Poetry and Perfume Review: Christina Georgina Rossetti and Caron N’Aimez Que Moi + Forget Me Not Draw

 

 

 Choosing by George Frederic Watts

  Perfume indulges our senses.  They tell us stories. I find some of the best fragrances can evoke art, poems, and music.  As I was working on some CaFleureBon projects (to remain secret for the time being), I closed some circles and  gained a new appreciation for both a 19th century English Poet and a Caron fountain fragrance.  But it all started with the scent of sweet violets and intoxicating roses.

 

 Caron coveted urn fragrances

 Few Fragrance Houses carry as much gravitas in our perfume community as Caron Paris parfums. My very first perfume fairy Godmother (who wore many scents marketed for men, as I mentioned in an older post Diva Divo) loved Carons and provided me with my very first sample of Fleurs de Rocaille. I drained that sample in three days. Another perfume fairy Godmother collects vintage Caron extraits. Recently a dear friend from Seattle  told me that she loves Caron beautiful scents as well. She closed a circle of Caron fragrances and perfume Godmothers for me by helping me secure a bottle of Fleurs de Rocaille from the 1990s.

 

Huguenot by John Everett Millais

This time I reached  for Caron’s N’Aimez Que Moi,  which although almost hundred years old, was new to me. Here is what Caron's website says about its creation: 1916 war is raging on all fronts and young girls are still languishing after their loved ones, having seen them off two years earlier, a flower in their guns, with the promise they’d soon be home. To keep up morale among the troops and the girls they are leaving behind, CARON launches N’AIMEZ QUE MOI, a true pledge of faithfulness with its sweet violet candy notes. The young soldiers give it to their betrothed to remind them to renew their love vows daily until victory comes.

 

                            

                           Violets (James Dromgole Linton)

 N’Aimez Que Moicreated by Ernest Daltroff, pours out of the vial and startles me. Generally, violets do not make my heart skip a beat. But these violets do. They are no shrinking violets; they are proud  and hold their own with the perfume's sweet roses. They stand proud and they promise joys and delights of love to those who are coming back home. But what is rarely heard in the patriotic cries during wartime is the simple truth: the war is a horrible thing, and many of the soldiers will not come home. What will they do, these girls who cannot even be called girls any more because they had suffered a loss that cannot be solaced? The life stood proud when it stood, but when the young life is ended untimely, will these women grieve forever? Will they ever be happy again?

 

 Love's Shadow by Frederick Sandys

I suspect cries of war silence the voices of emotion, the voices of love, the voices of life. Flowers in guns do not stop shooting. They only started smelling like metal and oil. A war is a crime against life and against love.  And, as the Caron’s N’Aimez Que Moi, unfolds,  the roses lose a faint machine oil note that  follows the initial sweetness. As the perfume settles into its mossy meditative base, I see a different story unfolding. The woman is not clutching a bouquet of forget-me-nots, putting her life on hold and not knowing what to do while waiting.  She is opening the door to the great Unknown.

Dante Gabriel Rosetti: Regina Cordium

When I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me;

 Plant thou no roses at my head,

 Nor shady cypress tree:

 Be the green grass above me

 With showers and dewdrops wet;

 And if thou wilt, remember,

 And if thou wilt, forget.

 I shall not see the shadows,

 I shall not feel the rain;

 I shall not hear the nightingale

 Sing on, as if in pain:

 And dreaming through the twilight

 That doth not rise nor set,

 Haply I may remember,

 And haply may forget.

-Christina Rossetti , When I am Dead My Dearest

image of Christina Rossetti, a fragment of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Anunciation

 When I am Dead, Dearest was written by Christina Rossetti, one of the most important female Victorian Poets of her time and written in 1862. Many of you know at least one of her works. Some of you  may sing her words every year! She  wrote the verses In the Bleak Midwinter, the love poem Remember, Goblin Market, and the song Love Comes Down at Christmas.  She was the youngest member of a remarkable family of poets and painters and sister of the Pre Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He painted her image in his Annunciation. It is the face of the woman who admitted that we often know very little about ourselves in times of uncertainty. A woman who wrote these words: "perhaps, I may remember and perhaps, I may forget".

 Olga Rowe, Contributor

Thanks to our friends at Caron-Paris Fragrances, we are offering a draw you will not forget… 5ml of N’Aimez Que Moi Fountain Fragrance. To be eligible please leave a comment about your own connection to a perfume and a poem or your favorite Caron fragrance. Draw closes July 30, 2012.

For our newer readers, Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief of CaFleureBon interviewed Romain Ales who owns Caron-Paris. You won't want to miss Love, War and Fragrance: A history of Caron Paris

 

We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS option…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume. 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

÷ 4 = 1

45 comments

  • Linnea Wiedeman says:

    Narcisse Blanc sounds the most appealing of the perfumes with the orange blossom. i can’t say that connection to any certain perfume but i have always been drawn to musks and leathery smells, always reminds me of my dad.

  • Nuit de Noel is my favorite Caron. My mother had a bottle when I was small and wore it infrequently – she also favored Joy and Chanel No. 5. So…. childhood memories of a mother gone too soon!

  • Hi Olga! Beautiful review and poem choice. Thank you for the chance to give this one a try – it’s one violet fragrance that I haven’t fully explored. My favorite Caron, Poivre, has special meaning for me because it was created in the year I was born!

  • cheesegan says:

    I’ve always liked this poem by Matsuo Basho

    The temple bell dies away
    The scent of flowers in the evening
    Is still tolling the bell.

    It doesn’t speak of perfume in iteself, but I think it describes well the way a fragrance marks a time and an event.

    I’m not terribly familiar with Caron. I’ve only tried Parfum Sacre and Caron d’Homme, neither of which worked for me.

  • One of my favorite poems is Edgar Allen Poe’s Annabel Lee
    And this maiden lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me
    Ironically I always associated this line with Caron Aimez Moi
    Really lovely post

  • My favourite poem is Sonnet VI by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

    “Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
    Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
    Alone upon the threshold of my door
    Of individual life, I shall command
    The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
    Serenely in the sunshine as before,
    Without the sense of that which I forbore–
    Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
    Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
    With pulses that beat double. What I do
    And what I dream include thee, as the wine
    Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
    God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
    And sees within my eyes the tears of two.”

    My favourite Caron fragrance is a toss up between Le 3 Homme and Aimez Moi.

    Thanks for the draw!

  • I pick Yuzu or Anarchiste as fragrances that I’d like to try from the caron site. I don’t have a poem that goes with a fragrance.

  • Unfortunately no poem comes to my mind with regard to the fragrances. I like Caron Tubereuse, thanks!

  • My favorite Caron is Accord 119. It starts out soft and cozy and then develops into this wonderful warm base. It is really lovely.

  • I love Caron fragrances, my favorite (difficult to choose) is Nuit de Noel, just beautiful!!

  • Laurentiu says:

    Unfortunately, I have not had the chance to test yet any of the Caron perfumes for they are very hard to come by where I live. I would like to win the 5 ml sample of N’Aimez que Moi because I am sure it would be a thrilling experience to test this one as my first Caron.

    Thanks for the draw!

  • Beautiful review! My favourite Caron is Aimez Moi. It symbolizes to me becoming a grown up woman. As I began using it, it was the time I finished university, moved together with my fiancée, began the planning of our wedding, started our grown up life. At the time my taste for fragrances changed too, I didn’t used lightweight or girly scents anymore.

  • My fluorite would be Nuit de Noel I guess, but it’s so difficult to choose, Sacre and Tabac Blond are just as beautiful.
    Thank you for the wonderful article.

  • No fragrance brings poetry to my mind . Generally they speak to me in colors and paitings.
    My fav is Tabac Caron extraIt. From the new ones I adore Accord 119.

    Great post. Thank you for the draw.

  • I have a bottle of Yatagan since forever. I don’t wear it very often but it is still among my favorite perfumes (not just by Caron). When the time is right for wearing it there is nothing else I’d rather use

  • Michelle U says:

    My favorite Caron is Eau de Reglisse Liquorice and I connect this perfume with Emily Bronte’s poem called “Often rebuked, yet always back returning”.

    “What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
    More glory and more grief than I can tell:
    The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
    Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.”

  • As perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain
    So the thought of you, remaining deeply folded in my brain
    Will not leave me: all things leave me: You remain.
    – Arthur Symons

    I adore Tabac Blond!!

    Thanks for the draw.

  • I have not tried any Caron fragrances, but am now
    curious, and would to be in the draw!

  • Olga – The ‘voices of war’ don’t silence the voice of love or life, but rather changes their timbre forever.

  • I was lucky enough to come across not one but two vintage bottles, new in the box, of Bellodgia; an EDT and PDT, and, although they take a few minutes to settle down, they’re lovely and oh-so vintage. Thanks for the draw!

  • Parfum Sacre.

    “I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
    I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

    Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
    I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
    I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

    I do not think they will sing to me.”

  • My favorite Caron is Poivre….Farnesiana and Parfum Sacre are really close runners-up.

    Hmm…I like many poems but am not sure I know any connected to fragrance as well as some I’ve just read in the comments!

    I really like this one, by Loren Eiseley, in All The Night Wings– it reminds me of the ‘vibe’ of some perfumes which manage to remind me of wide open spaces and at the same time feel very personal (Bois Blond, Mb03, L’air du desert marocain…)
    :
    Words for Forgetting

    Go forward on these simple roads,
    Do not turn back.
    The stars behind you in the wind will blow,
    The coyote’s track
    Delicately replace the lifted dust
    Of your own heel.
    Go forward and the dark will close
    About you. You will feel
    The fragrant emptiness of prairie miles.
    Now you will own
    Nothing that is not yours, yourself
    Down to the naked bone.

  • My favorite Caron fragrance to wear myself is Nuit de Noel. My favorite to smell on others (namely, my SO) is Le Troiseme Homme! Thank you for the draw! 🙂

  • My favourite Caron parfum is Acaciosa. It is just beautiful, full and at the same time fresh wite flowers bouquet.

  • I regret not knowing the Caron fragrances and would welcome the chance. Have heard many good things.

  • What a beautiful post and it’s so well written. My favorite Caron is Tabac Blond. Thanks for the draw.

  • i love the original caron tabac blond.
    it reminds me of my father’s knize ten (it’s a bit deeper and rounder than that, but very much along the same lines.).

  • Borko Boris says:

    To my shame, I have not tried any Caron yet. I hope I will win and this will be my first time.

    Thanks!

  • Mary Oliver’s Sleeping in the Forest –

    “I thought the earth remembered me,
    she took me back so tenderly,
    arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
    full of lichens and seeds…”

    Nuit de Noel. Thank you for the draw. And thanks for the gorgeous poems, all.

  • Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten the opportunity to try a Caron, but Nuit de Noel sounds wonderful.

  • Amberosmanthus says:

    My favorite Caron fragrance is Nuit de Noel but I haven’t had the opportunity to sniff many of them so I would love to expand my Caron repertoire. Thank you for the draw.

  • My intro to Caron comes from the Al Pacino film, ‘Scent of a Women,’ released Dec. 23rd (my wife’s birthday) 1992.

    Though Fleur de Rocaille, (I found out years later), was not the original frag (that would be Fleurs de Rocaille, 1934). None the less, I have been buying it for her since and it suits her well.

    Thanx for the draw!

  • Beautiful post Olga. Rosetti’s poem is so touching and of course the perfect accompaniment for N’aimez que moi. I do love many Carons, so one favourite is a tough call, for the summer weather Aimez-moi and Royal Bain de Champagne.
    Thank you for the post and the wonderful draw.

  • Jasmine Black says:

    I adore the ecstatic sacred poetry of Mirabai of India. I would like perfume based on the scents and seasons; moody moon and cuckoo’s cries, monsoon rains and greeness, sandalwood, the sacred groves of India, on the path of devotional love of Mirabai, bhakti poetess pining for her love.
    My favourite Caron perfume is frankly and unabashedly,
    Lady Caron.

  • jezabelle says:

    I do not know Caron fragrances, nor would I tell you dishonestly that I wax poetic about fragrance. Or have a relationship of words with scents. Fragrance is a vacation from that part of my brain, whenever possible. The way music forms a harmonic, or when a note is in tune, there is a settling of dissonance.

    But not to be a sour puss, Walt Whitman:

    Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
    I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
    The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

    The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
    It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
    I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
    I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

    The smoke of my own breath,
    Echoes, ripples, buzzed whispers, love root, silk thread, crotch and vine,
    My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
    The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-colored sea rocks, and of hay in the barn,
    The sound of the belched words of my voice loosed to the eddies of the wind,
    A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
    The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
    The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hillsides,
    The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.

    Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? have you reckoned the earth much?
    Have you practiced so long to learn to read?
    Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

    Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
    You shall posses the good of the earth and sun (there are millions of suns left),
    You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the specters in books,
    You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
    You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

  • The only time I was in the Caron boutique in NY it was a lovely experience! I got introduced to Montaigne, and I would have to say that it is probably my favorite Caron…but Eau de Reglisse is right up there as well. Diane was charming and helpful and I left with a beautiful swansdown puff and lovely Caron powder! A fun fun memory!