The House That Waited
There is a long, narrow burgundy box in my fragrance collection.
I did not buy it.
I did not stand at a counter and choose its contents one by one. I did not spray something on my wrist, fall in love, hand over a credit card, and carry home a set of atomizers.
Seb and Randy gave it to me years ago.
They had been invited to visit Oriza L. Legrand in Paris, not long after the historic perfume house had been brought back to life. Oriza gave them a box of atomizers from the revived collection.
And then they gave the box to me.
There were eighteen fragrances in it.
I smelled some of them. I made judgments about some of them. I wrote things like BANDAID, GETS SOAPY, and THOSE SQUARE VIOLET CANDIES?
And then, largely, the box waited.
Which turns out to be one of the best things that could have happened to it.
Because perhaps I did not neglect the Orizas so much as meet them too early.
Past Me was much more obviously a Bond No. 9 and Jo Malone girl. Fragrances that were immediately attractive on first spray. Easy to understand.
I have come to realize that Past Me was also extremely capable of making what I now think of as the Department Store Decision, even while standing in my own house.
Spritz.
Sniff.
OH WOW I LOVE THIS.
Wander off.
No revisit.
Present Librarian has developed a somewhat different modus operandi.
I now find myself interested in fragrances that are . . . different. Strange. Historically textured. Fragrances that may not be conventionally pretty and may not explain themselves within the first thirty seconds.
Instead, they make me stop.
Sniff again.
And think:
What IS that?
The Orizas have been doing that to me over and over again during their re-test.
They have been sitting there all this time.
Waiting for Present Librarian to arrive.
Except Oriza Had Been Waiting, Too
That would already be a good enough story.
Then I learned how the modern Oriza collection came to exist.
And the story got much better.
Oriza traces its history to 1720, during the reign of Louis XV. The house says Fargeon Aîné, perfumer and distiller to the French court, founded Maison Oriza; the name itself referred to the rice used in powders and creams — Oryza sativa. Louis Legrand became owner in 1811, giving the house the name Oriza L. Legrand.
Later, under Antonin Raynaud, Oriza grew into a major perfume and cosmetics enterprise, supplied several European courts, operated a steam-powered perfume factory, created a patented solid perfume in 1887, and collected international exhibition prizes. At the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, Oriza L. Legrand received the Grand Prix.
Then the road stops.
The house disappeared from the market around the Second World War. Hugo Lambert, one of the men who later revived it, said Oriza closed during the 1940s because of the war; other historical accounts place the unraveling slightly earlier.
Either way, this once-famous perfume house became, for most people, fragrance history.
Decades later, Hugo Lambert and Franck Belaiche-Bonniot began bringing it back.
And this is the part that fascinates me.
They did not acquire Oriza’s trademarks along with a pristine company archive containing every original formula, every bottle and every instruction necessary to start production again.
They had to look for it.
Lambert has described searching around the world for old bottles, perfume extracts, documents, advertisements and packaging. They found things through dealers, collectors — even eBay.
Piece by piece, they assembled enough of the surviving material to understand what the house had made.
For the first four revived perfumes — Déjà le Printemps, Relique d’Amour, Oeillet Louis XV and Rêve d’Ossian — they had surviving extracts as well as documents and advertising. Tiny samples of the old perfume were given to a perfumer, who then tried to reconstruct them.
Some formulas had to change because materials were no longer available or permitted; others were deliberately adjusted for modern wear.
In other words, these are not little time capsules containing untouched perfume from 1900.
They are something I find much more interesting.
Modern fragrances made in conversation with surviving historical objects.
Old bottles.
Old advertisements.
A few milliliters of old perfume.
A label.
A formula.
A box somebody found somewhere.
A fragment saying:
This is what we were.
And two people saying:
Let’s see.
They rebuilt Oriza by interviewing its artifacts.
Which makes what I am doing now seem almost hilariously nested.
The original Oriza made the fragrances.
The house disappeared.
Hugo and Franck searched for the surviving traces.
They reconstructed the fragrances.
Oriza invited Seb.
Oriza gave Seb and Randy a box.
Seb and Randy gave the box to me.
Past Librarian smelled some of it, made some judgments, and put it away.
Years later, Present Librarian opened the archive again.
The Orizas had already been reshelved once, before I even entered the picture.
The Phantom Tollbooth
Somewhere in the middle of all these interviews, I realized something else.
I was beginning to recognize the voice of a perfume house.
That had happened before.
Pierre Guillaume often seems to ask:
What if . . . ?
Jovoy often seems to ask:
How does this make you feel?
Oriza seems to ask something completely different.
Where would you like to stand?
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Would you like to stand in a place carrying centuries of accumulated reverence?
Inside a tack room after the ride, among saddle leather, polished wood and cured tobacco?
On a damp forest floor beneath moss and low vegetation?
In an imagined 1920s drawing room containing orange marmalade, cacao, tobacco, amber incense and, briefly, one suspicious cat?
At a turn-of-the-century dressing table with a giant powder puff, silver-backed hairbrushes and the lingering possibility that Evelyn is about to discover the colonel has been poisoned?
On the Riviera on the first warm mornings of summer?
In the cold green air around a lily-of-the-valley plant emerging through the snow as winter ends?
Oriza does not merely put a character on the stage.
It builds the stage and invites you onto it.
And so — The Phantom Tollbooth.
One of the most dog-eared books of my childhood.
(Pardon the pun, Tock.)
Because that is the peculiar trick of both the book and Oriza.
They do not merely describe another world.
They open the gate and let you in.
And Then You Get to Decide Whether You Want to Live There
This is where the Great Reshelving comes back into the story.
Because being transported somewhere beautifully does not mean I need to own the transportation.
Recognition does not require residency.
That was perhaps the great lesson of Chypre Mousse.
Past Librarian had given it a heart.
Present Librarian smelled fennel, moss, undergrowth and forest floor and thought:
Yes. This is extraordinary.
And also:
No. I do not particularly want to smell like it.
The old heart may have been answering:
Did you show me something extraordinary?
Yes.
Present Librarian asks:
Do I want you accompanying my life?
No.
Both answers can be true.
A fragrance can expand the Atlas without winding up in the Cabinet.
Thank you for showing me the forest floor.
I’ll return to the path now.
Or, more succinctly:
Not really my cup of . . . moss.
The woodland fairies may keep the roasted chestnuts.
The Department Store Decision, at Home
Then there was Villa Lympia.
Its opening nearly had me online buying a bottle.
Sand.
Sea spray.
Greenery.
A little brightness.
Not “beach perfume.”
Summer, but refined.
I imagined walking beside the Riviera in the morning wearing a long sheer cover-up over a bathing suit, salt in the air, greenery nearby.
For fifteen minutes:
♥. Absolutely. How much is a bottle?
Then Villa Lympia changed.
The fresh salt-air world became sweeter. Briefly almost maple-syrup sweet.
Then came a distinct whiff of sunscreen.
Nice sunscreen.
There was still a little briny air underneath it.
Nothing had become unpleasant.
But the refined coastal atmosphere I had fallen for was no longer quite in the foreground. Now I was simply on the beach, catching the warm, familiar scent of sunscreen on skin.
And suddenly I understood Past Librarian better.
She had probably smelled that magnificent opening, said OH WOW LOVE THIS, and gone on with whatever else she was doing.
Rating: Heart!
Past Me delighted in the opening.
Present Me stayed for the whole conversation.
Villa Lympia did not lose me because it became unpleasant.
It lost me because it changed locations.
Even Oriza’s disappointments are spatial.
Memory in a Bottle, Though I’m Not Sure Whose Memory
Horizon, created in 1925, began with orange-peel marmalade, cacao and cured tobacco leaf.
It smelled distinctly old.
But not stale.
Not costume-y.
More like:
memory in a bottle . . . though I’m not sure whose memory.
I seemed to have walked into an old drawing room where a conversation was already underway.
Later came amber incense.
And, briefly, something I scientifically classified as:
cat-pissesque.
The more dignified explanation was ambergris.
Marco Polo had apparently wandered into the room, lit the incense, settled into a chair and then stopped.
Sniffed.
Looked around.
“Does someone here own a cat?”
Fortunately the cat left.
The amber stayed.
Past Librarian gave Horizon a heart.
Present Librarian gives it a star.
Not because the old assessment was wrong. Horizon remains wonderfully evocative.
But what lasts longest on my skin is amber.
And the Library already has Mitzah.
I do not need two fragrances merely because they arrive at the same place by different roads.
Horizon showed me somewhere fascinating.
I am glad I visited.
I do not need to maintain a residence there.
Sometimes the House Speaks in an Older Language
The carnations may be where I fell particularly hard for Oriza.
Royal Oeillet opened with unmistakable clove.
Then . . . a flower.
I first thought rose.
Only afterward did I remember to look up oeillet.
It’s French for carnation.
Of course.
Except carnation itself did not appear in the official note list I had.
Instead:
clove.
Rose.
Geranium.
Pepper.
Violet leaf.
And suddenly I understood what fascinated me about it.
It was almost as though someone had said:
Here. Smell this carnation. Now make it.
Not by simply writing carnation on the page.
By reconstructing the impression from pieces.
It reminded me less of an orchestra performing from a score than of a musician hearing a piece and then trying to transcribe it by ear — finding the line again, instrument by instrument, until the remembered song emerges.
Clove for that unmistakable spicy character.
Rose and geranium for flower.
Pepper for bite.
Violet leaf for something greener and more stem-like.
Not carnation as ingredient.
Carnation as reconstruction.
And there is something particularly wonderful about a perfume first launched in 1900 doing exactly that.
It smelled wonderfully historical.
Not simply vintage.
Edwardian.
Spiced flower. Old wood. Resin. Cool air.
It lasted only about three hours.
I did not care.
♥.
Then came Oeillet Louis XV.
Juicy orange, almost tangerine, immediately underlaid with something darker.
Pepper.
Clove.
(Carnation!)
The bright citrus and dark spice moved together instead of taking turns.
As it dried, something appeared that I can only describe as:
honey without sweetness.
Golden.
Waxy.
Deep.
Not gourmand.
A little powder.
And again came that sense that I was smelling something conceived in a different olfactory language from most perfumes being made today.
Villa Lympia had made me ask the dangerous question:
How much is a bottle?
Oeillet Louis XV made me ask it again.
Except this time the question survived the drydown.
I am still not entirely certain what job it has.
Maybe none.
Perhaps some fragrances deserve to remain simply because they are so specific and beautiful that the conversation itself is worth preserving.
There should always be room in a Library for a few books nobody can quite explain why they own.
Free-range shelf.
Avoiding the temptation to buy a full bottle.
♥.
And One of Them Invented Something New
Then there was Rêve d’Ossian.
Except it did not really invent a room.
That was the discovery.
Some fragrances introduce notes.
Some introduce characters.
Rêve d’Ossian introduced an experience.
My first thought was not incense or pine.
It was:
Time.
Not ordinary time.
Consecrated time.
Pine. Old incense. Beeswax. Warm wood. Candlelight.
A cathedral?
No.
An old Russian church surrounded by pine trees?
No.
A Buddhist temple?
No.
Well — all of them, yes.
But none of them exactly.
What I kept reaching for was a place where generations of ordinary people had prayed, hoped, grieved, celebrated and returned for so long that the place itself seemed saturated with reverence.
Not religion.
Not doctrine.
The accumulation of faithful attention.
One candle.
Then another.
One prayer.
Then another.
One bow.
One offering.
One waft of incense.
Then another.
Generation upon generation.
Until the place itself begins to remember.
The fragrance does not smell like a cathedral.
It smells like what faithful time leaves behind.
During this rediscovery of my fragrance collection, we have talked a great deal about rooms.
Some fragrances seem to place me somewhere almost immediately.
Taipei put me in a kitchen.
Others have led me into drawing rooms, parties, a lighthouse, even a valet’s private quarters.
Again and again, fragrance has turned out to be oddly architectural: not merely something I smell, but somewhere I find myself standing.
But this was not a room.
It was a Current.
Something flowing from before me, through the present moment, and onward after me.
The fragrance did not ask me to possess it.
Only to step into it.
And that gave the Fragrance Library an entirely new category:
Ceremonial Fragrance.
This wee atomizer of Rêve d’Ossian will come with me when I walk the Kiso Road this winter.
Not because it smells like Japan.
Not because it makes the Kiso Road sacred.
The road does not need my help.
The fragrance simply reminds me to notice.
Consecration is not making something sacred. It is recognizing that it already is.
And it introduced one more evolution in the Atlas:
The Collector asks:
What can I acquire?
The Librarian asks:
Where does this belong?
The Pilgrim asks:
How do I enter well?
There is much more to say about that.
Enough, I think, for another post entirely.
For now:
Others have come this way before you.
Now . . . step into the stream for a little while.
The Field Notes
The Great Reshelving ratings remain relational rather than hierarchical:
♥ — I trust you, and I want you in my Library.
★ — I respect you. You may stay, or your next best use may be somewhere else.
< — I understand you, but we don’t belong together.
And one small archival complication:
Seven of the original eighteen Oriza atomizers have, sometime during the intervening years, gone walkabout.
I cannot do a Current-Librarian interview without the atomizer.
So I have left those seven in the rankings Past Librarian gave them and set their entries in italics. They are not Current-Librarian reassessments; they are simply the notes I left behind the first time we met.
Should one eventually emerge triumphantly from the back of a drawer, I reserve the right to reopen the case.
Hearts (♥)
Rêve d’Ossian — 1900
Incense • Pine • Opoponax • Benzoin • Guaiac • Frankincense • Myrrh
Role: Ceremonial Fragrance
Pine, old incense, beeswax, warm wood and candlelight.
But ultimately:
the accumulation of faithful attention.
Not a cathedral.
Not a temple.
What remains in a place after generations of people have arrived with hope, grief, gratitude, prayer, silence and presence.
The first Ceremonial Fragrance in the Library.
Others have come this way before you. Now . . . step into the stream for a little while.
Past Assessment: ♥ Current Assessment: ♥
Royal Oeillet — 1900
Black Pepper • Rose • Cloves • Geranium • Pink Pepper • Cedar • Sandalwood • Violet Leaf
The opening was unmistakably clove.
Then . . . a flower.
Learning that oeillet means carnation made the structure suddenly legible even though carnation itself was not listed among the notes.
It was almost as though someone had said:
Here. Smell this carnation. Now make it.
Clove for spice.
Rose and geranium for flower.
Pepper for bite.
Violet leaf for green stem.
Carnation as reconstruction.
Underneath it was the same dark resinous quality Past Librarian had identified as myrrh.
Spicy flower.
Old wood.
Resin.
Cool air.
Not merely vintage.
Edwardian.
Poor longevity — about three hours.
Past Assessment: ♥ Current Assessment: ♥
Oeillet Louis XV — 1909
Pink Pepper • Mandarin • White Carnation • Carnation • Clove • Iris • Rose • Orchid • Cedar • Blonde Woods
Residence: Cabinet — free-range shelf
Juicy orange, almost tangerine.
Then almost immediately:
spicy flower.
Mandarin and pink pepper remain beautifully integrated with carnation and clove.
The drydown becomes darker and develops something like:
honey without sweetness.
Golden. Waxy. Rich. A little powder.
A fragrance that seems conceived in a different olfactory language.
Not particularly long-lasting.
Does not obviously fill a functional Library job.
Does not particularly need to.
Past Assessment: ♥ Current Assessment: ♥
Stars (★)
Muguet Fleuri — 1920
Lily-of-the-Valley • Green Leaves • Grass • Violet Leaf • Galbanum • Angelica • Lily • Oakmoss
Mood: Crisp Spring Morning / Winter Is Ending
My immediate reaction:
I have a whole lily-of-the-valley plant growing out of my wrist.
Not merely flowers.
Bells.
Leaves.
Stems.
Cold green spring air.
When I lived in Washington, D.C., lily-of-the-valley would begin pushing through the snow at Rachel’s house.
Those tiny shoots meant something.
Winter was ending.
I may never wear this routinely.
But in the depths of winter, when spring feels impossibly far away?
Spritz.
A small act of optimism.
Spring always comes.
Residence: Jo Malone Drawer — Lily-of-the-Valley
If I ever need lily-of-the-valley, this is it.
Past Assessment: ★ Current Assessment: ★
Les Tourterelles de Zelmis — 1913
Ivy • Black Pepper • May Rose • Bourbon Geranium • Red Peony • Turkish Rose • Saffron
ROSE!!
Then quickly, a drier rose.
Not a fresh bouquet.
More like old-fashioned rose potpourri.
Something behind it took a while to identify. Geranium accounted for some of the secondary floral character; saffron likely supplied the elusive dry-spicy strangeness I kept chasing.
More spice and dryness than lushness.
Pleasant.
Distinctive.
But the Library already contains roses with work to do.
This one does not need a separate chair.
Residence: Jo Malone Drawer — Roses
Past Assessment: ♥ Current Assessment: ★
Villa Lympia
Sea Water • Pine Needles • Sea Salt • Mimosa • Seaweed • Immortelle
The extraordinary opening:
summer, but refined.
Sand.
Sea spray.
Greenery.
Light.
A Riviera morning.
For fifteen minutes I wanted a bottle.
Then the perfume moved.
First sweeter — almost maple syrup.
Then that distinct whiff of sunscreen.
Still a little briny.
Still pleasant.
But no longer quite the place I had fallen in love with.
Past Me answered the opening.
Present Me stayed for the whole conversation.
Disposition: Travel Safely / Give Away
Past Assessment: ♥ Current Assessment: ★
Horizon — 1925
Rose • Orange Peel • Cacao • Cognac • Tobacco Leaf • Amber • Leather • Ambergris
Orange-peel marmalade.
Cacao.
Cured tobacco.
Memory in a bottle . . . though I’m not sure whose memory.
Then amber incense.
Then briefly:
cat-pissesque.
Apparently ambergris.
Eventually mostly amber.
A beautiful and convincing world.
But Mitzah already sits in the amber chair.
Glad I visited.
No need to buy property.
Somewhere Marco Polo is still trying to discover who owns that cat.
Disposition: Next Best Use
Past Assessment: ♥ Current Assessment: ★
Vetiver Royal Bourbon
“Bright & Smoky Vetiver.”
Spicy mint and thyme; Bourbon vetiver, tobacco, juniper, immortelle and iris; vetiver, oakmoss, sandalwood, leather, styrax and labdanum.
Mood: Smoking Jacket / Country Estate.
Violettes de Czar
Violet leaf, violet, iris, heliotrope, tolu balsam, leather, amber and guaiac wood.
Past Librarian’s extremely serious analytical annotation:
SMELLS LIKE THOSE SQUARE VIOLET CANDIES. MAYBE LAYER WITH ANOTHER FRAGRANCE?
Mood: Violet Candy Box / Belle Époque Dressing Table.
We Don’t Belong Together (<)
Chypre Mousse — 1914
Wild Mint • Fennel • Green Sprouts • Oakmoss • Galbanum • Angelica • Fern • Vetiver • Pine Needles
First:
What IS that?
Then:
Fennel.
Then green.
Not spring green.
Not grass.
Undergrowth.
Mushrooms.
Moss.
Low vegetation.
The green layer beneath the obvious green things.
It did not change much, though it got a bit soapy.
No woodland fairies arrived with cocktails.
Drats.
Past Librarian probably gave it a heart because she had never smelled anything like it.
She was right.
Present Librarian simply understands that:
Originality and attachment are not the same thing.
Not really my cup of . . . moss.
Travel safely.
And please take your mushroom soap with you.
Past Assessment: ♥ Current Assessment: <
Jardins d’Armide — 1909
Powder • Rose • Orris • Orange Blossom • Violet • Iris • Carnation • Wisteria • Musk • Tonka • Almond • Honey
Possibly the powderiest fragrance I have ever smelled.
So dry and powdery that I was genuinely surprised liquid had come out of the atomizer.
Not baby powder.
Not laundry.
Face powder.
An old dressing table.
A giant powder puff.
Silver-backed hairbrushes.
Cold cream.
Scent bottles.
A very cool grandmother around the turn of the century.
The sort of room in which someone named Evelyn might discover that the colonel had been poisoned.
Historical.
Elegant.
Almost unbelievably powdery.
Interesting to smell.
I may also need to wash it off.
Past Assessment: ★ Current Assessment: <
Gentry Jockey Club — 1937 / revived 2017
Tobacco • Rose • Patchouli • Leather • Vetiver • Ambergris • Sandalwood
Not leather as fashion.
Leather as equipment.
Not wood as furniture.
Wood as tack room.
Not tobacco smoke.
Cured tobacco in the barn.
This is not someone who wore riding boots to brunch.
This person has just come in from the ride.
Oriza did not ask:
Do you like leather?
It asked:
Would you like to stand here for a while?
I did.
Thank you for the tour.
Someone else will want to stay.
No Past Assessment. Current Assessment: <
Relique d’Amour — 1900
Green Leaves • Terebinth • White Lily • Frankincense • Elemi • Myrrh • Linen • Oakmoss • Woods • Musk • Surf Wax
The first spray:
rubbing alcohol.
Fortunately that vanished quickly.
Then realistic lily, green underneath it, with restrained resin/incense.
Definitely incense.
Definitely not Marco Polo incense.
As it dried:
powder.
Wax.
And, inexplicably:
baby aspirin.
Chalky.
Slightly sweet.
Still lily.
Nothing exactly unpleasant.
Nothing compelling either.
Past Me met lily and frankincense.
Present Me stayed long enough to meet the baby aspirin.
Past Assessment: ♥ Current Assessment: <
Déjà le Printemps
Past Librarian’s verdict:“Wild & Green Grass,” but immediately turns into BANDAID.
Héliotrope Blanc
Past impression:
Heliotrope. Almond powder. Almond. Honey.
Foin Fraîchement Coupé
Past impression:
Clean & Musky. Star anise. Vintage cologne.
And then:
GETS SOAPY.
Marions-Nous
Past impression:
Blonde Tobacco & Powdery Jasmine.
Past verdict:
TOO FLOWERY.
Cuir de L’Aigle Russe
Past description:
Floral & Aromatic Leather.
The Question Changed Again
Eighteen fragrances.
Eleven Current-Librarian interviews.
Seven little fugitives.
And perhaps the most interesting result is not any of those numbers.
It is that I went into the Oriza box expecting to reconsider a collection.
Instead, somewhere along the way, I realized I was interviewing the house.
And I loved its voice.
Not every fragrance.
Certainly not every place it took me.
But the thing Oriza keeps doing:
Roll through the Tollbooth.
Here is a forest floor.
Here is a Riviera morning.
Here is an old dressing table.
Here is the tack room.
Here is a spicy flower from another olfactory language.
Here is a drawing room where someone has left marmalade and tobacco behind.
Here is a place where faithful attention has accumulated for centuries.
Where would you like to stand?
That is a very different pleasure from the one Past Librarian knew when she was collecting Bonds and Jo Malones.
She wanted to smell something and immediately know she loved it.
Present Librarian increasingly enjoys having to ask:
What IS that?
Perhaps that is why the box had to wait.
The fragrances did not become more interesting while they sat there.
I became more interested.
Seb and Randy could not have known, when they passed along the strange long box Oriza had given them, that some of its contents would need years before I could really hear what they were saying.
Neither could I.
But that is one of the quiet pleasures of keeping a Library instead of merely maintaining a collection.
Sometimes the book you were not ready to read remains on the shelf.
And one day, without the book having changed at all, you finally become its reader.
The Orizas had been waiting.
Present Librarian finally arrived.
