Halloween - Perfumes from the Crypt....... {Perfume List}
Halloween is upon us and with it the possible question of what perfume to wear to partake of the festivities or honor the dead. Halloween is not really celebrated in France. There was an attempt in the 1990s to implant the tradition there but it eventually failed although by 2000 it seemed to have picked up a bit. By 2006 however Le Monde and Le Parisien both declared Halloween to be dead.
One can still remember an encouraging picture in a daily showing a spectacular row of pumpkins at the esplanade du Trocadéro with the Eiffel Tower in the background. It seemed to be opening a Roman Appian way or inroad into French culture. But somehow the symbolism of the pumpkin never took hold nor the horror movie cultural references past a few fashionable force-fed years. One can see it as a fashion, like the Christmas trees garbed in artificial snow and dyed in red or blue a couple of years ago in Paris and it soon died as a new tradition. Perhaps what the French were lacking was a vibrant Irish community to keep the fire of Samain burning. Cultural resistance to a wholesale import of a cultural practice now perceived as very American is faulted too.
Halloween in the US on the contrary is a monster event for the majority. The olfactory images it conveys are rich or at least potentially rich.
But before we leave the shores of France, a country where a tradition of Halloween perfumes could have developed, we can evoke an immediate All Saints' Day association with the scents of Chrysantemum and Immortelle flowers that are laid out on tombs on the day of La Toussaint . We know one perfume that can suggest this tradition and it would work well in the US too with its dark maple syrupy tones, Sables by Annick Goutal........
Halloween party invitation on an old ice truck by Walker Evans, 1973-1974.
The notes that come to mind when thinking of the playfully creepy atmosphere of Halloween are: incense, Immortelle/Everlasting, licorice, orange, chocolate, toffee, apple, blood, Chrysantheum, dirt,.......
We already reported on a collection of Halloween perfumes by BPAL, which will be available until November 15 2007. What else could we consider?
The first one that comes to mind and which seems to be the most quintessentially lugubrious and dark perfume we can think of, suggestive of the cold humid breath emanating from a dusty crypt is Messe de Minuit by Etro. If you want to be reminded of your mortality then wear it as a memento mori.
Juozas Statkevicius is a perfume of the shadows, smoke, and the night. It smells black.
Dirt by Demeter is the scent of freshly dug earth. Interpret this aroma as you wish.
Lux by Mona di Orio is like a golden ray of sunlight shining onto ancient manuscripts and violated sarcophagi in an Egyptian pyramid open to the winds and the sand of the desert. It offers a certain macabre charm that antiquating minds will appreciate.
Less dark than the first one, and perhaps even the second one in our list, but equally mystical is Shiloh by Hors Là Monde, another incense perfume seemingly containing a magical spell in it written in cuneiforms. It smells like kyphi.
Leaving the register of the sepulchral but wanting to retain an aura of mystery, we turn to a perfume that is no longer dark, subterrranean, shadowy, and crypt-like but darkly green and magic. Smelling Alpona by Caron is like finding yourself suddenly in the middle of the enchanted forest of Broceliand.
Mandragore by Annick Goutal is elusive, mysterious without being dark. More like a medieval castle arising from an early morning mist.
Lolita Lempicka adds a touch of black and licorice to your outfit and the bottle looks enchanted like a little purple pumpkin ready to be transformed into a fairy-tale carriage with shining golds.
Caron Eau de Réglisse is a composition centering on licorice.
Black Orchid by Tom Ford smells a little bit like a thick dark witch's brew that would have been cooked under the sun of the tropics, in a good way.
Tom Ford, again, must like witches' brews because Gucci Eau de Parfum (2002) is another ambery concoction with leathery neroli and cumin in it that seems to have been prepared by dancing sorceresses.
If you want to get into the character of a witch and revive the medieval perfumery tradition of incorporating women's menstrual blood into perfumes, you can wear Eau de Protection by Etat Libre d'Orange. There is in it a spell-binding ferrous blood accord with rose. The perfume is a little strange a priori but in fact smells delightful.
Halloween is also a joyous food festival. The Body Shop has a new Pumpkin Nectarine home fragrance that you could always dab on a cotton and insert somewhere in your clothing. Oui Marie! has a Pumkin Pie fragrance.
Un Crime Exotique by Parfumerie Générale is the scent of molten candle wax and pumpkin spice floating around and after a Thanksgiving meal.
You cannot resist the smell of a good bonfire? Then you could use the home fragrance John Galliano by Diptyque as a clothing or skin perfume. It smells exactly like a smoky wood fire in the autumn. Christopher Brosius Burning Leaves is another option.
The scrumptious smell of Toffee Apple can be found in Nina by Nina Ricci (2006). Another even more decadent and pure caramel sensation is Caramel Sunset by Comptoir Sud Pacifique. Apple and milky caramel are also associated in Brandy Eau de Toilette.
Miss Dior Chérie has a hint of caramelized popcorn.
Chocolate smells yummy in Amour de Cacao by Comptoir Sud Pacifique.
Pink Sugar by Aquolina is all about sweet cookies. Sugar Cookie by Demeter is also very evocative of sugar and in particular could help conjure up Mexican sugar skulls! Rose by Scent Systems is like an Elizabethan rose perfume made of slowly boiled sugar mixed with rose petals and essence.
(Sources: Met, Quai Branly)
Previous Posts in Perfume Lists:
Musk Hall of Fame: A List of the Best &/or Most Talked About Musk Perfumes
Perfume Layering Suggestions by Jean-Claude Ellena
Love Potions Or My Top Super Sexy Scents for Valentine's Day & Beyond
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