Free Scent and Subversion by Barbara Herman Page B

perfume that isn’t dark and brooding, Aphrodisia radiates joy and warmth, and has the olfactory color palette and texture of those rich-hued Art Deco works by Tamara de Lempicka. If this is the drugstore version of aonce-grander Aphrodisia, perfume lovers back in the day still had it better than we do. (Or at least, better than women on a budget today.) Perfumer Yann Vasnier described Aphrodisia as spicy (due to its clove note), soapy, and with a “vaguely Mitsouko back.”
    Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, neroli, fruit note
    Heart notes: Rose, honey, ylang-ylang, carnation, jasmine
    Base notes: Oakmoss, vetiver, civet, ambrein, musk
Colony
by Jean Patou (1938)
    In this 1938 ad for Jean Patou’s Colony perfume, it’s unclear if the eyes peering mysteriously over the pineapple-shaped bottle belong to the colonized or to the white colonizer. Either way, racialized darkness is at the heart of its colonial fantasy.
    Combining pineapple with a leather-chypre base, the wonderfully weird Colony was, at Paris’s Exposition Coloniale in 1931, an argument in perfume form for France’s colonial exploits. Colony hits my nose with rubber, chypre mossiness/woods, and a tart-turned-golden-sweet pineapple note, finally drying down to rich amber and benzoin. (Not incidentally, pineapple and rubber are two exports from countries that were colonized by France.) Although there’s not an easy relationship between the pineapple and the leather/moss notes, Colony somehow works.
    The Baccarat-designed bottle, which is the design version of a Freudian slip, looks like both a pineapple and a hand grenade, as filmmaker and perfume writer Brian Pera has noted. This visual pun celebrates France’s spoils from the tropics while (unconsciously) intimating that they were gained through violence. Insofar as one can psychoanalyze a perfume bottle (and why not?), the hand grenade / pineapple could be said to embody Colony’s ambivalence as a champion of colonialism.
    Top notes: Pineapple, ylang-ylang
    Heart notes: Carnation, iris, vetiver, opopanax
    Base notes: Leather, musk, oakmoss
Intoxication
by D’Orsay (1938)
    A pair of lovers straight out of a Marc Chagall painting kiss one another as they float above a city in this intoxicating ad from 1946.
    As unabashedly vintage as a cigarette holder in the hands of a woman with a 1930s-style moon manicure, Intoxication by D’Orsay lives up to its name. Its sharp florals are sexy and bright rather than dark and dangerous, like Narcisse Noir, or verging on cloying like Fracas.
    A spicy floral with an animalic undertow, Intoxication is similar in personality to Revlon’s Intimate: There’s something playful and fun about its sexiness—something American, maybe, rather than French.
    Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, mandarin
    Heart notes: Rose, orange blossom, jasmine, lily of the valley, nutmeg, ylang-ylang
    Base notes: Vetiver, patchouli, vanilla, sandalwood, tonka, musk, benzoin
Jealousy
by Blanchard (1938)
    For everything in our pornified world that is shown visually, a dimension seems to be subtracted from perfume. Repression, in other words, must have been really good for scent. Jealousy, a floral chypre, starts off as an innocent corsage of intensely sweet notes (honey, lilac, and hyacinth?). Those “innocent” notes are darkened with spice and musk, and then Jealousy dries down to a soft, powdery, and civety base.
    Notes not available.
Mais Oui
by Bourjois (1938)
    Mais Oui is a happy, bright little thing, calling out its friendliness and openness to life (“Mais, Oui!”) in its notes as well as its name. This beautiful floral aldehydic scent has a Femme-like warmth (peach or plum?) with a lovely animalic base that reads as leather. According to perfume historian Octavian Coifan, Mais Oui is overdosed with Animalis, a Synarome base with civet, musk, castoreum, leather, and costus. Rrreow!
    Notes from
Yann Vasnier: An animalic fougère with a cresolic or “coal-tar” note, clover, salicylates,