Germaine
Germaine Monteil (1971)

A very 70s, green, sharp, almost acidic, rose that softens over time into a very 60s, Calandre-esque, aldehydic powder-cloud. I love rosy fragrances, and this is a real beauty if you like this type of vintage style.

I don't think anything I say could improve on msveronica9's review- her take on the notes is amazing, and her comparisons to similar frags is dead-on. I would like to add that I also get some type of watery flower, like Cyclamen or Lotus, in the heart, and some type of true animal, likely Musk, in the base. A very elegant and beautiful scent from a period when fragrances like this were all the rage.

This is a very simple scent - a lovely rose over a chypre background. The chypre is quite similar to Monteil's own very popular Royal Secret and may indeed be just that.

Although both the rose and the warm chypre open the act together, the latter soon steps to the background to let the rose shine through.

Very nice but nothing special.

On eBay a while back I saw a pure parfum of Germaine going for a song - and I'm now kicking myself I didn't snap it up. But then (as now), I could find no online reviews of this fragrance to guide me. Recently I acquired a mini cologne just like the foreground bottle in the photo above. Ignoring a slightly acetone-tainted opening (to be expected from a vintage cologne), I find Germaine to be a fresh, green, floral chypre of delicate beauty (nb. Perfume Intelligence describes it as a 'green floral').

I've no idea what Germaine's official notes are, but I smell a galbanum and lemony/lime citrus top, followed by non-indolic white flowers and/or crisp rose over a mossy base. I don't detect any herbal notes, so to me it's more feminine than unisex.

Personally, I adore this style of fragrance, so it gets thumbs up from me. On the other hand, it's not particularly distinctive, and somewhat similar to other 'fumes of this type, such as Quartz by Molyneux, Deneuve and Rabanne's Calandre. Still, it's quite gorgeous to my nose (and I reckon would be even more gorgeous in parfum form).