Lancome Poeme

I don't know what it is lately but during the last several months I've been determined to give every fragrance I'm cautioned to avoid a bit more than a fighting chance. Maybe it's a rebellion thing. At school you were told to stay away from bad influences--not just things but people. Didn't it just make you want to follow them like a stray dog?

When I was a kid, I was told that my babysitter's boyfriend was no good, so of course I was all about the guy. I studied the sound of his voice, his expressions, his gestures, watched how the world composed itself around him, went wherever he went, looked forward to his visits while my parents were away. Ultimately, my mom forbid me from even talking to him (though, in retrospect, this might have had more to do with my unhealthy "attachment" than his alleged influence), and oh you should have seen the crying fit I pitched.

I've only recently started to realize how many perfumes I haven't even ventured to sniff simply because someone whose opinion I value (or am at least entertained by) discouraged me from bothering. Chalk this up to being a relative newbie. I had a lot of catching up to do. Naturally, happening onto this little sub-cultural pocket of bliss, one checks out all the consensus "classics" and the cult faves first. That takes a while, and I'm still at it--but, on the hunt for all these sometimes difficult to track down greats, I pass fragrances like Poeme again and again right there at the mall make-up counter. It's only a matter of time before I pick up the bottle.

Actually, judging by the perfume boards, Poeme has its fans. On the other hand, I admit it isn't the most groundbreaking scent I've ever laid nostrils on. However, the truth of its appeal and quality lies somewhere in the middle; meaning it's hardly the monstrosity I've heard it called, and doesn't deserve the kind of derision it sometimes gets. What interests me, more than Poeme's particular merits or demerits, is the phenomenon to which it falls prey, a death by obscurity that many perfectly decent fragrances suffer.

Poeme was made by Jacques Cavallier in 1995, five years after Lancome's bestselling Tresor. That was steep competition, and really, a rich floriental following a radiant rose is always going to have something of an uphill battle, lumbering under the weight of an already stuffed category. Even the company itself can't be counted on to help the thing out. The other day, smelling Poeme for the first time, I was actually directed away from it by the Lancome SA, who suggested Tresor instead. It's better, she exlained, without saying how. I sprayed some of the Poeme on a card before she got to me and walked around with it, surprised at how subtle it was compared to the way I'd heard it described. I liked it better and better, incensed at her hasty dismissal.

Luca Turin lists Poeme alongside Amarige and Spellbound as one of those fragrances that can clear a bus terminal at peak hours, so I expected something magnificently offensive. I'm wearing it today and while it's true that Poeme wafts up from your skin throughout the day, exceeding the lifespan of many a modern perfume, I would say it's tenacious but not offensively strong, unless you're just easily offended and need something to vent your frustration toward. I should also point out that Spellbound is one of my favorites. Silly me. You might expect to me to wear roach spray if it came in a fancy perfume bottle.

I immediately recognized Cavallier's hand in Poeme once I learned he'd created it. I can see suggestions of Shiseido Vocalize in it, as well as Rive Gauche Homme and YSL Cinema, and it is very clearly related to Jean Paul Gaultier Classique for women. Like JPG it smells of cosmetics--eye shadow and pancake foundation--and creates the impression of a woman preparing her face at a vanity, moving hands and hair in a cloud of fragrant powder. What it subtracts is the chemical hiss of fingernail polish. I can't say I miss it, though for me it has its charms in JPG. Interestingly, Perfume: The Guide also dislikes JPG Classique and puts it in the same camp as the above mentioned olfactory "atrocities." I imagine the pressure perfumers are under with a company like Lancome and wonder at how they're able to come up with anything at all, let alone something as nice as Poeme.

Jacques Cavallier doesn't seem to produce many fragrances about which people keep on the fence. M7: discontinued but legendary. Issey Miyake le Feu D'Issey: also discontinued, also legendarily love or hate. YSL Nu is one of the most fantastic peppery floral incense fragrances ever, if you're not one of the people who find it unutterably vile. Then there's Kingdom, which either smells like genital sweat or curried rose and jasmine with a deliciously salty edge. Recently, I tried Armani's Onde Vertige, one of a trio just released by the company. I'd read that Cavallier was responsible for one of them but when I got to the store I couldn't remember which. Guess which one I picked--and to think Maurice Roucel was among the competition. It reminded me how much I love Cavallier without always or even usually knowing why. Poeme has that curious appeal too, and as the day wears on and Poeme sticks with me, why and how matters less and less.

Looky-loos

I can spend hours in the Korean-owned fragrance store here in town, going without food, water, sleep, or even contact with the outside world. The place has been a total education for me. Within a short three months I've been able to smell dozens of perfumes I might otherwise only have read about. The owner took over the store from his relatives, who operated the place for years, so a healthy percentage of the inventory dates back to pre-reformulation, meaning that even those I think I'm familiar with have the capacity to surprise me.

The first time I walked in, I spotted the old Montana for men. It has a great, bracing smell, cedar astringency, very nice. Adjacent to it was the newer formulation. The old is boxed in red, the new in blue. There's really no comparison. As often happens with old and new formulations, the two are completely different fragrances. The recently re-released Magie Noire, on sale at Perfumania, is a pale iteration of the original, which the Korean shop has. The original is strange and indolent--barely this side of foul, and wonderful for it. The re-release smells good, but really only indirectly references the original, the way a matchbox car does its source. Imitation of this kind requires crude generalization. Corners get rounded off. Suggestion substitutes for detail. Several of the perfumes the owner has carried haven't been reformulated, they're just hard to find: Issey Miyake's Le Feu D'Issey, Etienne Aigner No. 1, Yohji, K de Krizia. Every time I go in I see something new. One day I looked up and saw two quarter ounce bottles of Bandit pure parfum. The place is a museum, a history lesson, and a candy shop.

I ask a lot of questions. Who buys what, or does it actually sell at all? I won't bore you with how popular Paris Hilton's perfumes are. Because I'm there often and for significant blocks of time, I witness various shoppers come and go, and what they ask for fascinates me. I've yet to see anyone play. They come in looking for Mariah and that's what they want to see: not something different or even something like it. Recently a girl came in shopping for her boyfriend. He wears that, she said, pointing to Jean Paul Gaultier. This looked promising, until she said he has about ten bottles, all lined up in a row. She wanted to buy him something, but she wasn't sure what. He drives a nice car and he runs three businesses, she said. He dresses nice. I suggested Body Kouros, because no one else would be wearing it and it smells phenomenal. She liked it but she didn't know if he would.

"Now, is that in the same...what am I trying to say?" she said. "Are they in the same..."

Do you mean class? I asked. Do you mean Is Body Kouros in the same class as Gaultier?
"Yeah," she said. "The same, like, level."

So I told her that YSL, who'd just died, is to Jean Paul Gaultier as Leadbelly is to Rap. She'd never heard of Yves Saint Laurent and she didn't really care. She didn't want something nobody else was wearing. For her and her boyfriend, and for a lot of people, cologne is a label, to be recognized and to impress. She didn't end up buying anything.

Leaving a perfume shop without making a purchase is so unthinkable to me that I literally can't imagine it. So you're low on funds. Don't you want a sample? Aren't you curious about wild cards? What if the best perfume you've never smelled is sitting on one of those shelves somewhere? What if something up there smells a lot like the stuff you wear now, only better? Every time I'm standing there and someone walks in smelling of nothing, it hits me again, how few people actually wear cologne, and how few of those wear anything any good or which at least expresses something unique about them. When my co-worker started wearing CK1 I was so enthusiastic. It was so nice to have someone else's cologne to play off of. When I got Lolita Lempicka au Masculin I gave it to her. It reminded me of Lempicka for women, which I already had. By giving it to her, I could still smell it. She's the kind who goes through one bottle at a time--and only applies once a day, so it wouldn't be going anywhere soon.

I have a fantasy, and it goes like this: I walk into a perfume shop, and all the usual suspects are there, sniffing all the same old same olds. Then somebody off in the corner (I like to think a guy) lights up like someone stuck his finger in a socket. His eyes are huge. He has a bottle in his hand. I gather he's just smelled it. He speaks directly to me because I'm the only one paying attention. If I wasn't paying attention, he'd be talking to the shelf.

"This stuff is amazing. Oh my God Oh my God oh my God. How have I never smelled this? Did this just come out? And in Eau de Parfum. And by Maurice Roucel. It's practically edible. There's only one bottle left. There's only this tester. Do you think they'll sell it to me? Do you think I can talk them into it? I'm prepared to sell my body. I'd wash dishes if they had any. I can't leave without this. I have to have it. I have to have it right now."