Vintage Perfume Sniffing in Lisbon: Nº5 and the Aldehydes

by: Miguel Matos

Being an avid vintage perfume collector, I sometimes feel a little alone with my fragrant babies, especially in a country with absolutely no perfume culture like Portugal. The stories and emotions enclosed in these bottles tend to accumulate, and not everyone is really interested in hearing them. Or so I thought. But the truth is that every time I start speaking about perfumes, especially vintages, most people do have something to say or questions to ask. That's the magic of perfume. I've seen my friend and perfume blogger Barbara Herman hold vintage perfume talks in the USA and so I felt inspired to do the same here in Lisbon and here's the result:

I chose the vintage shop A Outra Face da Lua as the location for my monthly Vintage Perfume Sniffings. This is the mecca of vintage in Lisbon and the owner, Carla Belchior, is the queen of vintage fashion in Portugal, besides being a good friend. Indeed, some of my precious findings came from her. Last Sunday, the first gathering took place and in between drinks and laughs I started telling the story of Chanel nº5and the olfactive family it started: the floral aldehydes.

“Old Lady!” - that's what everyone says when they smell the vintage aldehydes. Well, that's a common reaction for non-vintage lovers, but the fact is that 30 years from now all the fruity-florals will be granny scents to our grandsons. Isn't that ironic and funny?Chanel nº5 was created in 1921 by Ernest Beaux and it reflected the childhood of Coco Chanel. The convent of Aubazine, where she grew up and where she worked in the laundry room. The smell of cleanliness, with boiling orris root inside the metal containers where the sheets were washed... It's there in Chanel nº5. The sacred numbers, the rigid structure of Aubazine containing multiples of the number 5... That's there too, in the name. The flowers; not the soliflores of respectable women, and not the strong jasmine and tuberose that courtesans wore at the time... This is an abstract bouquet. And the base notes...the animalic smell of the sheets where her lover Boy Capel slept before he died in a car accident... That's there too, inside that bottle.

Chanel wanted her perfume to tell her story in symbols and she wanted it to be clean and sensual at the same time. It resulted in the most famous perfume in the whole world. These were the kind of stories we shared, but also how it was the perfume of our mother, our grandmother...the smell of our childhood and the impossibly chic style it still represents. My bottle is a 1971 specimen and I also showed my audience the other great nº5,Eau de Cologne, discontinued in the 1980's. An ambery aldehyde, much more animalic and unusual for most people.

But there was a competitor, maybe even a copycat, emerging in 1927: L'Aimant by Coty. In fact, some say that Chanel nº5 was inspired by a previous perfume called Rallet nº1. And the fact is that Coty had bought the brand Rallet, including the formula of nº5's predecessor, so... Well, not all attendees thought that these were all that similar. In fact, my bottle is a “mist” version from the 1950's or 60's, rubber coated in bright pink. Did not convince my “sniffers”. By the way, I also brought the raw material for them to smell.

Interestingly enough, contrary to the common idea, Chanel nº5 was not the first perfume to use aldehydes. By the time it was created, another floral bouquet was enjoying a huge success: Quelques Fleurs by Houbigant (1912). And there were aldehydes in its composition. But the first of all to sport this chemical innovation wereFloramye and Rêve d'Or by L.T. Piver. I had a modern version of Rêve d'Or and it caused aaahs and ooohs of pleasure. I know for a fact that some guys were buying bottles the next day.

As we talked and shared ideas, I knew that this was a magical event and most people were fascinated by rediscovering all these smells from the past. Next in line wasArpège, a woodier version of the floral aldehyde. Launched in 1927, the same year asL'Aimant, Arpège is in the same family as Nº5 but less feminine and deeper in the base notes. Even though it is less animalic in composition, it is as sexy as Chanel's offering. For this one, I showed my audience a bottle I had bought in Paris, from the 1960's is my guess. I also gave them the opportunity to compare it to the modern version, which they thought was too 1980's. Some preferred it, some didn't. But I was happy to see that the chatting kept increasing.

I couldn't continue without mentioning L'Air du Temps, the classic from Nina Ricci, composed by Francis Fabron in 1948. This is the scent of post-war longing for freedom and happiness. A light carnation scent, very fresh and romantic, according to the wishes of the young ladies of that time. I showed a version from the 1960's that caused a gaze of wonder in most attendants. “The perfume of my mother”, “oh this smells so beautiful”, and other exclamations delighted me as I showed them a 1990's Lalique bottle and explained how I got it for just 3 euros from the local flea market. Finally, I presented a modern version and my audience wasn't impressed. Only one person liked it.

Moving to 1959, there it was, the masculine representative of the aldehydes, the classic Tabac. The barbershop smell of elegant gentlemen was a novelty for some, a memory of their parents for others. Aldehydes, carnation and lavender proved to be a timeless blend. This got my group really raving and I couldn't stop them. I didn't want to either;  I was so happy to see that I could awaken all these emotions and memories. I found myself giving directions to perfume shops that still sell bottles ofTabac. Actually, it is really easy to find and so affordable everywhere.

I had to speed things up, as two hours had passed, but I still wanted to show themMadame Rochas (1960), Hermès Caleche (1961) and Paco Rabanne's Calandre(1969), which surprisingly seemed quite modern to my croud. It's officially a chypre, but I wanted to close this session with Carven's Ma Griffe. It is al aldehydic too, and a very strange one because of the asafoetida and green notes.

Some perfumes were missing here, like YSL's Rive Gauche and others, but I just didn't have it in my collection. After a long session, some noses were tired but the conversations continued even after the shop was closed and the exchange of ideas continued on Facebook, because everyone was still on a “perfume high” after so many ideas and fragrances. I am happy and grateful to Carla Belchior and João Galiza for letting me do this in their shop, and also I want to thank all the friends that came by. Next month there will be another session and the star will be Dana's Tabu. “Un Parfum de Puta” is the title of the next Vintage Perfume Sniffing, on the 11th of October in still sunny and romantic Lisbon.

Pictures by Miguel Matos, Lisbon