the so-soft, baby-power cloudiness that basically seems to hover over your skin, when wearing this.  (And – always a good sign – I have been wearing it a lot.)

But that baby-skin phase is just a phase:  the ‘innocence’ fades, to be replaced by something altogether raunchier, when the musky, ambery base notes pirouette in:  a sort of corps de parfum of musky undertones.  (If this perfume was a ballet, it would be the scene in Kenneth Macmillan’s Sleeping Beauty with the diamanté-encrusted tutus, in sugared almond shades:  overwhelmingly feminine and beautiful, but hinting at underlying passions…)

The colour of the ‘juice’ is always important, of course, but the soft blush colour here really does give the message loud and clear about Carita’s second-skin quality (and their skincare heritage, with it).  The bottle itself is dressed  up with a black satin bow, and dispensed by a black ‘puffer’ atomizer:  dressing-table chic, to be sure – but I will say that mine puffed its last after about three wearings.  (Luckily, unlike most modern atomizers, this actually unscrews – so I can splash it on, instead.  But my advice is:  if ever this happens to you, don’t hesitate to take the bottle back.  I’m putting this slight niggle down to the fact mine was an early production sample.)

The timing for this fragrance is spot-on, meanwhile.  There’s a skin-scent revival right now.  (I put it down to the desire to feel cocooned and intimate, in a world that feels uncertain and sometimes downright scary.)  Estée Lauder have been right on the money with Sensuous Nude (you can read The Scent Critic’s posting on that fragrance here), Serge Lutens has Jeux de Peau, Tom Ford invites us to get up close and personal with Santal Blush (oh, if only, Tom…).  And YSL have even relaunched Nu (that of course translates as Naked), which was like a fish out of water in a sea of fruity-florals, when it first debuted, but – thanks to fragrance fashion – is suddenly ‘just-so’, in 2012.

But when I want to envelop myself in the fragrance of warm, sexy, kissable skin – in the hope Mr. Scent Critic might find himself in my orbit, and get the idea himself – I won’t hesitate to reach for this.

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Caron Tabac Blond is quintessentially 20s:  a fragrance for a time when women were discovering their independence (and – woohoo! – a freer sexuality).  It’s Charlestons and over-made-up silent movie stars and Lucky Strike cigarettes and illegal hooch:  daringly naughty, especially for that period – but (I think) delicious.

The Scent Critic knew all of this already, but it was brought home by an afternoon gathering I attended a few days ago, orchestrated by the wonderful Scratch+Sniff fragrance events (co-ordinated by a knowledgeable perfume-lover who glories in the nom de parfum Odette Toilette).  The salon – the latest in her series of ‘Vintage Session’, and fuelled by generous quantities of ‘fizz’ and cake – was to explore the scents of the 20s, among which Tabac Blond featured.

I already had a bottle lurking on my shelf, waiting like planes in a Heathrow holding pattern for a blog posting to land in.  But Saturday’s pleasurable event sent it shooting up the priority list, because I was so taken with Tabac Blond.  Fascinatingly, it smells overwhelmingly carnation-ish on a paper blotter – which only goes to show what a poor substitute for skin those are.  At first whiff, I thought this was Bellodgia:  Caron’s true, almost ‘single note’ carnation scent.  Initially, I was thinking:  Roger & Gallet Carnation soap.

What emerged, actually, as we sniffed our way through an octet of the 1920s enduring biggest hits, was that carnation was a key ingredient in the other two Caron fragrances we tried (Nuit de Noel and En Avion).  Carnation must have been that era’s equivalent of the iris trend we’ve encountered in the last few years.

On the skin, though, Tabac Blond is something else:  more sophisticated, contemporary and much less great-aunt-ish.  It has the nose-tinglingly powdery clove-spiciness of carnation, for sure – but there’s much more depth.  The base notes rush to the front surprisingly fast (does this even have middle notes…?):  a fug of mysterious incense, luxurious leatheriness, a pulsing amber warmth, a sort of crème brulée vanilla quality and enough patchouli to satisfy my eternally greedy inner hippie – but to be honest, I don’t get much of the ‘promised’ tobacco, except in the first whoosh from the atomiser.  (And even then, it’s a drift of grandpa’s pipe, rather than smoky nightclub, never mind old ashtray.)

If you like Chanel Cuir de Russie, you’ll enjoy this.  (And less expensively, NB.)  Meanwhile, while Youth Dew-haters will loathe this observation, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Tabac Blond was Estée’s inspiration for her ground-breaking blockbuster.  Though a Parisian fragrance house, they were a huge hit in the US in their time, shipping bulk fragrance to be bottled when it landed Stateside.  Allegedly, Marlene Dietrich was a Tabac Blond fan (and wearers don’t get more sophisticated than that).  Today, Caron has dwindled a niche brand reserved for those-in-the-know, who – thankfully – are on the increase, at least on this side of the pond.

Tabac Blond was, apparently, unisex when it came out.  (As, of course, was the trouser-wearing, cigarette-holder-toting, swing-both-ways Dietrich herself.)  Today, I can’t imagine anyone but the most blatant metrosexual drenching himself in Tabac Blond.  It’s a scent for dressing up and playing up;  definitely not for the office.  (Unless you run a burlesque troupe, perhaps.)

Having sprayed it lavishly on for the past few days, I can report that it smells wonderful on clothes (I now have a ‘Tabac Blond’ pashmina) – interestingly, much truer to what’s in the bottle than that blotter was.   Lasts for ages on the skin, too.  If you don’t bathe (it is way too cold in my bathroom right now to take all my clothes off), the sillage can be measured in days, which is impressive in an era of blink-and-they’re-gone sheer-scents.  You don’t dab Tabac Blond.  You pretty much drench yourself in it, and hang the consequences.  At night.  Definitely, at night, with seduction in your sights.  Although alternatively – take it from me – it is divine to cocoon yourself in this while snuggled under a silk eiderdown with a Persephone book and a hot water bottle, for a little extra warmth.

Accessorised, in this weather, by a somewhat-less-than-sexy  faux fur Davy Crockett hat on the head.

www.scratchandsniffevents.com

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Everything about it shrieks the cliché ‘understated luxury’ – but for once, with this modern chypre, created by Michel Almairac, that couldn’t be more appropriate.  We all know that the raison d’être of the scent industry – at its more commercial end – is to drive ‘you-can’t-afford-the-bag-so-buy-the-perfume’ sales.  Simple as that.  Ker-ching, ker-ching, ker-ching.

Mostly, I wouldn’t want the perfume or the handbag – but Bottega Veneta is different.  Well over 30 years ago I found myself virtually licking the window of their first little shop near Harry’s Bar, lusting after the so-unusual woven leather bag I saw there.  I can remember it vividly:  chocolate brown, butter-soft, no logo.  I loved its absolute discretion:  this was a bag that only those-in-the-know would recognise.  (I’d never heard of Bottega Veneta, notwithstanding my Vogue subscription.)  And there was absolutely no way, then, that I was going to find the £700 it required – in 1976, for God’s sake! – to acquire it.  One day, I vowed, I’d own one.

But the Bottega Veneta in my possession isn’t a swanky bag:  it’s a (satisfyingly weighty) bottle.  Bottega Veneta (the scent) is constructed, artisan-style, like a true, classic chypre:  the required blink-and-you-miss them citrus topnotes (here, bergamot, plus a twist of pink pepper);  flowers at the heart – while swirling mistily around the very generous quantity of leather in the base is a an equally hefty dose of oakmoss and patchouli, which gives it plenty of staying power, as well as a little musk and that vanilla.  Some chypres are frankly old-fashioned – yet this feels totally contemporary.  (Funnily enough, this is exactly what I expected the debut Jimmy Choo fragrance to smell like – but no, not a leather note anywhere near that composition.)

This is not saddle-y tack-room leather, or shiny-new-shoe leather, or dominatrix-outfit-in-an-Old-Compton-Street-sex-shop leather;  Bottega Veneta really, truly is put-your-head-in-a-very pricy-handbag-and-inhale leather.  Indeed, there’s a distinct touch of ‘Mummy’s handbag’ in the heart:  not exactly lipsticky, but an iris note that delivers a fleeting, takes-you-back-to-childhood flash.  Then it skips its teenage years entirely and goes seriously sophisticated on you.  Soft as naked skin (and just as nuzzleable).  Silky as ice cream, melting on the tongue;  that’ll be the sweet but super-subtle vanilla undertone, delivering a sense-blurring action.  And almost intoxicating, actually:  it also conjures up a very fine Cognac, clinging stickily to the curved sides of a balloon glass.  (More pleasurable to smell than drink, for me, not least as a hangover-from-hell-avoidance tactic.)

You could wear this in daytime:  it’s versatile, and will get you noticed – and probably get you taken seriously.  But for me, it really only comes alive, vampire-ishly, after sundown.  There’s something sensually dark about it:  the click of heels on limestone echoing in a foggy backstreet behind the Campo San Polo in November, as you weave towards the warmth of a candlelit restaurant off the Rialto Market.  Personally, I’d say it quite simply absolutely begs to be taken out to dinner.  And fed squid ink risotto, and frutti di mare, and one of those little zabaglione-filled pastries, for dessert.  Only it’s impossible just to have one of those – and Bottega Veneta has the same moreish quality as those pastries:  as I sit here, I can’t stop spritzing and re-spritzing, each time enjoying the heft of the Murano-glass-like bottle, with its embossed ‘woven’ base and (naturally) a slim taupe leather tie, at the neck…

What’s really encouraging, to me, is that Bottega Veneta comes from the fragrance house Coty – better known for blockbuster celebrity and designer scents (although some good ones in there, nonetheless:  from SJP to Marc Jacobs, who’s barely put a foot wrong fragrance-wise).  Distribution’s more limited for Bottega Veneta than those crowd-pleasing Big Name Brands – but this still smells daringly like something that a genius niche perfumer would have come up with, unpressured by mood-boards and budgets.  Genius, yes, but Almirac isn’t niche at all:  his long-as-your-arm list of previous creations includes Gucci’s Eau de Gucci, Dunhill for Men, Burberry Body – not to mention (yes, really) Naomi Campbell Cat Deluxe, one of his less enduring creations.

The bottom line, then:  I’m way better off than I was in 1976, for sure – and the identical handbag is still available.  For fifteen hundred quid.  (Now recognisable by many, many more people than in the 70s.)  But I’m not merely resigned to the fact that the closest I will ever get to the bag that I fell in love is this perfume:  given the choice, now, though, I’d actually rather get my leathery lust deliciously satisfied several times a day by this sensational scent,  bank the extra £1450, and put it towards the customarily painful January tax bill.

And I certainly make no apologies for that, either.

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But this is a Labradoodle of a fragrance, as it turns out.  Or a Cockapoo.  You know:  those dogs which are created by taking two fairly attractive breeds (for instance, labrador and poodle), and creating something altogether more cute and appealing.  (Though not a ‘dog person’ – The Scent Critic has plastic bag issues – I have been known to melt when encountering a Cockapoo on the end of a lead.)  Lavender on its own:  aromatic, but a touch antiseptic. Vanilla?  Great in an ice cream, or a sponge cake, but over-eager use in a fragrance sends it speeding in the direction of ickiness.  Together?  In über-nose Jacques Polge’s hands, at least, somewhat delicious.

It took me a few wears to really get my head round Jersey, nevertheless.  (And a few ‘Wow, you smell nice’-es, from friends and colleagues, which always helps.)  It’s crisp and clean at the start:  I really am trailing my fingers through a lavender bush, which obviously is the effect Polge was going for.  Now, classically, lavender is a masculine ingredient.  Or a Little Old Lady ingredient (familiar from brushing your lips against a favourite great-aunt’s slightly hirsute cheek, and getting a whiff of her Yardley).  But here, the herbal cleanliness mellows in just a few minutes, and Jersey becomes cloud-soft and cashmere-snuggly.

OK, I lie.  Jersey is soft like those microfibre socks and blankets which feel like swansdown, are spun from some earth-plundering petrochemical, no doubt – but which are (ssshhhh!) the guilty textile pleasure of many an otherwise soignée woman in my social circle…

In reality it’s intended, I’m sure, to be soft as jersey itself:  the fabric which Coco Chanel embraced in the early 1920s, taking it out of the underwear drawer – it was worn, by chaps, in vest form – and using it instead to create drape-y clothes which liberated women from whalebone corsetry in one French-seamed bound.  Why, the bottle I was sent – not sure if this is standard issue or Scent Critic privilege – actually came with its own drawstring jersey pouch.

The lavender, FYI – grown close to Montpellier – is apparently unusual in that it’s extracted in a ‘dry steam’ distillation, which doesn’t ‘cook’ the raw material in the usual way.  Is that why it has all the lightness, and none of the familiar antiseptic qualities?  Peut-être. (What I do know – having recently been privileged enough to be present at the Chanel jasmine harvest in Grasse – is that they’re obsessive about provenance.  Which is partly, of course, why Chanel is Chanel.)

Rose and jasmine give Jersey its necessary structure – the Little Black Dress ingredients in every fragrance – but the vanilla (and a touch of tonka bean) sweep in pretty smartish.  There’s an element of ‘baby’s head’ about it:  the nuzzleable quality of a freshly-bathed toddler.  Indeed I wouldn’t label Jersey as ‘sexy’, at all;  it’s comforting and soothing (in aromatherapeutic terms, vanilla and lavender are both calming), which probably make it just what the doctor ordered in a global financial meltdown.  (Although, like all the Les Exclusifs creations, Jersey’s exclusivity comes at a pretty hefty price.)

As I fossick around in my scent memories, the fragrance it most reminds me of is the original Tartine et Chocolate (from Givenchy):  originally marketed as a children’s scent, because of its subtle delicacy, but loved by grown-ups, and – just like Jersey – unfolding to a vanilla warmth, on the skin.  Were you so inclined, and despite the white musk whispers in the base, you could also safely spray Jersey on a 4-year-old.  (Not that you probably would, at this price, unless you happened to be wedded to a Russian oligarch).

Equally, it could be worn by a man, I’d say (though probably not the stevedore type), and would smell très elegant as he wafted around.  It doesn’t hang around for that long, to be totally honest, but I think it’s nice while it does.  That might sound like damning with faint praise, but I like both the bold Provençale lavender overture, and the pretty, powdery dry-down.  And I’ve found myself fairly compulsively re-spritzing, since Jersey landed on my desk, which probably speaks volumes.

Plus:  I really love it when perfumers, like dog breeders, break the rules.  Rule-breaking is a great Chanel tradition – why not make frocks out of vest fabric, or be first to try to balance lavender with vanilla? – and while this may not be the greatest scent creation of the 21^st century, and not quite up there alongside Sycomore or 28 La Pausa in the roll-call of Chanel Les Exclusifs triumphs, Jersey deserves a rosette, for trying.

A black and white rosette, please.

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There are some scents that, worn by younger women, are the equivalent of stepping into Mummy’s high heeled shoes.  For a 15-year-old, Aromatics Elixir wasn’t akin simply to slipping into her shoes, but borrowing her fur coat, nicking the car keys and her Balkan Sobranie cigarettes and going for a long, illegal drive, topped off with an illicit back-seat snog (with a cigarette chaser) in a wooded clearing.

Although I don’t often wear Aromatics Elixir, nowadays, every few years we have a bit of a reunion and I’m invariably thrilled – upon re-encountering what has gone on to become one of the all-time classic chypres – to rediscover its confident refinement.  It’s the silk lining to a couture coat.  The snap of a vintage alligator evening bag closing.  The click-click-click of heels on a marble floor (Mummy’s, Bette Davis’s, Suzy Parker’s, anyone’s, actually), to me.

Our latest assignation was triggered by the unveiling of a ‘special edition’ to mark Aromatics Elixir’s aforementioned big Four-Oh.  Rather scarily, I not only remember the original launch, but recall saving up weeks of  pocket money for an early bottle.  (Waiting till there was a gift-with-purchase, I think – a concept pioneered by Clinique and other Lauder brands – to make it worth my while to bundle a bottle of the golden juice with one of Dramatically Different Moisturising Lotion.)  This new version – a little ‘tweak’ on the original (though very, very slight, if you ask The Scent Critic) – is Limited Edition Perfumer’s Reserve, a ‘modern reinterpretation’ as they put it.

Now, Aromatics Elixir, were it a person, would probably be celebrating its 40^th birthday with lunch at Le Cirque.  Or perhaps a getaway to Florence with some skinny-hipped girlfriends for a private art tour of some Palladian villas.  It is that grown-up:  a swirl of sensuality that virtually drifts from the bottle like the smoke from Aladdin’s lamp.  (And it’s the limited-edition bottle that will entice Aromatics Elixir fans back to the counter, actually:  a dark, amber, flower-etched collectible flacon.  Although do beware:  this is not a spray, as I discovered when I unstoppered it while sitting at my desk, and wound up with deliciously fragrant… knees and skirt hem.)

It’s a ‘woody-floral’, technically, with lashings and lashings of patchouli giving that smoky character, without unbalancing the composition.  Allegedly, this reworking is fresher, but it still has the exotic chypre tones of the original.  Definitely exotic from the kick-off:  sandalwood, and rose, with a white flower that never quite tips from woodsiness to florabundance, in my book.  Really, it’s the boom-boom-base of Aromatics Elixir that I love (and which is perhaps a little more understated, in this version):  the thump of musk, amber and vetiver, alongside the patchouli.  Actually, if Aromatics Elixir were a woman, she’d be my kind of chick:  deep, intelligent, bookish, but not too much of a bluestocking to understand the power of lipstick and perfume.

Clinique like to portray it as ‘aromatherapeutic’ (it was the first time I remember reading those words), confected to work on the emotions and moods.  It does have the slightest medicinal quality, in my opinion – those aromatic herbal elements – but all I know is that Aromatics Elixir in all its incarnations makes me feel instantly dressed-up, even in denims.

Nowadays, of course, I have my own rather large collection of high heels, my own car – and heck, even my own wooded clearing, where I’ve been known to go in for a kiss or two.  (With my own husband, FYI.)  But part of me knows that even when I’m tottering on my (leopard-print-covered) Zimmer frame, I’ll still be re-encountering this, with delight.

Aromatics Elixir’s 80^th birthday…?  Bring it on.  (But just don’t ask me to help blow out the candles.)

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Indeed, if you’ve ever stood beside a candy floss machine (cotton candy, to transatlantic scentophiles), Sensuous Nude has that same spun-sugar quality you breathe there, too – and since I live in a seaside town where candy floss is omnipresent you’ll have to trust me on this.  (Er, have you guessed by now that my specialist subject, in the unlikely event that I should ever be invited onto Mastermind, is ‘British confectionery from 1960 to the present day…?’)

Famously, Chanel No. 5 gives that same ‘head-rush’ when you unstopper the bottle:  a sort of champagne fizz (down to the heavy lacing of aldehydes).  Maybe it’s an aldehyde delivering the same effect with Sensuous Nude, but it dances out of the bottle like a 1920s flapper doing an absinthe-fuelled tabletop Charleston.

With whispers of lily of the valley and jasmine, there’s a slightly vintage floral Guerlain quality to phases of this, actually:  that softness which is such a signature of the legendary French perfume house.  (Since ‘Guerlain-esque’ is about as high a compliment as The Scent Critic pays, please take note.)  I’m faintly reminded of Vivienne Westwood’s Boudoir, too.  But after the initial honey-sweetened whoooooosh, the tempo slows and gradually, gradually, g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y, it acquires the come-closer ‘skin scent’ quality which the name alludes to.  And it does become one of those fragrances that has you slightly compulsively (and mortifyingly) sniffing your own body, if there’s no-one within nuzzling distance.

The ultimate lingering base notes, meanwhile, are angora-soft and – well, cuddly as a cashmere-covered hot water bottle.  If I say sandalwood and musk and Melted Woods NaturePrint® (that’s the note’s somewhat clinical proper name), it maybe sounds a bit butch.  And this is never butch, because the woods tiptoe around in the base wearing pale pink satin ballet shoes, alongside what here are almost gourmet-esque elements of amber, heliotrope and vanilla.

Sensuous Nude is a mwah-mwah-sweetie-darling of a scent, actually.  It will not, perhaps, be everyone’s cup of demerara-sweetened tea, but it’s as pretty and girly and flirty and organza-sheer as perfume gets, in its early stages.  With a name like Sensuous, that’s probably not quite what Lauder perfumer Anna Buzantian (who works alongside the legendary Karyn Khoury) had in mind:  was it designed to be more ravish-me-in-your-E-type than bat-your-lashes-at-me-over-a-milkshake…?

I’d say so, wouldn’t you?  But let’s not quibble, because the result is delightful, and very wearable by anyone who wants to feel instantly feminine. By which I mean:  you could stagger through the door after a bitch of a day in which you needed to draw on every bit of authority that your padded-shouldered pinstriped trouser suit, towering heels (and several assertiveness training courses) could help you muster, spritz on Sensuous Nude and basically feel the oestrogen surge through your endocrine system.

OK, I exaggerate.  But you get my drift:  swathe yourself in this and you’re in marabou mules and a satin dressing gown before you’ve so much as put down your briefcase and unbuttoned the pinstripes.  And it’ll work much, much quicker than gin.

Never mind a sherbet lemon…

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