Nuit de Noel Extrait de Parfum

I spent the day wearing Caron Nuit de Noel and before the dawn of oud perfumes and woody fragrances on every corner, I spent many winter days wearing Nuit de Noel. It used to be, prior to maybe the 1980's, the gold standard of winter fragrances for adult women. Sophisticated adult women, who went to nightclubs in New York, women over 40. At least that's what it seemed to me in the 1960's, when I was a woman in my 20's. I would be standing at the Caron counter of nearly every major department store (they don't call them the good old days for nothing) buying a small bottle of Bellodgia cologne (they sold colognes then) or Fleurs de Rocaille, and smelling whatever else they had. I remember the saleswomen presenting Nuit de Noel and me thinking it was going to be a glitzy spritz fragrance like a Dana scent or something, and instead getting a darkly sophisticated scent I completely didn't understand. Nuit de Noel is hardly a "floral scent" as it's identified here. Floral-oriental maybe. It's full of rose and oakmoss, and a richness that can stand up to the Montale/Roja Dove/ Maison Francis Kurkdjian fragrances on today's market. Amber and truly is balsamic, although no one ever used that word anywhere (to describe perfume or gourmet vinegar) before about 2002. It lasts at least 7-8 hours with decent sillage. And there is lots of Nuit de Noel on eBay right now, or I wouldn't bother to review it. Sellers must have a lot of it out of estate sales, although the iconic black parfum bottle has been in production in some size continuously through at least 2005. So there's a lot of it around. I don't know how well it's been selling though; there are very few department stores with Caron counters now (Christmas 2019) and tons of competition. In any case, there's a lot of it on eBay, and not all empty bottles, so maybe they'll reduce their prices now that it's too late (December 19th) to ship for arrival by Christmas. I came to the party for Nuit de Noel sometime in the late 1980's, when I was 40+ years old and had a lot of perfume and life experience. I've had the edp bottles, and the juice is comparable. But it goes bad faster than the parfum, and that black bottle has to be the best example of a widely available art deco object ever. Don't expect actual sharkskin if you get the full presentation with the green Japanese inro inspired box. It's green paper with a pebbled design to resemble sharkskin. But well worth having both the box and green tassel, and the parfum. When I was younger I didn't get why they called it Nuit de Noel either. Christmas night, no one goes out Christmas night. There are usually no huge parties Christmas night, women don't dress up in glittery sequined clothes then either, which is what you usually associate with wearing perfume this classy. You are with family on Christmas night, maybe not wearing much perfume at all if you're a traditional woman and not a Fragrantica habitue. I think Nuit de Noel is meant to represent contentment. You've had a great Christmas, gotten at least one beautiful treasure (the perfume), if not many, you've dined well, and you're with a loving family. So all's well, and you feel and smell the best ever. (Yes, the 1930's were the scene of the most horrible worldwide depression ever, and very few women ever have been able to use perfume of any price as an escape mechanism, but especially not then. But Fragrantica is about romanticism here, not reality.) Joyeux Noel to all.

I'm mildly obsessed, or perhaps enchanted is a better word. This perfume is like a flickering soft flame, mesmerising. My fascination began when I started to paint beautiful glassware, 18th century hand-blown glasses, Victorian ruby-red perfume bottles, then this exquisite creation by Félicie Wanpouille for Caron. Having familiarised myself with what must be one of the most beautiful perfume bottles ever created, I had to try the vintage perfume. I honestly wasn't expecting too much; an old school, aged aesthetic, appreciable for its time - maybe charming, but not something I'd wear, or find as beautiful as the bottle, I thought. I was wrong. It took me so much by surprise it made me cry. It was proof of what perfume can be, and it was the journey it took me on. The opening, slightly vinegary, powdery violets emerge, a little rose, candied ylang. Ok. Nice. Over the next half hour or so it becomes smooth, pliant, sinuously green, soapy, elegant, mossy and undeniably classy. Timeless. I let it speak - stopped analysing. It became kittenish, soft and warm, like intimacy, but not in an erotic sense - more the idea that someone leans towards you and says 'Shhhhhh'. Then it became like a soft flickering candle - light and shimmery. It was still sweet, but not candy-like, more like a sweet caress. It all swirled into a gentle, sacred moment of quiet, I detected notes of frankincense, making me think of the Midnight Mass this was named for. Over the next hours it stayed with me like a warm flame nurtured after a sacred moment while walking home through icy streets. Finally, it's all about home-coming, like a caress but this time human, salty, warm and grounding. Delectable sandalwood, incense powder emerges, a furry warmth that reminds me a little of Channel's Bois des Iles, but fruitier. This is why we keep exploring perfume, through hundreds of nice enough, lovely or forgettable scents, here you're reminded (if your heart, mind and imagination are open) of why perfume matters. I adore it.

This is my Christmas Day perfume, and has been ever since my mother sprayed a very small amount on me as a child. She or my grandmother sprayed me every Christmas until I left home, at which time I was given my own bottle. I was 18 then, and am now 60...Nuit de Noel and I go back a long way. To my mind, this is the most beautiful perfume ever. I have many that I love deeply and I treasure each one for its own attributes, but this is special. History, I suppose, but also the actual glory of the fragrance. One little dab in the morning and it is still going strong this evening. On first application it tempts you to over apply, as it does not give up its secrets straight away. Leave it a while and get on with the business of Christmas morning, and you will suddenly become aware of it. It needs the warmth of your skin to come to life. As usual, I cannot tell you which notes I recognise. This is superbly blended and for the first several hours I smell the sweetness of the flowers. There is an incense-type smell, but it does not give me the "eau de plastic" that I am always aware of in Parfum Sacré. It is more musky, like Goutal's beautiful Musc Nomade. As it slowly shows its heart I feel as though I am smelling almonds: sweet, marzipanny almonds. I can almost taste them and this feels satisfying in the mouth somehow. The flowers are still there. They are always there. It is as though they do not fade, but swell and grow, and are joined, slowly, by the other players, none of which I can identify individually. I cannot stop sniffing this. It is so, so beautiful. My Christmas perfume. Glorious.

I can't remember if I've ever reviewed this, but I should have. This fragrance is truly iconic, even if you don't buy it in this original black glass deco bottle. But you should spring for the black bottle; maybe you can talk some eBay seller down now that it's after Christmas. Nuit de Noel is everything you wish for in an adult fragrance, especially if you favor all the oud/amber/patchouli fragrances that have swept you off your feet since maybe 2008. Nuit de Noel is the real deal, and all the way back to 1922. I am an old lady, but I promise you won't feel like an old woman wearing it. This isn't your great aunt Dorothy's perfume (unless she was maybe Dorothy Parker [Google her]). This is the fragrance of truly great independent women from 1922 onward, eras when women had little to choose from if they wanted to feel spectacular and apart from the pack of women wearing cloyingly sweet floral perfumes. Until maybe 2000, Caron perfumes were sold in all the big US department stores, and even in the department stores in small towns of under 100,000. Nuit de Noel wasn't Caron's biggest seller ever; Fleurs de Rocaille and Bellodgia took those honors. That's all gone now; but those black bottles of Nuit de Noel are still around online. And don't get hung up on the name; it's not a "Christmas woodsy" scent. No pine tree ever graced this stuff. It's what used to be called an "oriental scent," which covered a lot of territory between 1922-1980. Heavily oakmoss and sandalwood, dark and brooding, not at all sweet, touches of rose and jasmine. Worth every penny spent.

A dusty plum, a real pip, a marron glacé flavored with rose water, a cinematic woods, a shadowy drone: these are all Nuit de Noël to me. The line "whispers in the powder room" from the Womack & Womack song Teardrops comes to mind. It starts to appear as a silent radiance, a marked muffle of the flowers, a ylang-ylang pastel, shifting light on crinoline-like petals, a mystic's den decorated with crystals and urns. A window is open, and it's raining, trees and greenery and earth, pregnant with dampness. A candle, at once lit, now snuffed out by the wind, leaving a trail in its wake. It's now all a hush, a soft spice rubbed onto a creamy sandalwood, rain evaporating, a dry repose, licorice all-sorts in a hobnail candy dish, sipping Fernet Branca, while the ghost of a hundred sables fills the room. The apparition haunts, as their little marten eyes pierce through the darkness, a plush, mammalian musk from under the 'Mousse de Saxe,' tinted tarragon and slightly fatigued from age. A creamy haze and furry gaze, a gaiety in sepia, an evening Pollyanna reading Nietzsche. Whether dapper, a flapper, or a serial napper, Nuit de Noël is for every season, for any reason.