Charogne by Etat Libre d'Orange {New Perfume}
Etat Libre d'Orange have come up with another release. So far it is the most provocatively titled, for me at least, as Charogne (Carrion). Just to read the name and the description makes my stomach turn. They in fact allude to the process of physical decomposition mentioning a skin that is soft, melting, and almost transparent.
En un mot: "beurkh". Translation: "ick". They're really trying too hard, aren't they? Makes the BPAL crowd look like Girl Scouts. There's only one possible step further, and that's "Merde". I wouldn't put it past them. I truly wonder what kind of public they're aiming at? I understand the "conceptual" side of it - perfume and corrupt flesh are indeed symbolically linked - but this is just too simplistic. Pauvres petits, ils ne savent plus quoi faire pour se rendre intéressants!
Ça a complètement marché avec moi cette fois-ci. J'ai le coeur sur les lèvres. This is the most disturbing perfume marketing/conceptual ploy I have encountered so far. It would probably disgust me less if I saw a real rotting carrion. It's the mix of relatively clean cartoonish images, idea of perfume-wearing, gratuity of their gesture, and tone in their description that just makes me feel sick in the stomach. I hope they have really seen a cadaver in decomposition and are not just musing about it.
BPAL -- funny you mention it, I also had a post about them.
Actually, I've been reading history books about the Lebanese civil wars and without being too sanctimonious about it, this is kind of an insult to people who've actually had to confront the stench and horror of rotting cadavers. Without getting a chance to snicker about it.
It's one of their most delicious fragrances. It is not bad at all. On the contrary you have the image of an exotic flower - decomposing leaving after a sweet juice. Lily + balsams (Tolu+benjoi+peru maybe). It's true that the name is confusing but, compared to Secretions Magnifiques, it's a totaly beautiful fragrance. In a way is like the Jar Perfumes, but lighter, milder and totally weareble. If I could find a fragrance fitting to the name.... it will be for sure Guerilla I or II from CDGarcons
Thank you Octavian, good to know. I know that they play a lot with the names of their perfumes. For example, the perfume they called "Rien", they named it that way as a joke because at the time it was the strongest-smelling one in their line. A little bit like "L'Air de Rien", which hints a little bit more at the fact that it is in fact something else than what it seems to be. ELO apparently loves anti-phrastic names.
Oh-la-la! Au contraire! CHAROGNE is the most wonderful new scent... Do you know what it reminds me of? The way hospital gift-shops used to smell in the 1960's.... Fluorescent lights, rows of sweet, artificially-flavoured candy, lilies, plastic and rubber gewgaw "get well" toys... all perfused by a soupcon of hospital ether. (-: It's a veritable Damien Hirst "medicine" painting come to olfactory life. To this Boomer's nose, CHAROGNE is irresistible and nostalgic. It may be in my fave Top Ten of all time, even...