Perfume as Library: Delrae and Perfumer/Author Michel Roudnitska

Hearing perfumer Michel Roudnitska discuss his creative process, you might mistake him for a novelist. Each perfume, he says, represents years of training and experience. During that time, the decisions he weighs are similar to a novelist's worries and concerns when trying to balance the bigger picture of a 200-plus page novel. Will the introduction of one element wreak havoc on balance and proportion? Do individual characters move along in believable directions, contributing to the harmonious sense of a world in microcosm, or do they stick out and strike out in unbelievable, inconsistent ways?

During their gestation and construction, novels, like perfumes, inhabit the minds of their creators, living with them. Their authors walk around in these worlds for years at a time, seeing them differently from day to day, tweaking, eliding, deleting. They see the world differently through this lens, too, and bring that back into the process. As Roudnitska says, for him, the template is always the natural world. You use synthetics to evoke it or recall it, but the process is recreation, not replication. Often, synthetic molecules get closer to the source of their inspiration than the natural materials produced by that source do. A perfumer's objective isn't just to create a wonderful fragrance in its own right. He or she also seeks to maintain a certain level of consistency from one production to another. For Roudnitska, this means that Noir Epices, created for Frederic Malle, must speak in some thematically consistent way with Debut, created for Delrae. Each perfume might be a world unto itself, but it belongs to a larger universe.

What is that universe? It can take a long time to determine what ties an artist's work together, unless some readily apparent trademark emerges. Roucel is known for his Magnolia accord, and all of his perfumes share something tangible, however inarticulate that might be. Likewise, Annick Menardo and Sophia Grojsman. Then again, these three are prolific, and have quite an expansive body of work behind them. Roudnitska has created a handful of perfumes, many of them admired, most of them respected. What else besides their high level of quality links them isn't yet exactly clear. You can look at many novelists with ten books or more under their belt and make quick, intricately webbed lines between them. The parallels pop out at you. With novelists of only several the similarities, where visible, sometimes tend to be cruder and more superficial.

Roudnitska's Delrae perfumes are wondrous things. They aren't necessarily a series, not sequels per se, but they're clearly related. Each is a complicated vision of the world, embodying the breadth and scope of an epic novel. Tolstoy wrote War and Peace in 1869. It took him eight more years to complete Anna Karenina; nine more to produce The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Roudnitska has produced five fragrances for Delrae in the course of 4 years. Four of these were created between 2002 and 2004.

Each is fully realized, more intricate by far than the majority of perfumes released in twice as much time--mass market, niche, or otherwise. Where many perfumers create small, personal novels, Roudnitska seems intent to tackle the universe, and the room he creates, within which a wearer can roam and imagine, is equally boundless. Says Roudnitska: "To reduce the fragrance to a simple instrument of seduction or a toiletry product, as is often the case, vastly limits the possibilities of this nevertheless very powerful medium to touch our souls." Where some perfumers aim for the libido, via the pocketbook, Roudnitska aims for the psyche. His fragrances, to extend the novel analogy by way of William Faulkner, seek to fit the whole world on a postage stamp.

Bois de Paradis is Roudnitska's own favorite. It was two years in the making and involved 300 trials: "Before I started, I had a quite precise olfactive shape in my mind," he once said. "The mere thought of the potential fragrance outcome was enough to make me crazy: a mix of cedarwood, wild rose, exotic fruit jam and tasty 'marron glacé'. Gathering all my favorite ingredients in a new harmonious composition seemed like an impossible dream to realize. "

Fitting then that the result is so impossibly lovely, a mix of the literal and metaphorical, evoking fragrant rolls in the hay, sun-baked grass and stewing fruit, crimson rose bushes against the vista of a setting sun, and the strange, inexpressible beatitude of a journey through the cosmos. Like all the Delrae fragrances, Bois de Paradis uses the best materials, achieving that admirable rarity in perfume: a sense of lush succulence with the depth and textured clarity of a life fully lived. It smells like nothing on earth and yet feels remarkably comforting, emotionally familiar. Citrus, French Rose, fig, blackberry, spices, woods, amber: this is abstract perfumery with the precision detail of photo-realism. It's just that the photo depicts fluctuating emotions and moods, rather than fixed objects and places. As Roudnitska said of his father Edmond's Parfum de Therese, Bois de Paradis is "at the same time very round and with so many facets."

Where Bois leans toward dense, golden hues, Debut is a study in verdancy, with a deceptive mood of transparency. Lime, green leaves, linden, cyclamen, and vetiver are perhaps the first impressions to register, if one starts to delineate the fragrance's effects. That's a little like describing fireworks individually by the colors they make, rather than collectively by their patterns and sounds. From under Debut's green layers, lily-of-the-valley emerges, along with honeyed sandalwood. The musk, you eventually realize, has been there all along, so saturated in green it went unnoticed for a while. Debut does last a while, and then some. For an eau de toilette it had remarkable longevity. The toilette was reportedly replaced by eau de parfum, though the bottles I've seen in stores across the country are still edt. Though marketed as a feminine, Debut relates obliquely but significantly to Grey Flannel. It contrasts damp against dry in much the same way, with a sheer, bright aspect distinctly its own. If Bois is the warmth of a sunset, Debut is the cool, fresh morning air, before the sun has cleared the roof and struck the lawn.

Amoureuse is commonly regarded as Roudnitska's most intricate composition for Delrae. It tells a complicated story, with plots and sub-plots, protagonists and antagonists, crowded scenes and heavy emotions. An apt comparison is Marcel Proust, whose Remembrance of Things Past was published in seven installments from 1913 to 1927. Where the other Delraes tell one story, however dense the exposition, Amoureuse is many novels in one. Various people I know plan at some point in their lives to read Proust, to finish his novels, each of which is upwards of a thousand pages. It's a huge investment, not just in terms of time but concentration. I know two people who've made the commitment. One said the experience of reading the novels, which took him quite a while, illustrated the things the books had to say about life and memory. Your mind tries to keep track, is constantly making new associations, remembers things one way and another, experiences the thing you're doing through some other thing it recalls.

Some find this density too much. They admire Amoureuse for its complexity but rarely if ever wear it. They consider it the best of the line but wear the others more often. I confess: Swann's Way, the first novel in Proust's multi-part opus, sits on my shelf, where it's been for fourteen years now, unless you're talking about the more recent translation I bought thinking it might somehow render the thing easier for me to read. The medley of jasmine, honey, woods and fruit in Amoureuse seems to extend in all directions, echoing across space. It covers too much ground to take in easily. Sometimes, you want a quick read, which isn't to say that any of the Delraes are beach books; just that Amoureuse, by comparison, is a monumental experience, one even the people around you might not wish to get sucked into. Jasmine, Honey, woods, and fruits seem harmless enough, simple and straightforward, like the Madeleine cookies Proust remembers from his childhood. But, oh, what those cookies represent, what "spaces traversed". Revisiting one, Proust's mind tangles in baroque patterns:

"Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, is trying to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too confused and chaotic; scarcely can I perceive the neutral glow into which the elusive whirling medley of stirred-up colours is fused, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter, to translate for me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste, cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, from what period in my past life."

Still with me? Look at how long, how labyrinthine that last sentence is, and so it is with Amoureuse: meticulous and daunting, merciless perfection.

Whatever their creator's favorites, Debut, Bois de Paradis and Amoureuse seem to be the buying public's preferences, whether the bottle sits unused or in heavy rotation. Eau Illuminee rarely gets the love. Of the four Delraes, it seems the least appreciated, and yet I love it most of all, I think. It tells a much simpler story than the others, but again, sometimes you don't want someone talking your ear off. That simpler story, simply put, is lavender, basil, bergamot, vanilla, orris. Eau Illuminee is cologne in edp concentration, and just gets going when most colognes have extinguished their energies. Some find it sour, and some days I agree, as if the basil speaks louder on one day than another. But the sour tang of basil isn't unattractive to me, and whether it decides to make itself known on any given day makes for an interesting twist. Eau Illuminee is fresh and tart, chilled citrus for the first part of its lifespan. Gradually it moves toward vanilla and orris, but it never loses its lavender orientation the way Pour un Homme seems to. Vanilla doesn't grandstand. Eau Illuminee clears my head, creating a sense of well-being.

Debut is cooler than Bois, though not as bracingly cool as Eau Illuminee. Still, it relates more directly, at least superficially, to Eau Illuminee, just as Bois de Paradis relates more directly to Amoureuse. The fifth Delrae, Emotionelle, isn't yet widely available. Who knows where it will fit in. It should also be mentioned that there is a definite dialogue going on not just between the Delrae contructions but between these and the work of Edmond Roudnitska, creating deeper levels of meaning and association. The citrus green language of Debut and Amoureuse, as many have noted, has roots in Diorella's vocabulary. The sumptuous lily note of Amoureuse recalls the clarity of Diorissimo's muguet, while its fruity influence updates Rochas Femme. There is masterful subtlety in everything Michel does, but one thing is glaringly obvious this early on in his output: none of his books can be read by their covers.

[This article is indebted to all of the bloggers who have explored Delrae long before me. Particular thanks to Bois des Jasmine's interview with Roudnitska from 2005: http://boisdejasmin.typepad.com/_/2005/10/interview_with_.html]

The First Ten Scents That Pop Into My Head (AKA Top Ten Fall Scents)

1. Delrae Bois de Paradis: This one has the depth and the melancholy of an Andrew Wyeth painting; specifically, Christina's World. A field of grass with the texture and smell of soft hay warming under the sun. The house isn't so far up the hill, but feels miles away. So where is the smell of stewed fruit coming from? “You can lose the essence by detailing a lot of extraneous things," Wyeth explained. There's nothing extraneous about Bois de Paradis. Everything about this perfume is in accord. Lucky Scent aptly describes the fragrance as "ripe and nectarous, its dark sweetness enhanced and perfectly balanced by woods." The rose is indeed honeyed, as they say, and transformed by the influence of fig. Bois is beautiful but a bit lonely, sitting out by itself in a field with its back to you. You can't see it's face but you know there must be a wistful expression on it. Every time you open the bottle, you hope to get to the bottom of something so impossibly lovely. To wear it is to accept defeat in exchange for nirvana. It all makes a little sense when you learn Michael Roudnitska created the fragrance. Its Spring sister would be Debut.

2. Etro Messe de Minuit: Maybe you're out and about in some European village, trying to navigate the serpentine byways of its ancient streets. You don't understand a word people are saying. Why are they all screaming, anyway? Their incessant chatter, happy as it might be, starts to feel like pepper spray. You haven't heard anyone speaking your language in more days than you can count. No one seems to register your presence, let alone acknowledge your existence. Even the birds seem hostile, lined in rows atop the roofs of the tall buildings you pass. It sounds as if they're laughing at you. Everything feels too big and too wide, you need a sense of scale, so you head into a modestly sized cathedral up the road. The moment you step in, you feel better. It isn't that you're particularly religious, not at least in the way most people seem to be, but the stone walls of the building bring all the sound down to a measure you can handle, giving everything a dulcet baritone edge, as if up close, whispering in your ear. The place is quiet and still and makes you feel as it's wrapped its arms around you. A priest approaches, swinging a thurible with a slow, rhythmic insistence. Its incense wafts in billowing circles, creating a heady cloud around you.

3. Gucci EDP: A strangely happy, slightly balsamic jasmine, very light on the indole, though enough is there you won't forget it. Gucci wears wonderfully, with a curiously insidious sillage. The big glass chunk of a bottle is something a heroine out of a 1940s women's picture might have hit some poor lug over the head with, or thrown at a wall in a glamorous pique of anger, or both. Gucci grafts an old fashioned sensibility to a decidedly modern construction, presenting a new wave beauty in a pleated satin cocktail gown. I'm not going to make excuses for it's failure to be the most revolutionary scent you've ever held to your nose. Not everything should be exceptional simply by virtue of its brilliance. Some things stand out because they get pretty or precarious just right.

4. Guerlain Mitsouko: Mitsouko might not warm the skin, but it certainly warms the heart. This fragrance is quite simply one of the best ever. If you still persist in believing otherwise, whether it happens to be your thing or not, you might want to check into that problem you're having with your barometer.

5. Bond No. 9 H.O.T. Always: It has nothing to do with burning leaves or a crackling fire, but the camphoraceous effect of this Bond No. 9 winner has a solar intensity that will set flame to your senses, and probably frighten any nearby horses. It's been compared to Givenchy Gentleman, and the comparison fits, though H.O.T. has more cinnamon and a marked shortage of Gentleman's rose. H.O.T. is no gentleman. Rather more of a beast. It's a loud juice with a primal bent. It's got its claws out, ready to get messy with mixed metaphors.

6. Caron Third Man: This has got to be the loveliest masculine ever, or good enough that you forget the competition during the time you wear it. Jasmine for days, superimposed over one of those trademark Caron bases, a weirdly gourmand medley of vanilla and lavender. Women, please, wear it too. Everyone should. Oakmoss, vetiver, clove, coriander, bergamot. "Avant-garde but very accessible," says Caron, though why you should take their word for it after what they've done to Tabac Blond is open to debate. Inspired by the Orson Welles film directed by Carol Reed, Third Man is inexplicably gorgeous and supple where that character was shadowy and corrupt. Nothing fishy about the fragrance, and the 125 ml bottle can be had for a steal. Why for Fall? Think of it as the pillow you lay your head on as you watch the leaves turn out the window.

7. Donna Karan Signature: Oh, I know, this is the part where you write in to tell me Signature sucks. Have I lost my mind? Can my taste now be trusted? Will I be singing the praises of Britney Bi-Curious next? The real deal is, supposedly, Black Cashmere, or Chaos. Though I can't attest to the charms of Chaos, I will soon enough, having ordered it from Bergdorf's today--and yes, I do like Black Cashmere but rarely find myself going for it. Donna Karan Signature is a weird little thing, with some of Daim Blond's apricot suede charms. I don't know why I'm drawn to it as strongly as I am. It's a pretty straightforward, soft leather fragrance: some jasmine, some rose, some fruit, some amber. All I know is I spray it on before many other things in my cabinet which are sworn to be better--and it lasts at least twice as long as most of them. It even has the faintest whiff of toilet paper, and yet I'm in love. Who can account for these things?

8. Chanel Cuir de Russie: The leather to beat all leathers into sniveling submission, and with such a cool smile on its face as it cracks that fragrant whip. You can find many glowing remarks about CDR on the perfume blogs. If you're not already convinced of its loveliness, nothing I say will convert you. I don't have half its powers of persuasion. Oh well, more for me--as if the pint-sized bottle weren't enough to last into the following millennium.

9. Lanvin Arpege: I never grow tired of the strange directions this one takes on the skin, from sinus-clearing aldehydes to vetiver to tobacco by way of bergamot, neroli, and peach. Jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, ylang ylang, coriander, and tuberose. Without question, the destination is worth all the twisting peregrinations: sandalwood, vanilla, tuberose, that vetiver, patchouli, and styrax. It's all somehow ultimately smoky, and wears like a dream.

10: Estee Lauder Knowing: Mossy rose with an almost primeval feel to it, like something out of a forest with ten foot ferns and paw prints the size of of Cadillac Escalades in the mud. Which isn't to say it's barbaric or, you know, like the sweat off a caveman's whatnot. It's perfectly lovely, and even old fashioned to some extent; it's just that it doesn't smell like something your grandmother would wear and inflict upon you during the course of those holiday-long clenches to her bosom. It smells more organic, like some happy accident found growing under a long-forgotten tree stump.

And more, again off the top of my head: Bal a Versailles, Aimez-Moi, Polo, Une Rose, White Patchouli, La Mome, Fahrenheit, Fahrenheit 32, Comme des Garcons 2 Man, Dzing!, Claude Montanna Homme (Red Box), Patou 1000, Etro Shaal Nur, Kenzo Amour, Antique Patchouli, Kingdom, Opium, Cinnabar, Spellbound, La Nuit

This Week at the Perfume Counter. Special edition: La La Land

To those of you who live in big cities, the following will contain no surprises. I suspect people in New York and Chicago are accustomed to expertise at the fragrance counter. Here in Memphis, things are slightly different. You are pounced upon at Macy's; regarded suspiciously at Sephora. Perfumania sometimes stares coldly at you as if daring you to ask for one more smell strip. Only one store carries anything remotely niche: and only Bond No. 9, at that.

I spent the last week in Los Angeles, and while most of my time wasn't killed anywhere near the perfume counter, I did go to Barney's and the Luckyscent shop, and during these brief visits I felt like I was making up for a lot of lost time. My top priority was getting over to the Chanel boutique on Rodeo Drive. I'd read a lot about the Exclusives line, particularly Cuir de Russie. I heard it was like nothing else and wanted to verify that high praise. It was several days before I could get over there, and when I did, I had four travel companions in tow, none of them the slightest bit interested in perfume--at least, not in smelling it for hours on end.

Chanel was pretty close to the picture I'd imagined. Rich, portly men buying impossibly expensive trinkets for younger women, who pulled out credit cards as if to pay their own way but were intercepted by said men, who then explained that the bills all come to the same place anyway. One saleswoman held up a petite, quilted handbag, pricing it at 2400 dollars. There were two floors. The fragrance counter was stuck in the back near the door onto the parking lot. The Exclusives were lined up along a high shelf. The bottles are about 6 ounces, chunky things, with magnetized caps which snap shut with a strange gravitational suction. Cuir de Russie was everything I'd been told to expect, and more, and they were out of it, and wouldn't be getting any more until after I left town. I was given a miniature and, once it was determined I wouldn't be accessorizing, sent on my way. I did pick up a bottle of Antaeus before leaving. My friend Bard wrinkled his nose, delivering the usual verdict. "Cat pee."

Knowing the patience of my friends was quickly wearing thin, I raced down Rodeo, first to Lalique, then to Dior. Versace was a bust. Inside, someone stated that Versace only made two colognes and when I asserted otherwise he stared at me as if he might call security. Two enormous Arab women with cheap hair squiggies took up most of the room at Lalique, asking questions which sent the sales staff running around in circles to find prices and check stock and dry the sweat under their arms in the privacy of the back room. It won't surprise you to know they left without purchasing anything. I suspected they'd done this many times, but, when they do spend money, they throw it around like confetti at a wedding.

The exasperated woman who ultimately helped me wore a skirt she probably doesn't do a lot of bending over in, and her hair was piled high on her head artlessly. The effect was very chic, making me feel overdressed and under-dressed at the same time. They had one more bottle of the divine Encre Noir, a peppery, grungy vetiver which is Guerlain's vetiver with a cigarette in its mouth, a bit of a hangover, and a big, boozy, let's screw this very minute look on its face. Dior is one long row of a place. with the clothes off to one side, threatening to gang up on you. Luckily, the fragrances are on the other side, where you instinctively rush for refuge. Eau Noire is similar to Annick Goutal's Sables, though I didn't recognize it until I got home to Memphis. Of the three masculines in this Slimane trio of special issues, it smelled the best, at least at first. Later, I smelled something incredible and found that it was Bois D'Argent, which I'd sprayed on my other wrist and lost interest in instantly. Now it smelled richer and deeper and kept evolving in ways that surprised me.

As we left Rodeo I spotted an Etro store, and wished I'd insisted on going in. I made a mental note to return, but it was several days before I could get back. The next day, I was again in the area, but after my extended trek down Rodeo I was given the option of one shop and one shop only, and the obvious choice was Barneys, where I could kill many birds with one stone. As we entered, my friends disappeared--to me at least. I'm sure they were still there. They might have been standing in front of me, waving bloody stumps where their arms had once been. All I saw was Serge Lutens and L'Artisan, Yosh, Strange Invisible Perfumes, S-ex, Baghari, Iris Nobile, and fill in the blank.

A dark-haired woman with an accent I took to be French approached and, ascertaining my familiarity with perfumes, went right to the good stuff. After spending several minutes with her, I realized she wasn't trying to push anything on me, and she knew the answer to almost every question I had. When I expressed my appreciation, she explained that she isn't in sales. A specialist, her only real job is to know what she's talking about.

She even had her own opinions, based on personal taste rather than sales figures. She had no interest in Baghari (I loved it) and, to her, the only outrageous thing about Outrageous was how synthetic it smelled. She convinced me to buy Daim Blond. I needed no help when it came to Iris Nobile and Bois de Paradis. The former is rich (I bought the EDP) and robust. Bois de Paradis is nutty and grassy and lists among its notes French Rose, Cinnamon, Blackberry, and Fig. It smells incredible; to this nose, the best of the Delrae line. The specialist gave me eight small decants to take with me. Among them: Arabie, Noir Epices, and Baghari.

Days later, when I made it over to Etro, I was less than enthused. Expensive clothes don't impress me; even with dangly, flashy things hanging off them. Yes I like your pants. I'm even vaguely intrigued that you paid several thousand dollars for them, but only because I'm imagining how much perfume I could buy with that kind of dough. It impresses me even less when you treat your small but somewhat impressive line of fragrances as if they were trifles you hand out as free gifts with purchase, ugly things cluttering your counter's real reason for being.

They had no tester for Messe de Minuit and had no intention of opening one. They only really sell it at Christmas, they said, as if I had the nerve to think of it out of season. They were gracious enough to let me smell a dust-laden candle, then laughed openly at me when I shipped my purchase back home to me. "You're sending it to yourself?" the salesman snickered. "Why yes," I said. "Should I send it to someone else and have them forward it to me instead?"

In case you're wondering, Messe de Minuit is sublime, an incense as true to its name as the Comme des Garcon line, it adds to their dry iterations a fantastically resinous quality, giving you both smoke and source.

The rest of the week was fairly dry, until I discovered, my last day in town, that the Luckyscent Scent Bar was a mere two blocks from where I was staying. Obviously, I raced right over. By the time I left, I had purchased five bottles of perfume. I returned from my car to buy one more. The saleswoman was polite and informative but decidely remote, as if she'd left the oven on at home. She answered my questions patiently but in such a way that the patience I required was made clear. I told a few jokes and she laughed, so I know she wasn't talking in her sleep. For a while I wasn't sure. I got to smell things I'd only read about, like most of the Parfumerie Generale line, Eau D'Italie, Heeley, Kilian, and others I forget. There were so many to smell. No wonder the saleslady was out of it.

I left with Heeley Fine Leather, Sienne L'Hiver, Les Nereides Patchouli, Un Crime Exotique, and Cedre Sandaraque. I returned a few minutes later for Washington Tremlett's Royals Heroes 1805 (I'd mailed everything else home. I needed SOMETHING for the plane trip).