Chypres by the (Half-) Dozen

Some perfumes are haiku (and often not very good ones); some are chapters (longish in style––they make you crazily anxious for plot twist that, alas, seldom comes); and a choice few are what I’d call prose poems. These late winter days, this last is the category piques that my interest the most––and, within it, the great chypres: Coty’s eponymous creation, Guerlain’s Mitsouko and Sous le Vent, Carven’s Ma Griffe, Aqua di Parma’s Profumo (both iterations), and Amouage Jubilation 25.

Looking at them in front of me on the table is like regarding a group of siblings, their ages spanning nearly an entire century. A few brunettes, a redhead, one jet black, a blonde––but, boy, they’ve all got that nose. I won’t use a word like aristocratic, but Mitsouko, Profumo and Jubilation 25 strike me as the real achievers of this family. They take a vital lesson from their father: follow your heart but keep your feet on the ground.

The nucleus of each is a triad of florals that veer toward the complex: rose, ylang ylang and jasmine. (If you added some carbon rings, you’d have the architecture of Chanel No 5.) And while this floral heart is important to the overall caress of the perfume, it’s those feet that make the real difference. Fine patchouli, frankincense, labdanum, oakmoss and vetiver. The flowers still sing but the rhythm is quickened, and there’s just this wondrous sonorous depth when everything comes together that reminds me of one of the segments of Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

There’s nothing old-fashioned about them, except maybe the connotation of a studied blue-stocking elegance. More of us should get to know them and their makers better, and should encourage and support their survival in a world of cotton-candy-air and soulless haiku.

Image: Mitsouko advertisement, c. 1976.