Femme is Two Women (at the least)

IMG_2416, originally uploaded by Michael Clements.

IMG_2416, originally uploaded by Michael Clements.

I first encountered Femme in the fall of 2002. I fell in love immediately and since there was no parfum extrait available (back than I insisted on purchasing fragrances only in parfum extrait), I settled on the Eau de Parfum. What a mistake! The EDP was overbearing with sillage and had a very plasticky ambery base that was a little too sweet and overpowering. I returned it to the store after a few applications, never thinking that I should have just asked for the EDT (which is what I was trying in the store to begin with) - but still that scent always reminds me of that time of my life, when I was very excited about the classic perfumes from the early to mid 20th century and was really drawn to those dark, complex masterpieces.

At the time, I was still innocent than in the sense that I wasn’t aware of reformulations. So unfortunately, the scent I first associated with the name “Femme” wasn’t the original creation of Edmond Roudnitska, but rather - the re-orchestrated version of 1989 (Olivier Cresp). It was not until much later that, thanks to the kindness of a perfume friend, obtained a ½ bottle of none other than vintage Femme in the Parfum Extrait. It comes in a tiny bottle with a screw cap (quite unusual for an extrait, a little red tie of a ribbon with a medal in the middle, and I reserve it for very special occasions only.

What comes out of these two bottles are two completely different Femmes; two different women, with the same dress and the same name. But I wanted you to still read about my first experience with the second woman, just as it was, without this knowledge. And regardless of the fact that it is something else, I think it stands as a unique perfume and I’d rather take the re-orchestrated Femme any day over at least 1000 other perfumes I can think of that were launched in the last 7 years. At least it has personality, and you can pick it out of a crowd. Aside from the reformulation fiasco, I don’t think there are many imitators for Femme.

Femme was for me the embodiment of a Femme Fatale spirit. It made me feel like a powerful, seductive woman and wearing it I knew I would always get my way wherever I go. Redolent of overripe fruit and sun warmed skin, Femme always reminds me of the days in the fall when the sun is still shining but you can wear all black without overheating. Which is exactly what I was doing at a time (I was taking the black a little too seriously and even worn a silvery black lipstick back than…). When in Grasse for my perfumery training, I fell in love with it again when the teacher handed us a scent strip with the (reformulated) version. It did that thing again – take me back in time. And I knew I had to bring it back to my collection, because it is so different from the original parfum and because it is still a beauty.

The fruity top notes are mainly suggestive of dried peaches (aldehyde C-14) and prunes. These are warmed by the somewhat controversy note of cumin (or perhaps it is cuminaldehyde?), which was definitely not present in the original and pumps a raw, sexual energy to the composition. The cumin is nice and subtle when you apply with a light hand; but if you don’t (and especially with the EDP) a woman might get a similar feeling to that which occurs when wearing her dirty lacy panties inside out on top of her clothes (not that I ever done that, but I can imagine how embarrassing that would be). In the EDT it’s a little more subtle, and reminds me the cumin-scented version of Mitsouko EDP (it’s been a while since I found a bottle with that formulation but I did love it!).

The heart notes are a lovely bouquet that is beautifully balanced without really making the perfume smell floral at all – jasmine, rose and ylang ylang softened by powdery and clean orris root notes, and sandalwood notes that are traced down to the base of Femme.

All in all, I found the EDT subtle and a little more woody. More woody and less ambery and sweet than I remembered it. Here is what I wrote about Femme’s dry down in 2002:
“The animalic chypre accord at the base is warm, ambery, musky and extremely seductive. The oakmoss plays only a background role, where as the labdanum (an ambery, earthy and somewhat leather-like resinoid derived from the Mediterranean Rockrose bushes, which is an important component in most chypre perufmes) is the key to the warmth that Femme radiates throughout its beautiful and long skin-life (Femme lasts for over 12 hours on my skin – and this the Eau de Parfum concentration). It is completed with some additional amber notes, a vanilla-patchouli accord and a touch of civet”.
Today I’m smelling vetiver, sandalwood and amber. And reading that there is no oakmoss listed in the allergens ingredient list on the box makes me wonder: was it reformulated again?

What I’m going to say now may not come as a surprise, but it could still be shocking to some of my readers. And I’m pretty sure it’s not going to make many big companies happy either. One of the things I learned in my trip to France was that reformulation has is and has been some kind of a routine among most of the large fragrance houses for quite some time. Every 5 years or so, fragrances are being reformulated. This is done without informing the unsuspecting consumers. More often than never, the packaging and the name of the perfume remain the same. This was done even before the regulations from IFRA got tighter. The motivation behind this is simple: cost reduction and increase of profit margins. People are perhaps “blind” to the changes because the leave no visual traces (except for some cases of re-packaging or big re-introduction of scents after they’ve been pulled off the shelves for some time). But the nose knows. And the layperson’s nose is more sensitive than you might expect. Perfume wearers do notice the change in the jus but since nothing in the packaging or the name has changed, especially after knowing a perfume intimately for years. But since there is no visual evidence that anything has changed, they would blame it on their “body chemistry”. The fragrance industry should be paying dividends to the feminine hormonal cycle that enables women to believe anything if it’s explained by them having a baby or entering menopause.


Nevertheless, and regardless of reformulation and disrespect to a master perfumer’s art and intention, Femme still truly deserves its name as a tribute to femininity.
It is a classic, shamelessly feminine, and beautifully seductive perfume in a mature and natural manner.

The fruity top notes are mainly suggestive of dried peaches and prunes. These are warmed by the somewhat controversy note of cumin seed which pumps some raw, suggestively sexual energy to the composition, and beautifully bridges between the fruity top and the musky, animal-like base notes.

The heart notes are a lovely bouquet that is beautifully balanced without really making the perfume smell floral at all – jasmine, rose and ylang ylang softened by powdery and clean orris root notes, and sandalwood notes that are traced down to the base of Femme.

The animalic chypre accord at the base is warm, ambery, musky and extremely seductive. The oakmoss plays only a background role, where as the labdanum (an ambery, earthy and somewhat leather-like resinoid derived from the Mediterranean Rockrose bushes, which is an important component in most chypre perufmes) is the key to the warmth that Femme radiates throughout its beautiful and long skin-life (Femme lasts for over 12 hours on my skin – and this the Eau de Parfum concentration). It is completed with some additional amber notes, a vanilla-patchouli accord and a touch of civet.

The dry down stage is a soft, ambery-musky chypre-animal accord, and has some soapy-clean sandalwood notes.

In my mind, Femme is a warm, comfortably seductive, sun-warmed perfume that I can wear anywhere anytime. It reminds me of warm summer days. I love wearing it with black on sunny days, or when I want to feel this kind of warmth inside me.

Top: Peach, Plum, Cumin, Lemon, Rosewood
Heat: Rose, Jasmine, Ylang Ylang, Orris
Base: Vetiver, Amber, Vanilla, Sandalwood, Labdanum, Patchouli