#sandalwood perfume | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cleolinda · 1 year

Text

Samsara (Guerlain, 1989 EdP & 2023 EdT)

A sandalwood overdose embellished by ylang-ylang and jasmine. Samsara is the first woody women's fragrance in perfumery. It is constructed over a beautifully crafted sandalwood, used for the first time in these quantities in perfumery. (Guerlain.com)

From Eau de Tati, the back story:

Jean-Paul Guerlain created Samsara in 1985 for Decia de Powell, the woman he loved and who wore the fragrance for four years before it was launched. Jean-Paul took the opportunity to create the perfume for her, as she could not find a perfume that appealed to her. She liked jasmine and sandalwood, in particular, and these were the raw materials on which Samsara was based.

It seems that Gérard Anthony co-created the fragrance, but Guerlain has always loved a good legend. Whether the Sanskrit word "saṃsāra" ("the concept of rebirth and 'cyclicality of all life, matter, existence'") suits the fragrance as a name is a lengthy discussion I'll leave to others.

On the face of it, Samsara is another Guerlain journey into orientalism (stop that!); it's a classic example of loud 1980s fragrance (outdated); it's a benchmark in the Western perfume industry's use of sandalwood (notable). I wanted to write up this one purely because I already had it on hand: when I say "1989," I mean, my mom gave me an eau de parfum sample in 1989. I would have been about ten years old, and I loved collecting little sample vials that gave me too many headaches to actually use—just to keep in my little treasure boxes full of costume jewelry and tumbled rocks and skeleton keys. Apparently I was a magpie, or maybe a dragon. There's only about five molecules left, but as it turns out, that is more than enough.

I also ordered a fresh decant of the current formulation from the Perfumed Court—all they had was the eau de toilette, not the EdP, so this is not a one-to-one comparison. Instead, we have, on one hand, the most aged a Samsara can get, saved since its debut year, and on the other, the lightest, freshest iteration possible. It's lovely, that new EdT. But it's not what I expected at all. A couple of years ago I managed to uncork the 1989 Samsara, and all I got was this incredible note of mingled sandalwood and jasmine—just the richest, smoothest, deepest thing you've ever smelled. But the new one, from my notes: "BUBBLEGUM??"

Powdery fresh floral, rose? Like a living flower that happens to be powdery, not a cosmetic. Very very fresh and outdoorsy, like a garden. The vague idea of sandalwood underneath. Something a bit sweeter coming out, maybe vanilla jasmine. Very light, very easy to wear. Airy, breezy. Sheer.

And then, ten minutes in, bubblegum came out. Motherfucking bubblegum. I had to look up what the old-fashioned Bazooka Joe-type flavor is, because it's not that—there's no tiny twang of clove or wintergreen hiding behind the fruits and vanilla. This is straight-up Juicy Fruit gum. Which involves banana, pineapple, and maybe peach, for a flavor "resembling jackfruit." Now, apparently jackfruit contains "banana oil," aka isoamyl acetate, so I went and googled it on a hunch: yes, it’s in ylang ylang too. Combine that with Samsara's actual peach note (although it smells fresher than the lactone in Mitsouko) and vanilla—

Basenotes.com: Green notes, peach, ylang ylang, bergamot, lemon, iris and orris, violet, jasmine, rose, narcissus, sandalwood, tonka, amber, musk, and vanilla.

—and you've got a powdery-nectar sandalwood bubblegum. It's so good. Two birthdays ago, I got myself a wide-ranging set of essential oils, just so I could see what things smell like individually; the night after I tried Samsara, I started messing around with them, and it's 10,000% the ylang that's bringing the strange fruity note. I rarely if ever see anyone mention the ylang-ylang in Samsara—they always talk about how strong the jasmine is, but I SWEAR TO YOU that this is what it does on me. In fact, twenty minutes in, Bubble Ylang was mostly what I was smelling.

At the same time, the fresh EdT was really, really powdery—you see iris there in not one but two levels of the note pyramid, and orris is just iris root. The classic Guerlains use the ionones of iris and violet a lot; they're in the house accord, the Guerlinade, which I may also try to get a sample of. But the powder is so much stronger in Samsara than I expected. I was promised a sandalwood overdose, and I'm sitting here with Juicy Fruit floating over a bed of irises—like the row of cool dark purple ones we had lining our driveway when I was a kid—at the half-hour mark. According to my notes, I didn't really get ~sandalwood until an hour-twenty, and even that was still blurring into the ylang-ylang. (Apparently these two notes are really compatible; it's the only thing same combination I liked in Chanel No. 5.) That said, it's lovely and sweet and easygoing if you APPLY SPARINGLY. Of the three Guerlains I've tried, this one was by far the easiest to wear.

Which is wild, because supposedly, Samsara is A Sandalwood Bomb, a true big-hair fume of the '80s that will choke you out of a room. And yet, I didn't even get the sandalwood clearly until more than an hour in. There's two reasons for this, I discovered:

One is that I microdose perfume. I always point this out because I want you to understand that if you apply more fragrance than I do, you are not going to get the tame results I do. If you spray Tyrannosaurus Rex all over yourself, there is nothing god or mortal can do for you. I used two swipes of the Samsara sample wand on my left wrist—and it did project a good bit, but it was comfortable. If I'd done the same on my right wrist to balance it out, I would have considered myself good to go for a perfume-appropriate occasion. Maybe if you didn't deploy FIVE SPRAYS you wouldn’t be choking on it, idk idk.

The other reason is that the current formulation of Samsara uses Australian sandalwood—whereas the original used a much richer Indian variety. I was surprised to discover that Samsara has always been formulated as a meeting of natural and synthetic sandalwoods, though. But the current version has a newer synthetic: Javanol. And the thing about Javanol is that some people can't smell it. And I may be one of them. Because there is no reason "an overdose of sandalwood" should smell this modest to me, in the same perfume that is shouting white floral, unless I physically cannot perceive its loudest component. But I'm smelling some sandalwood; that must be the natural oil.

For more on Javanol, I turn to a fragrance I haven't actually tried yet: Escentric Molecules' Molecule 04. Javanol is, in fact, that molecule. The product website explains, it's a synthetic that

retains the radiance and endurance of natural sandalwood, but is sheer and transparent like no sandalwood in nature. “What I love about Javanol is its almost psychedelic freshness,” says [creator] Geza Schoen. “It smells as if liquid metallic grapefruit peel were poured over a bed of velvety cream-coloured roses.” Javanol is like Iso E Super, the molecule in Escentric Molecules 01, in some ways. Like Iso E Super, it comes and goes. The person wearing it loses the ability to smell it after a short while, only to re-connect with it later.

Well, "it comes and goes" may be why I'm not smelling as much sandalwood in Samsara as advertised, I guess—maybe I’m not totally anosmic to Javanol? The company that makes it, Givaudan, says that the aromachemical has

a rich, natural, creamy sandalwood note like beta santanol combined with some rosy nuances. It can also be used at very low dosage (below 0.1%) to bring richness and creaminess to all types of accords. With its exceptional low threshold, Javanol™ is approximately 8 times more effective in wash tests than the most powerful sandalwood product. [...] In the quest for the perfect Indian Sandalwood, Javanol™ is probably the most versatile note with its power, radiance, woodiness and rosiness, blending perfectly with flowers.

Javanol blends so perfectly with ylang and jasmine, in fact, that I can hardly distinguish it through most of Samsara's lifespan on my skin (I appreciate a good olfactory chimera, so that's fine). I can also see why you'd reformulate Samsara, already famous for its Godzilla-sized projection, with the biggest, loudest synthetic sandalwood on the market. But the thing is, the Beast of Givaudan wasn't created until 1996. Javanol may be what Guerlain has paired with Australian sandalwood nowadays, but my original sample was made with [probably a mix of synthetics including] Givaudan's Sandalore and the good stuff—20% (!) Mysore sandalwood.

Mysore Sandalwood Oil is a trademarked perfume oil extracted from the Santalum album variety of sandalwood tree (also known as a "royal tree") in the Mysore district of Karnataka, India. The tree species is said to be one of the best varieties in the world. (Wikipedia, the most concise explainer)

It's also the most expensive. But while I'm sure reformulations are a cost-cutting measure, sandalwood sustainability has also become a huge issue; I'm happy with synthetics if it helps the cause. The Australian sandalwood used in the current Samsara seems to be a popular and less-threatened natural option; it's also in two other fragrances I'm trying at the moment, Le Labo's Santal 33 and Tom Ford's Santal Blush. But it's like the difference between tulle and velvet. You can still use it beautifully, but there is a smoothness and a weight that's missing. People say that Mysore sandalwood is "creamy," even sweet, and it is, but not in a dairy or dessert way; it's legitimately this kind of olfactory texture that's so good. By contrast, the scent of Australian sandalwood feels a little harsh in the top of my nose, full of wood grain and pencil shavings, but also lighter. And yet it blends just as well with the notes of the new Samsara, just in different ways.

As for the old—Mysore and Sandalore® were what greeted me when I uncapped my vintage, 34-year-old sample:

oh my god. ohhhhh my gooooood.

That big sweet fruity ylang-ylang immediately bounced right out—how had I only smelled jasmine in the vial before? I'll stop here and tell you a little bit about ylang-ylang, which is not the note I was expecting to go on about, but here we are:

When you hear about "white florals," they're generally talking about jasmine, gardenia, tuberose (you'll remember this one from HYPNOTIC POISON), lily, lily of the valley—and ylang ylang, even though the latter is a showy yellow flower. I truly don't know how to describe the White Floral if you're not familiar with it, especially since I've never perceived any funky "animalic" indole notes. It's just good to me, very rich, very perfumy, and apparently it does, in an aromatherapy context, have a slightly sedative effect; this may be why people talk about "narcotic" white florals. Ylang-ylang takes the woozy richness of jasmine and, uniquely, adds that fruity, slightly spicy, banana-esque note; I'd love to look for the differences between white florals as I try out more fragrances. With Samsara(s), the jasmine doesn't seem distinct to me, serving instead to support the ylang-ylang, and maybe this is why I only smelled jasmine in the vial: it's my skin chemistry, once again, that's playing favorites.

You know what else my skin apparently loves? Expensive vintage sandalwood. The original Samsara skipped straight to the 1:20 mark and—speaking of narcotics—hit me like a tranquilizer dart. I just curled up on my bed and held my wrist to my nose for about an hour. I was like a cat on the 'nip. My God. I had some hand-me-down incense sticks from the '70s when I was a teenager, and I have been chasing that sandalwood high for three decades. This is it. The blanket of iris, the bergamot blast other reviewers talk about (I only got it the third time I wore the EdT), the supporting cast of notes—barely there. Just the gold.

For about two hours, it was amazing. Then, gradually, Samsara grew more and more overpowering, like a rogue science project slowly ballooning out of control. I ended up wiping it off with a little jojoba oil—not washing it off (DON'T WASTE IT!!), but reducing the amount I had on. There's only about two drops, thick as maple syrup, left in that vial, and that's fine.

Meanwhile, every time I wear the current eau de toilette, it disappears after about three hours.

I wish I'd been able to get a current EdP sample to compare the two formulations directly. But you know what? I still enjoy the iris-forward, sandalwood-backward Samsara. It's easy to wear and it doesn't overstay its welcome, which is a good thing for someone with fragrance sensitivities (me). As much as I love the smooth golden Mysore aspect, I'd rather have the option to reapply than be trapped with the Sandalwood That Ate 1989.

Perfume discussion masterpost

#perfume #perfume discussion #perfume: guerlain #the beast of givaudan #note: sandalwood #note: ylang ylang #note: iris #note: white florals #note: javanol #long post

144 notes · View notes

cleolinda · 1 year

Text

Santal Blush (Tom Ford, 2011)

(tomford.com)

A textured fusion celebrating sandalwood, SANTAL BLUSH presents exotic spices enhanced with luxe ylang ylang, warm cinnamon, and sumptuous woods – seducing with a modern, second-skin warmth.

Notes: Sandalwood, cinnamon, cumin, fenugreek, carrot seed, jasmine, rose, ylang ylang, benzoin, agarwood, musk.

So I've told you some stories about wrangling really intense fragrances using my "Dab on three particles. No sudden movements. Do not look it in the eye" method. I did this with Chanel No. 5 and the aldehydes still gave me a panic attack; I did it with Not A Perfume and still got an instantaneous headache. I got some beautiful shape-shifting effects from Mitsouko and Coco Mademoiselle. Even at such low amounts, I am, in fact, getting what the perfume is meant to do.

Sometimes I don't. Santal Blush is the story of the time "just try one whole molecule" did not work.

Here's my clickbait read-more: The sixth time was the charm.

I do read reviews in advance to get an idea of how a perfume shows up on other users' skin—the notes, the olfactory textures, the opening and the eventual drydown. So I did know that Santal Blush is unusually subtle for a Tom Ford, a brand I associate with being expensive as fuck very strong. My only experience with the brand before this was trying Tobacco Vanille in a Sephora, which I loved so much that I kept the tester strip to scent my purse—my whole-ass purse, for a full week. It's not a timid brand.

So I try a dab of Santal Blush five times, and all I get is a witheringly dry Australian sandalwood with cinnamon. Like, I can feel this thing sucking the moisture out of the back of my throat, it's so dry. Within two or three hours, it was barely there—and reviews say it's supposed to really last on your skin. "It's creamy, it's floral, it's powdery." Fuck off, no it's not, I said, baffled. Where is the blush in this thing, conceptually? Why is it even called that?

Finally, I buckled down and slathered it on. And by "slather" I mean "a smear on the back of my hand the size of a quarter." A WHOOSH of floral came out, to my entire surprise—the classic [(rose-jasmine) + maybe (ylang-ylang and/or tuberose)] combination that you can see in the development of perfumes for a hundred years now. Just in the ones I've written about, you see it in the two Coco Mademoiselles, the No. 5 formulations, Mitsouko, the Samsaras, Hypnotic Poison, and even Tyrannosaurus Rex, somehow. And when I write about Jean Patou's Joy in the next few weeks, you're going to see it spotlighted there.

And this is a floral building block that's amazing with sandalwood; in Samsara last week, it merged with Mysore sandalwood in the old and Australian in the new. In Chanel No. 5 Eau Première (the variant I can stand), the ylang-sandalwood combination is gorgeous. And in Santal Blush, mingled with the heat of cinnamon, that floral compound is the blush. Imagine being shoved onstage, being mortified and unprepared and flushed—and then you discover that you actually like being there, you're maybe a born performer after all. Santal Blush isn't a loud or showy fragrance (on me, at least), but it's an interesting mix of vulnerable beauty turning into confidence.

So I tried it a seventh time, a big smear on my wrist. No floral. What.

An eighth time. Bigger smear. Wrist. No floral.

A NINTH time, the back of my hand. BOOOOOOSH. ~JASMINE

I cannot explain this. See, I often wear fragrance on the back of my hand because I type so much; if it's on my wrists, I'm just crushing perfume into my laptop. I know the back of the hand isn't a pulse point, but I get a nice waft of scent now and then while I'm working (alone, not bothering anyone). I would have thought that my wrists would have done more for the perfume, but no: Santal Blush only gets interesting on the back of my hand.

The sandalwood is still, however, dry as fuck. I even went and checked my sample of Nemat's Australian sandalwood oil—it has the same characteristic cedar-like pencil-shaving quality, but it also has a lovely citrus aspect, somehow, that keeps it from smelling actually scratchy. An even cheaper essential oil I had was lower quality, but still smoother than Santal Blush. What this tells me is that you don't end up a sandalwood fragrance THIS DRY unless you get up early in the morning and put some work into it.

I don't know why Tom Ford—or rather, perfumer Yann Vasnier—went this route, but Santal Blush is clearly leaning into the comparative dryness of Australian sandalwood, supporting it with the bark of a cinnamon stick, “sweaty” cumin, maple syrup-inflected fenugreek, and woody, earthy carrot seed. It even uses benzoin (a mild vanillic resin said have a touch of cinnamon) rather than a creamy or fruity vanilla. And this is the same variety of sandalwood (give or take some specific synthetics, probably) used in the new Samsara, mind you. That current formulation uses its floral building block—rose, jasmine, and its spicy, Juicy Fruit-y ylang-ylang—to offset the dryness of Santalum spicatum, and its green top notes give the perfume an airy, unexpected freshness. Back to Santal Blush—whatever components were actually used, Vasnier emphasizes (to my nose) jasmine and the spicy aspect of ylang rather than the creamy or fruity—no "bubblegum" note. As far as I can tell, everything in this fragrance has been engineered to be as arid as possible.

I'm not sure why, exactly. "Parched" is not really my association with blushing, unless the point is make the woody base so dry that the spicy floral really stands apart as a metaphorical rush of blood rising to the surface. If that's the case, then this perfume only works "correctly" on the back of my hand.

What do I get on my wrist, then?

The sandalwood

Not much

The cumin

When I was a teenager in the '90s and used a portable CD player with a headphone jack, I used to like to pull it halfway out; I'd have to turn the volume way up to hear it, but I'd get a somewhat muffled background layer of whichever song (mostly bass guitar, drums, and background vocals) that fascinated me. Putting this perfume on my wrist is like pulling the jack halfway out of Santal Blush. I don't get much cumin even considering that, but I can start to smell the idea of the human body beneath the blush.

Cumin is a real interesting note to throw in here, by the way. It's often used to give a note of "sweat" or "body musk," and I know this because people constantly complain about it on fragrance sites and forums. As Angela at Now Smell This writes,

Few notes in fragrance are as polarizing as cumin. Some people associate cumin with sweat or food, and even the tiniest hint of it will cause them to double-bag a perfume sample and take it to the garbage can in the backyard. Other people, including me, like the carnal edge cumin adds to a fragrance.

To elaborate a bit on the "carnal" idea, I've posted a story that I can't believe I just told about why you'd put a seemingly unpleasant "body musk" into a fragrance. Short version: it could simply remind you of being sweaty with someone—or it actually could prompt a physical sensation.

(Santal Blush is by no means the only fragrance to use cumin; "cooking spices" in perfume might be a post unto itself, if you want to get into the use of coriander, nutmeg, and caraway. The cumin-forward fragrances I see mentioned most often are Rochas Femme, Jean-Paul Gaultier's Le Mâle, and Alexander McQueen's Kingdom.)

I actually like cumin a lot as a cooking spice that I know mostly from Mexican food, although it's also used in curry, baharat, chili powder, other spice mixes across cuisines, and Traditional Chinese Medicine. But, to put it lightly, a lot of people do not care for it. Much as with oud (which is also in Santal Blush—"agarwood"), this might be a cultural—bias? Lack of appreciation? Or it might just be that it truly doesn't work with an individual's chemistry. (It seems to do fine with mine, albeit faintly here.) As the Fragrenza blog notes,

Cumin, however, is a unique spice due to its animal-like note, which imparts a sensual, strong, and persistent aroma to fragrance compositions. While the odor can sometimes resemble sweat, animal notes in perfumery are highly useful for their capacity to fix other components and enhance their scents. When used precisely and sparingly, cumin lends strength and character to fragrances.

At Côté Bougie, "5 unusual facts to know about the scent kamoun (cumin)":

The use of cumin goes back so far that it is even mentioned in the Old Testament and in various Greek writings. Its oldest trace of use has been dated to at least 5000 years ago and located in the Nile Valley region. It was present in the pharaonic tombs without doubt for its unique scent. In the Middle Ages, it was used as currency. And in ancient times, it was used as a pepper in cooking thanks to its very aromatic flavor. [...] Cumin has always been known for its powerful smell. It gives off a spicy, woody and aniseed scent. In the family of spicy fragrances, cumin brings a touch apart since it also diffuses an amber note.

Make new friends (I've got a licorice/anise post coming up soon) and keep the old (our pal amber), as they say. And benzoin would support the cumin to create an even more lasting, amber-y effect. The cultural history implied by cumin also underlines the (sigh) "exotic" quality. Fortunately, there's no orientalist storytelling around the name GUERLAIN; the "blush" is an olfactory effect, not a stereotype.

And the cumin, oud, and (unspecified) musk give that blush a human foundation, even though it comes out really lightly on me. It may be that Santal Blush has been recently reformulated for the cheaper, because older reviews speak of a much creamier, longer-lasting fragrance, and I can't get this to last more than 4-5 hours under the best conditions. I would like it to be less dry and more balanced, no matter how much a showcase it's meant to be for Australian sandalwood—like, "moist." I'm trying not to say "moist." Because I don't mean it that way, and now we're just all thinking about me saying it. Maybe I should be meaning it that way—Tom Ford, as a designer and a brand, is out here with fragrances called "Lost Cherry" and "Rose Prick." You wouldn't think I'd have to coax a Tom "Fucking Fabulous" Ford fragrance out onto the stage, but here we are. Maybe Tobacco Vanille will still have some razzle-dazzle by the time I get to it.

Perfume discussion masterpost

#perfume #perfume discussion #perfume: tom ford #note: sandalwood #note: cumin #long post

36 notes · View notes