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Rose Coffret
Perfume History by Cathy Higgins
Perfumes for the 1970s
By 1977 Yves St. Laurent had put 'Opium' perfume into production and it was a huge huge success with women everywhere. It was definitely a perfume for sultry evenings. By contrast women enjoyed wearing perfumes like Nina Ricci's L'Air du Temps and Nina Ricci's orange based Bigarade was popular for a while. • " de Lancôme, Lauder's Cinnabar, and Anais Anais by Cacharel in 1978 (the latter beloved by schoolgirls) were all well received.
Revlon's Charlie was a top seller and the trouser wearing woman who wore it was portrayed as a woman at ease with herself at work and play. Avon perfumes were also popular as they were affordable, but interesting coming in huge sprays to dainty containers for perfumed wrist creams. Max Factor's Maxi was in a similar affordable everyday price range.
Various musk based oils and scents at quite low prices flooded chemists shops. Aviance Night Musk by Prince Matchabelli was popular and affordable.
1980 Power perfumes Match Power Dressers
New designer scents were marketed fiercely in the 80s and for the first time ever, blatant erotic advertising which generated enormous attention from the media led to the success of the 1985 Obsession campaign from Calvin Klein. Obsession with its heavy smell of vanilla was dominant in the market.
It was equally impossible to open a magazine or Sunday supplement without being overwhelmed by the scent of Giorgio Beverley Hills on a yellow and white striped sample strip. Eventually Giorgio was banned from restaurants because the smell was too dominant over food aromas.
Image and a gimmick were a specialty of the 1980s and Jean Paul Gaultier put a perfume in a glass torso in a tin and continued to produce limited editions and variations of the designer package. Vanderbilt a refined oriental of carnation, rose and mimosa was put on the market in 1982 and was one of the more affordable attractive perfumes. Lou Lou launched in 1987 was a refreshing subtle change from the more oppressive oriental scents.
Right - The intoxication of the heavy scent of lilies.
Some scents of the era like Yves St Laurent's wonderful rose with violets in Paris have become true classics. Sultry sirens found Givenchy's Ysatis and Guerlain's 1989 Samsara hard to beat. Champagne the perfume caused a court case in the champagne making industry and was eventually taken off the market under that name. It is now sold in similar packaging, but as Yvresse.
Fresher Marine Green 1990s and New Millennium Perfumes
The 1990s saw a whole new range of cleaner sharper scents which probably began with Estee Lauder's White Linen from the 1980s. Perfumes such as L'Eau d'Issey by Issey Miyake in 1992, Eternity and Dazzling all have a crisper scent. One refreshing oriental fragrance was Sun Moon Stars by Lagerfeld in 1994 and the earlier 1990 Safari by Ralph Lauren was set in one of the prettiest bottles to grace a dressing table. Organza by Givenchy in a great bottle, launched in 1996 has the smell of a long lost much loved scent and was in competition with the now very popular Allure from Chanel launched the same year.
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The century ended with softer scents such as Cristobal by Balenciaga or unisex perfumes such as CK One popular with urban fashion followers. In 1999 Cacharel launched Noa Noa. Now renamed simply Noa it is a rounded floral oriental that smells divine. New perfume of the millennium include the lovely Kenzo Flower, Guerlain's Mahora, Calvin Klein's Truth, Rossellini's Manifesto, Lancôme's Miracle, Boucheron's Initial, YSL's Nu, Michaels Kor's Michael, Nina Ricci's Premier Jour and Vivienne Westwood's exotic tempting Boudoir.
Myths
A great deal of snobbery surrounds perfumes and they are often only considered worthwhile initially if expensive and very exclusive. But the consumer is not stupid however much the hype. If a scent smells unattractive on the individual the consumer will not buy it. The selection of perfumes that do smell wonderful is so great that no one has to wear the latest designer perfume if they hate the smell. Whilst many perfumes do succeed, just as many do not. The perfume has to be good and marketed properly to recoup initial development costs. Launching a new perfume costs between a half and a million pounds, so the scent has to match the mood of the era.
The $10 billion market place is so overcrowded that to keep up with the consumer's desire for new scents and still keep mystique and a measure of exclusivity, design houses such as Dior, Guerlain and Lancôme are now producing limited edition perfumes for a few months only with bottles destined to become designer items. In 2001 Dior's limited edition perfume was called Remember Me, a lily fragrance.
There is already a bottle collectors Internet trade for scent bottles with or without perfume.
A great many individuals are now seeking out classic discount perfumes or specially blended oils. A classic is a perfume that has lasted a minimum of ten years and grown to be much loved.
Some people also find that they sneeze quite violently when they wear modern perfumes. I include myself in this category and I've found that wearing the older perfumes designed more than 50 years ago seems to reduce the sneezing. It's also wonderful to rediscover some of the older perfumes and sense their depth, special individual quality and difference from the scents of today. If only manufacturers would stop tinkering with old favourites.
This may be why many have gone back to purchasing 100% alcohol free perfume oils and mixing their own scents. You can get high quality oils from All Natural Perfume Oils online.
Lost Perfumes
There is quite a bit of Internet activity of web surfers seeking perfumes either no longer in production or not sold in some countries. It is hard for the consumer to understand why manufacturers remove perfumes without warning, but their reason for being is profit. If the profit margin does not meet their ideal they ditch a perfume regardless of diehard fans.
Lancôme's wonderful original version of Magie was called Magie Mist. How I wish they would bring the original Magie Mist back, so much more feminine, pretty, softer, rounder and more memorable than the revamped version called Magie Noir that makes me sneeze.
But manufacturers for discount perfume are in the game of making profits and if sales are slowing they either withdraw the item or relaunch it as a new formula thought to be more in keeping with the mood of an era. Two recent examples of this are • " de Lancôme and Yves St Laurent's Opium, both of which have been updated in 2000-1. If you want the old versions get a stock in now. Venezia and Cacharel's Lou Lou have also been withdrawn not so long ago, so if you see it and like it, get it in.
Always buy perfumes from reputable dealers when using the Internet for your purchases. One site with a 20 year sales background in the UK is directcosmetics.com which sells skincare, hair and perfume products. You can get many famous perfume brands from there at heavily reduced prices.
When to Buy Perfumes
Perfume is often sold in the run up to Christmas as a coffret set at a good price. So it's often possible to buy at an eau de parfum price and get a body lotion and a shower gel in pared down size thrown in for good measure all in one box. This is the ideal way to try a new fragrance without breaking the bank as you get to try the main products. Aware of the popularity of cocooning, some manufacturers are also adding matching candles.
If you can bear to wait until January you will often find similar great offers at even lower prices. Always check the sell by date. Always ask the assistant if they have fragrance samples in the run up to Christmas or whenever you buy fragrance as that's when they are most likely to give them to you.
A word of caution - some of us now think that some of these specially produced coffret products are not as good as they used to be and that the perfume smell is often less desirable a smell to our nostrils than the regular stock. Why do we think this - well we have had samples given, bought the coffret and then found that the smell was nothing like as wonderful as the sample. One perfume marketing man wrote to tell me that the samples we are offered at perfume counters are always of eau de parfum quality. This means we may get confused and not fully realise at the point of sale that the coffret contains eau de toilette plus gel and lotion, but at the price of eau de parfum. Hmmm...
About the Author
My name is Cathy. I enjoy wearing perfume and have been for 20years. If you understand the history, it might help you pick the right scent for you!
Coffret rose elfe jaune - Trousselier - Berceaumagique.com