Friday, August 26, 2011

Jean Desses Celui parfum - " the one... "

Created in 1938 , Celui is long discontinued . This gorgeous fragrance is classified as a feminine leather chypre , and is available at auction sites online in EDC and pure parfum . My sample was sent by a swapper friend - I actually didn't want to open it - and fall in love...
But I did .
They don't make them like this anymore .
The topnotes may have degraded a little , this has a whiff of celery - green at first . As it dissipates , the rich and heady floral heart is melancholy , nuanced , creamy , not too sweet ...in a word : beautiful !
Slowly the restrained yet animalic basenotes reveal themselves - softened and rounded by heliotrope . There is no overdose here , everything is balanced , chic , sexy and real .
notes -aldehydes , jasmine , rose , gardenia , iris, violet ,heliotrope , civet , ambergris

image of 1/8 oz flacon of pure parfum from eb*y

7 comments:

Musette said...

Leather chypre?

STOP!

xo >-)

waftbyCarol said...

hehe...I want that gold bottle...

olenska said...

Truly one of the most beautiful bottles ever designed!

Undina said...

If the perfume is even half as beautiful as the bottle...

Maggie Mahboubian said...

I purchased this celui de Jean Desses perfume in a lot with an unopened 1930 bottle of Nuit de Noel, not knowing what it was. What I have is a 2 bottle set with the 1.5 oz parfum and 3 oz parfum de toilet in a black leather case. I'm guestimating that it's from the early 1960's. The perfume, however, contains some of the finest orris root I have ever experienced. Like all iris/violet perfumes there is an element of fresh "soapiness" as the perfume opens which quickly turns earthy and woody. There is a definite leather dry down, especially fine when the inside of the leather box is sniffed. It becomes soft and powdery on me, just what I LOVE. What can I say, it is complex and gorgeous and the bottles/case are handsome. None of that frou-frou femininity here.

L' Homme Vert said...

I have several bottles of Celui in parfum, the barrel shaped clear flacon's with the frosted ribs encircling the sides sealed with ground glass stoppers. This 'Desses' fragrance was *the one* as it implies in French & so ahead of it's time, a leather chypre to die for, I also have a 2 fl.oz flacon with the pure parfum the color of aged cognac, the top notes are degraded in mine also but that doesn't last long as the dry down compensates with it's astringent dry woody notes enveloped by the softest exquisite leather imaginable in a perfume. One of the prominent mid notes is Hawthorn extract, another dry component adding to the overall earthy forest floor chypre feel. It certainly is a shame this beauty was discontinued, I believe the cost of production would be almost prohibitive today considering the rare and costly elements used in it's formula, one more lost to the vintage ether !
Celui reminds me in some ways of the original Antilope by 'Weil' just not as floral.
Regards.

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