Dioressence: Moss Appeal

Diorella, Diorama, Diorling, Diorissimo and Miss Dior seem to get the lion's share of appreciation when it comes to older Dior fragrances, and while I like several of them very much, I think my favorite is the newest of the old, Dioressence.  Granted, of the lot, I've never smelled Diorling and Diorama in anything close to original form, and the Diorling reformulation is pretty pale compared to what it must once have been, so maybe I'm biased.  I should also say that I haven't smelled the most recent version of Dioressence, either.  Still, for me, the original 1979 Dioressence would be hard to beat.

Guy Robert, the perfumer behind Dioressence, created several other well known fragrances, a few of which remind me more than a little of Dioressence in certain ways.  I can smell some of the dusty incense quality from Hermes Caleche in Dioressence's heart, for instance, and something of Amouage Gold in there as well.  Dioressence is a chypre and smells quintessentially of oakmoss to me once you get past the pronounced geranium, galbanum, and rose up top.  In fact I would say that the most interesting movement of the fragrance for me is its seamless segue from galbanum to oakmoss, creating an interesting, textured progression from one distinct green note to another, each of which would seem to get lost taken together.

Osmoz lists the notes as the following: aldehydes, orange, galbanum, bergamot, carnation, geranium, rose, cinnamon, benzoin, patchouli, oakmoss, and vanilla.  Violet is included in the description but not the pyramid.

I suppose there are those who will smell Dioressence and sense nothing but a wallop of old style patchouli.  There's certainly enough in there.  And the patchouli combined with the cinnamon can seem like a lighter version  of H.O.T. Always by Bond No.9, or a slightly more domesticated animal relation to the original Givenchy Gentleman, but to me the cinnamon and patch seem like embellishments, meant to support or underscore the primary green notes.  Even the carnation, geranium, phantom violet and rose seem to hover around in the background to my nose, making the fragrance a lot more masculine than most modern feminine fragrances.  No guy raised on a steady diet of mainstream sports colognes is apt to agree with me, of course.  Dioressence reminds me of another pretty masculine old feminine, Trussardi, which was released in 1984

Dioressence feels a little moodier than the other vintage Diors.  Diorella is sunny and succulent; Diorissimo quite upbeat as well.  Miss Dior, while not prim, is certainly more sedate than Dioressence.  Something about Dioressence reminds me of some seventies bohemian hang out, infested with velvet pillows and thick with lingering incense smoke.  Miss Dior would walk into such an establishment clutching her purse pretty tightly.  Staring at supine Dioressence, spread across a series of batik-patterned throws and a thick shag rug, she'd wonder whether something hidden in the carpet might jump up onto her tweed jacket and hitch a ride home with her.  In style it certainly straddles the hallmark fragrances of the 40s and 50s and the bold pronouncements to come in the 80s.

It has moderate projection and lasting power and for the most part settles down to a nice soft mossy haze after about thirty minutes to an hour or so on me.

Four Things I've Been Wearing Lately

Hermes Caleche

Yes, it has that weird, Godzilla synthetic vetiver all the older perfumes have been "updated" with, and it smells a little cleaner than it once did, but I liked it enough to buy a small bottle of soie de parfum. An at first sharper, then mellower floral aldehyde than another favorite, Lancome Arpege (which also has the vetiver in question). Caleche dries down to a warm, subtle but persistent skin scent. Once contained oakmoss, which isn't listed on the box I own. An interesting example of a masculine aldehyde: soapy and robust, then golden-hued and langorous.

Estee Lauder Youth Dew Amber Nude

Like a ghost twin of the original, this Tom Ford-directed flanker to the flagship Lauder fragrance is a sheerer version, spectral by comparison, yet without feeling watered down or otherwise diluted. I was excited to find it in the Duty Free at the Milano airport, in the Lauder section, though Lauder doesn't sell it or stock it anymore elsewhere. The bottle updates its ancestor as well. Amber Nude is boozier than Youth Dew, subtracting some of the balsamic heft which can make YD smell so baroquely excessive on the skin. I prefer the original, as it projects the impression its wearer harbors interesting secrets. But Amber Nude is a nice, refreshingly uncomplicated alternative.

Clinique Wrappings

Oh how I love this stuff. An old reliable for Clinique, sold only during the holidays in the United States. In Europe, it's sold year round. Bracingly green, it comes on like a morning in the woods, cold enough that your breath fogs. Technically a floral aldehyde, it smells very little like one, submerging rose, hyacinth and orris under a carpet of artemisia, lavender, mace, and cedar. The pyramid lists leather, patchouli, and a marine note. I get none of these, which isn't to say they aren't there, just that they're very well integrated. I'd like to know who created it.

Mona di Orio Nuit de Niore

Smelling this, I feel protective, like the drama queen who famously ranted and wailed against Britney's detractors on youtube. Leave Mona ALONE. This reminds me of Bal a Versailles, old and new, but mostly old, thanks to the civet. Nuit lasts, is by turns alarmingly strange and wondrously addictive, is weirdly maligned, and yet people do love Mona's fragrances. Once, in Portland's Perfume House, a woman came in off the street and after smelling Arabie for the first time said she hadn't experienced anything that wonderful since Oiro. The guys at Aedes in NYC sold her on a bottle, and describing it to me her eyes rolled back into her head. I didn't understand this when I first smelled Oiro, months later. But I sprayed some on and went to a movie, and halfway through, I fell in love with the little spot on my hand where I'd sprayed it. Mona's fragrances develop like no other I know. They actually have stages. They're moody little things, deepening on the skin in complicated Escher-like patterns. It's hard to see where they're taking you when you first set out with them. The trend in contemporary fragrance, oft-noted, is geared toward the first ten minutes, a hard sell in the top notes, and chaotic banality in the dry down, such that there is one. Nuit works in direct opposition to this. It doesn't bullshit you. It doesn't pander. It takes its time, and patience pays off in dividends. Supposedly, Aedes has stopped carrying the line, making it even harder to come by in the states. Perhaps the guys behind the counter got tired of batting their heads against a brick wall.

Letter To A Young Man in Flip-flops

Dear you,

In your American Eagle T and your madras shorts. You in your meticulously frayed baseball cap, which bears the insignia of a camp you’ve never lost your virginity at, let alone been to, or heard of. You with the boxers peeking out at your waistline, a look you stole from the black boys at school, along with their music, though, alas, not their rhythm. I’ve seen you at the mall, bushy-haired and slouchy, that smirk on your face. I guess you know you barely lift your feet as you saunter along the pavement. Is that the style now, that shuffling, almost narcoleptic gait? Is walking already passé—or have I been asleep at the wheel?

Oh my flip-flopped not so fleet-footed friend, just this morning on my way into Sephora I saw you and your peeps, sleepwalking ahead of me like a little row of baby ducks whose mama had already scurried off around the corner, frightening them with the sudden prospect of independence. The wind was moving in the wrong direction, but I’m going to guess what you had on under the madras and the T and the boxers and the cap. Your cologne. I’m going to say Izod. Or is it Lacoste? I’m going to say Nautica, or even, just possibly, Varvatos. I know you were wearing cologne because I know what cologne means to you. I know how it conveys an image you want to project, or you imagine it does. I know: the guy on the boat or in the field in that ad is your imaginary mirror image—your twin, the secret you—and yet, in your mind, you’d like to cut your own path. That’s why I’m writing.

I won’t tell anyone I sent this to you, but I do want to discuss your purchasing patterns. As I walked behind you, I smelled my wrist, imagining I was you imagining you were that other guy. Would my friends really scramble at the scent of Creation, by Ted Lapidus? Now that every girl in high school isn’t spritzing it in her pink calico canopy bed, dreaming about a boy like you in a mist of fruity chypre, who would recognize it and mark it as sissy? It once smelled the way guys imagined Christie Brinkley must—as if its wearer had been slathered in some dangerously soapy elixir which added to rather than subtracted from her natural musk. It made a girl smell like she’d spilled something on her parents’ leather sofa, downstairs, in the rec room, only she didn’t want her mother to find out, so she’d scrubbed the seat to within an inch of its life, and still she seemed so...fidgety. Her face was still flushed from the exertion. She might have wanted sex but you couldn’t be sure, because you didn’t know what she’d spilled either, and though you had a few wild guesses, it could have simply been your active imagination. It could have just been, like, Jean Nate. Wind Song or whatever.

Creation smelled like a very specific complex of associations back in the day, but that day has passed. Now it smells weirdly virile. It always did, but with all the cosmetic subterfuge, no one ever noticed before. I tell you this because I know a very easy way to distinguish yourself, and all it would require is imagination on your part. You know how to imagine, don’t you? All we have to do is put our heads together, and think outside the box. Step out of your flip flops, and feel the ground under your feet. Lift your feet, and feel the pull of gravity. I’m not asking you to walk. I’m just asking you to think.

I’m willing to let you borrow my Creation. But there are many fragrances you might try. Now that no one sees Christie Brinkley in them, they’re practically dirt cheap. I know you’re on a budget, disposable income or no. I’d be happy to make some suggestions. I might even loan you something, if you promise to turn down that music when you stop by to pick it up. What I'm saying is that, often, scents once intended for the opposite sex make the most electric statement on a guy's skin, totally transforming him and the way people experience his presence. I'm saying that if you have the balls to smell like people used to think a girl should, there's no telling how deeply you might penetrate into other people's perceptions and desires. Krazy by Krizia, for instance, which smells of vanilla rubbed on wood, is a good start. That's putting your toe in without straying too far off the path. Black Cashmere, Balmain de Balmain, Caleche. The limits are mental. The possibilities, endless. And yes, it’s true, such a bold stroke might make your friends scramble--but I bet you’d find, if you turned around, that they were just rearranging themselves, and would eventually all end up in a line behind you, following your lead.

I'm just looking out for you, kid.

Your friend,

Telly Savalas

P.S. Please bring lollipops.

P.P.S. I like grape.