Nuit de Noel

It's a freezing and dreary day. Not just every day however. It's Christmas Eve. And a proper one I might say, since there's a lot of snow around. And what's more, I got all lucky in my "thematic" shopping this morning. I stumbled upon a near mint antique bottle of Nuit de Noël in a flea market, complete with its jade shagreen case, tassel and stuff, and since I've always thought of it as one of the most elegant packagings ever made, I grabbed it without further ado. I guess that wishing it was full too, would be sort of pushing my luck. With a solid piece of history in my coat's pocket, I think that having a couple of drinks while sniffing it wouldn't be such a bad idea on this cold winter day. So, pretending that it's 1922, I enter an old bistrot in the city's most popular square, and order a glass of fine cognac. From where I am, I can see a girl sitting on the stairs of a building's entrance, lying opposite to the bistrot's side windows. A cascade of fiery red hair is bursting from her beanie. She's like a torch burning in the snow... She has placed her bag on the cold and wet marble and she's sitting on it. She holds a small paper bag in her hands and looks excited. I wonder what the cause of her exhilaration could be. I take a sip of my cognac and smile. What she takes out of her small paper bag makes my heart miss a beat. I recognise the plain black-capped rectangular bottle. Or, to put it better, I recognise its label. She opens it and dabs a few drops on her wrists and on the sides of her neck. Now if this is not a coincidence, then it has to be fate signing at me. Encouraged by the spirit of the day, I decide to be a little more daring than usual and find out which of the two. ... "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Her amber eyes widen with surprise. "What?..." "Your Christmas Eve." "What about it?" I sway my bottle in front of her eyes. "Hey! This has the same name, but it's so more beautiful and looks so old. What is it?" "The grandmother of yours. Care to meet her?" She accepts my offer for a drink. After all it's freezing outside. ... "Oh my God... This is magical..." Although the perfume is long gone, its soul is still lingering. And sometimes an echo can be louder than the sound itself. She remains silent with her eyes closed for quite a while. Although I suspect where she might have been drifting, I ask her anyway. "I was trying to imagine some of the hands that once held this bottle and some of the words that were whispered because of its content being worn. Anyway, my bus leaves in four hours. Can you stand me being ecstatic for this long, oh my noble stranger?" "Noble stranger" is how we agreed calling each other, to maintain some of the mystery that is weaved with this special and magic day. But in any case, I tell her that I could possibly stand her more likely for four years, if she could be that dramatic the whole time. She smiles. "OK, my turn now." Although she has it dabbed also on her wrists, she lifts her hair, tilts her head, and invites me to sniff her neck. This upretentious and impulsive gesture warms my heart. But I guess this is what this girl is all about, warming people's hearts. I go for the sniff, and... I don't know if it's her gesture, the perfume itself, the surrounding festive atmosphere or any combination of them, but what I smell almost brings tears in my eyes. I struggle not to kiss her neck, but it's my apparently cold nose tip that spares me the struggle, cause it touches her skin slightly and startles her a bit. She steps back and sees my nearly teary eyes. "Hey you dummy... Stop spoiling me! Do I smell that good?" "You smell like the angels working in Heaven's pastry shop, while a forest wood fire is roaring in its fireplace..." ... She won't stop giggling and laughing heartily for the whole three hours we'll spent together. She won't stop sniffing her wrists either. She looks so happy and carefree. It's time for her to leave and catch her bus. We walk outside and we stand for a while, staring at each other. I don't know what to say. She doesn't seem to know either. She hesitates for a moment. Then she leans towards me and with her frail hand tracing my cheek, her lips brush mine for an instant. And by this fragile token of affection, I know that her scent will remain on me forever. She turns her back and starts to walk away. After a few steps she stops and turns her head back. "I'm Maria!" she shouts, before vanishing in the crowd. I stand still among hundreds of people who are walking around me hastily. I light a cigarette and lean my back against a wall. I close my eyes and try to imagine what she might be thinking when she went outside for a couple of minutes to buy a pack of cigarettes. I close my eyes and try to imagine her surprise when she'll discover the flacon in her bag... ... I hope you're happy beautiful Maria, wherever you are. I never saw you grow old. I never saw you become distant. And you never saw me either. Your icon remains immaculate in my mind, just like this little wonder that made our paths cross, that cold winter morning, 28 years ago. Your laughter is still ringing in my ears. And like a friendly and beloved ghost, you shall visit me once more this year, on the same day that I will allow myself a dab of the perfume that is you. Forever young... Forever happy... Forever my Maria from the Christmas of 1986. My beautiful Maria of Nuit de Noël...

I have been wearing NdN for many years, and have it in every formulation except the most recent. This is perfume magic. It is almost impossible to describe NdN with the usual pedestrian perfume terminology. Is it, for example, sexy? Well, I wouldn’t say it is not sexy, or unsexy. But, to call Nuit de Noel sexy is somewhat like describing Katherine Hepburn as sexy: of course she is, but that does nothing to evoke the essential Hepburn. Like Hepburn, Nuit de Noel is too smart, too complicated, too contradictory, too elusive, and too unique, to be merely sexy. Or sweet, or lovely. Nuit de Noel is like any great artwork: it cannot be easily understood, appreciated, or dismissed. It is not for sniffing or sampling or testing. How does one sample great art? That would be like listening to outtakes of a great concerto, or looking at postcards of a great painting. Here is a perfume that changes over time, changes with the seasons, changes with the weather, changes with your mood. Changes with you, as you age and change over the years. Always, it is deep and rich, always smoky and dark. But, it is, how can I describe this: like a contrapuntal movement in music, notes appear independently of each other, yet are paired, connected by tonal quality, but disconnected. Every once in a while, one voice is lifted above the chorus, ringing clear as a bell: Jasmine! Rose! Ylang ylang! And all the while, the deep tenor of the oakmoss can be felt beneath your feet: Boom! Boom! The amber is sweet, warm and resinous. With the sandalwood, clearly Mysore, the amber and oakmoss create a very solid, lasting and balanced drydown. The original extrait in the old Baccarat bottles is the most powerful, and otherworldly. This juice is dark and oily, redolent of dark forests at night, inky with oakmoss, rich and earthy, lasting as long as two or three days, wearing closer over time. The EDT is a friendlier, easier, less distracting version of the extrait. This could be called lovely, and I enjoy wearing this one to work and to play, with a particularly sweet and narcotic ylang ylang. Warm, boozy, smoky, and, yes, sexy. Although this perfume cannot be all things to all people, it is everything to me.

There should be a picture of Nuit de Noel in the dictionary next to the word vamp. Maybe this isn't supposed to be a sexy fragrance, and it doesn't really give off that vibe on its own per se. However, pair it with an otherwise sexy, especially classically sexy outfit (i.e. little black dress and heels), and it takes the whole thing to a new level. When I think sexy, I don't usually think oakmoss and ylang together, but it is, especially when rose and sandalwood are added. It's mature in the sense that the wearer needs to be self assured, but it's not "old", if you're my age (20s), a big personality is required to pull it off. Maybe you need that to wear this at any age, it's not a perfume that will go unnoticed. Lovingthealien's review is spot-on, I think. This represents the 1920's, but only in an overly glamorous, slightly exaggerated way. That's not a bad thing, I love the excessive side of the 20's, it was the epitome of glamour, aesthetically speaking anyway. And if Nuit de Noel has anything to do with Christmas, it is indeed a goth Christmas. It's one of the darkest perfumes I've smelled without even trying to be, but it's also warm enough to be somewhat festive (for someone who doesn't usually do festive). I get the Catholic Church incense note, and oakmoss reminds me of colder weather in general. The florals complete it, it's one of the smoothest chypres ever at the opening, and then it morphs into more of a floral-oriental. The base is very similar to Tabac Blonde. I'll be honest- I didn't like this or any of the Carons that I sampled on first try, I actually found them kind of shocking and unpleasant but strangely addictive, like, I couldn't stop sniffing the vial or wearing the stuff even though I thought I probably hated it. It was the first line of perfumes in a long time to challenge me that much, but a few days later I was head-over-heels in love with each of the Carons I tried and Caronade in general. They all have an attitude. They don't need you to like or approve of them, they enthusiastically challenge the status quo, and Nuit de Noel can't be properly worn without at least a bit of cynicism in your nature. A legit flapper perfume for sure.

My flacon of NUIT DE NOËL in the EDT came in today. It is a full tester flacon dating to the 1970's, so I'm guessing the oakmoss and musks are authentic. Interestingly, the atomiseur is not hand-pump-operated, but rather is powered with an internal aerosol, in the modern fashion. Initial spray on my skin yields brilliant, nose-prickling aldehydes of the vintage Chanel No. 5 variety, strongly tinged with a boozy/rummy nutmeg almost recalling spiked eggnog, perhaps. The opening aldehydes have that "vintage hairspray" smell, much like Worth JE REVIENS. Then a brilliant sheen of swirling, indistinct floralcy remains for some time, reminding me of the carnation in L'AIR DU TEMPS along with abstract concepts of rose and muted ylang. It all dries down to a bittersweet aromatic/oriental quality closely related to that of Molinard HABANITA: a faint, discreet sweetness alluding to vanilla and benzoin, but made bitter with a sombre myrrh and a viney geranium, laced with a nuance of toasted nuts and dried orange-peel and a faintly ghosted cinnamon. Some might even read the bitterness as being nicotinic, like freshly dried tobacco leaves. In farthest drydown, one sees the whole mixture is balanced on a tender deermusk/oakmoss/benzoin base, which recalls anew the nutmeg of the takeoff. Monsieur Daltroff has somehow managed to conjure up the olfactory impression of a dozen lit candle tapers... we smell the melting wax, the golden heat along with a delicate smoky nuance. THIS is undoubtedly the "Christmas" the name is describing. NdN is a lovely scent, maybe not dazzlingly complex, exactly, but straightforward and shapeshifting in the pre-1960's style. As others have mentioned, it does not smell like any Christmas I can think of, but instead is trying to capture, probably, the sombreness of a midnight mass in a Catholic church. It also seems to defy olfactive family categorization, like VOL DE NUIT and HABANITA do: an ambered, sweetish base pointing to Oriental, but with upper notes that seem to indicate an aldehydic floral chypre. If you are studying perfume history, you'd do well to obtain some NUIT DE NOËL.

Wow, this is insanely beautiful. It doesn't make me think of Christmas, despite the name, but if you love a floral chypre, you would be ecstatic to get a bottle of this from Père Noel. The rose, jasmine, and ylang-ylang are always present but so suffused with oakmoss and (real--this is vintage, after all) sandalwood that there's no real sweetness, just a bit of powdery, emerald-green floralcy, in a superbly cohesive blend. Whenever I smell a great vintage chypre like Caron Nuit de Noel or Guerlain Mahora, I start hoping that this scent profile will become popular again. I don't hate gourmands--far from it--but I miss the days when ladies smelled more like gardens and forests than cakes and candies. Update: Hours into the wear, it's still perceptible, but that doesn't mean I didn't refresh it. This fragrance is oddly addictive. I'm going to upgrade the longevity because I just noticed that this is an EDC--it's easily as strong and as long-lasting as a contemporary EDP, perhaps stronger than most. If you're a fan of Ysatis and White Diamonds parfum, or OG Coco EDP, or even Mitsouko, keep your eyes peeled for a vintage bottle of this. I probably won't acquire any more when I use up my bottle, but that's only because I put myself on a perfume budget, at least until I use up some of my existing fragrances, which could take a long time. But if you are a fan of Guerlain Mahora and lavish amounts of real oakmoss, you're going to want this vintage gem. Update: Four hours into the drydown, the sandalwood really begins to sing on the skin. It's divine. I am also reminded of Sisley Eau du Soir, 1990 vintage.