Does this perfume exist? I've been searching...

I have a holy grail perfume in my head that I don't think has been created yet. It's what I'd call a baked-bread chypre.

I've been collecting perfumes for a few years now, and have yet to come across it. Vintage Guerlains such as Mitsouko and L'Heure Bleue have a yeasty quality on the right day, but I have something a bit more buoyant in mind. The new Mitsouko edt is like catching a whiff of baked bread and jasmine incense wafting down the street, which I really like, although it's a bit unsatisfyingly linear. Chanel's Bois des Iles is an incredible gingerbread sandalwood in an explosion of aldehydes. And of course there's Bois Farine, but that's more of an limp, unbaked, wet flour smell, which to me makes it completely unappealing. Some iris materials have a powdery, bready quality, but usually they have a sweetness to them that are more patisserie than boulangerie. Mitti attar, which is an attar made of baked earth from India, has an earthy and dry dark bread (rye bread? pumpernickle?) scent, and of course real Santalum album, or East Indian sandalwood, can have a chewy, balsamic, bready facet to it.

I've always loved the smell of beer and yeast, too. I remember childhood drives to Milwaukee, and getting that hit of yeast from the brewery as you entered town. That was a magical moment when I was young, since I was more used to the godawful rotting eggs smell of sulfur that permeated paper-mill towns in central Wisconsin. Yeastiness is a human smell, too. Muscs Koublai Khan has it; it smells like eating warm monkeybread naked under the blankets, after doing (ahem) other things. The dear boyfriend has a clean, yeasty smell that I love, too.

So because of all these lovely associations with bread, I have this totally imaginary baked-bread chypre perfume all composed in my head: it has the smell of bergamot in the top notes, a heart of baked bread, smoky narcissus, iris, and animalic ylang ylang, and a base of dry sandalwood, civet, oakmoss, benzoin, and styrax. Because it's my imaginary holy grail and only exists in a world where I'm Queen of the Fucking Universe, the perfume's basenotes must dry down to an old leatherbound books and baked bread accord.

I don't know how an accord of fresh baked bread would be created, and it's certainly not a common one, that I can tell. So to all the perfume world: please tell me if anything close to this perfume exists! Or tell me: is this a disgusting idea to everyone but me, which is why it hasn't been created? Do you have a holy grail perfume that hasn't been created yet?

By the way, in searching for a photo for this post I came across this awesome blog post about a bread recipe that I'm going to try:
http://www.ceresandbacchus.com/2006/12/02/Holey-Bread-the-no-knead-phenomenon/

UPDATE: According to the lovely Elena at PerfumeShrine, Serge has heard --nay, anticipated!--my desires and has a new fragrance that smells like toast. Can't wait!

Photo came from here.

The Foggy Hour and the Frugal Perfumista

I just came back to Austin from an impromptu five-day trip to San Francisco, where I stayed with very kind friends and enjoyed a few days away from the miserable 100+ degree heat. From 100 degrees to 60 with a three-hour JetBlue nonstop flight! It was awesome. Highlights were many, and included: going on a pilgrimage to Muir Woods via ZipCar with a critical stop at the In-N-Out Burger in Marin (the people-watching is awesome), Dynamo Donuts in the Mission (the Caramel de Sel donut blew my mind), City Lights Bookstore, Ten Ren Tea Time in Chinatown, getting good sushi and udon at a neighborhood joint (impossible in Austin) called We Be Sushi, getting in some wonderful geeky friend time playing Settlers of Catan and listening to Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings with my hosts, and the list goes on!

I did what I could to buy some new perfume, but it just didn't happen. I talked to the very sweet SAs at Diptyque, who sent me off with some samples. Vetiverio may get a review soon. I used up the entire Eau de Néroli sample on my winter pajamas, which smelled musty after bringing them out of storage for the trip, and it was very nice and not a thing more to be said about it, really.

At Barneys I tried the new L'Artisan Parfumeur, Coeur de Vétiver Sacré, but didn't have my wits about me to ask for a sample, so all I can report is a very nice first impression, darnnit. I know how much I hate it when other people make slight mention of eagerly anticipated new releases, so I'm sorry! I also finally tried Lutens Fille en Aiguilles and was impressed. I expected the fruit compote aspect I'd heard about to ruin my enjoyment of the dry pine needles and incense, because I'm just tired of that stewed fruit thing in Lutens fragrances. I wore the original Féminité du Bois to death in Boston, and it just doesn't work in the climate I now live in. So further testing in Austin would be required, but I really thought the Fille en Aiguilles was excellent--the fruit just gives it a tanginess to offset the dry qualities of the fir resins and incense. I almost pulled the trigger on a long-desired bottle of Une Fleur de Cassie, but after teasing the SA and deciding against it, I may have redeemed myself by helping her sell a bottle of Sel de Vetiver to somebody else.

At Saks, the highlight was Dior's Bois d'Argent. They were very lovely SAs at the Dior perfume counter. Oh WOW, that stuff is so breathlessly beautiful and just keeps going and going... gah, I almost whipped out my credit card for an entire ridiculously priced bottle. It was a close call, but decant it will have to be. I also had a quick sniff of the new Eau Claire de Merveilles, and liked it very much. The original Eau de Merveilles is another perfume I can't ever wear again after loving it to death at a different point in my life, but I suspect that once the Eau Claire hits discounters I may be happy to have a bottle of this.

Well you may not be able to tell from this report, but I actually spent very little time on perfume sniffing in this trip -- it's not a huge thing in San Francisco, from what I could gather. But I did have another perfume love on the trip. I brought a travel-sized decant of my vintage L'Heure Bleue parfum, and as I suspected, it went perfectly with the foggy weather and gave me a chance to love on it during my vacation from the heat. A spicy, sweet, baroque masterpiece to complement the grey fog.

L'Heure Bleue : Guerlain : Jacques Guerlain

In 1912, L'Heure Bleue was born, and the world is a more beautiful place for it. The character of vintage L'Heure Bleue is hot tears on flushed skin, I realized this morning. I've taken advantage of a rare rainy day in Austin to wear it. It exudes from my skin like it is the natural scent of catharsis--the tremblingly uninhibited, floating feeling that comes after an emotional storm, when your anger and sorrow seem almost magically released through the pores. Have I had such a catharsis lately? No, but I'm wanting one, which may explain why it strikes me this way. It balances bitterness and comfort: after the first gasp of bergamot and flowery (heliotrope, carnation) spiciness, it keeps transforming. Its gingerbread-like accord is one moment brandied, one moment tarry; its anise is one moment candied, another moment medicinal. As it dries down, the tonka bean and iris continue to play out the drama of catharsis, with the warmth of the tonka bean countered by the cooling iris, like the effect of tears drying on flushed cheeks.

Bring on the purple prose, right? It's just perfume, woman! Snap out of it. Hm, okay, well suffice it to say, L'Heure Bleue can really put me in a trance like no other perfume. It just seems to keep going and going when you sniff it--the depths keep revealing more wonders. In any case, as you would probably expect, coming from a vintage-lover like me, the recent version of this parfum does not contain the same magic. There is a rubbery, synthetic note in the recent version that mars it. I've noted that rubbery scent in the recent body lotion (although in a body lotion I kind of like the new-doll-head smell), and was disappointed to smell it also in the parfum at the NYC Bergdorf Goodman's Guerlain shop a couple of weeks ago. This is such a fascinating perfume that anyone who tries it is certain to have a different response, however. Try both, if you can!