Rochas Femme
Eau de Toilette, Rochas (1989)

Another fatality of the IFRA/aromachemical/big corp mafia. Replacing the animalics and oakmoss with cumin destroyed the balance and richness. This reformulation feels austere and masculinized. We need to stop buying the propaganda. The reason our perfume has no smell, our food has no taste, and our clothes no longer last a season is profits, not some high minded attempt to make the world safer for us.

I have the 2019 formulation, and I must say, it is outstanding to my nose. Of course, it would be nice to explore the older iterations, but for now, this is splendid and then some: brimming with prunol base, apricot confiture, and a hunk of glorious skank. We are talking dirty spices for which I have a weakness: cumin, caraway, cloves, cinnamon, spice cabinet porn with a voluptuous bouquet of flowers in a vase nearby, occasionally wafting through the thick, sensuous air.

A rosewood runs through like a current through the development, with leather leaning in to kiss and seduce through the dry down. Reckless abandon unfolds on a tuffet of moss by a benzoin pond at sunset, so hazy, smoky, blurry, and intoxicated. Femme knows how to have a good time.

This will bring out the masculine or the feminine in anyone who wears it. The duality of demureness and debauchery can appeal to anyone who finds that sort of stuff exciting. I know I do (just look at some of my other favorites: L'Air de Rien, Mouchoir de Monsieur, Eau d'Hermes, Mazzolari Lui). Men who fear the name, I have a suggestion: just tell them you're wearing "Masc." Put a sticker on your bottle that says "Masc" if need be. Does that feel better?

In one word: Wonderful! powdery Irish, sweet, leathery leopard fur coat, elegant, lascivious, lecherous, seductive, feminine, Catherine Deneuve in Bunuel's La belle du jour.A good example of how an old fashion chypre can be still modern and worn by both women and men in 2020, a time capsule to the '40s. What people identify as cummin I believe is Orris root, at least in my bottle unless is so well blended I can't detect it or your batch is different from mine.

Sophia Loren

I used to own a bottle of the vintage parfum. While it hadn't gone bad, it was aged, and its topnotes were long gone. It was all oakmoss, dense leather and dry-as-a-bone stone fruit out the gate, and my closest reference was certainly Mitsouko, but Femme was more austere, and had virtually no sweetness.

I was prepared that the reformulated version could be so different or inferior that I'd be disappointed, but I like the EDP a lot. While I can tell that it's the same fragrance, it arrives at nearly the same chypre effect through different means - more mellow spice and labdanum instead of oakmoss (I have real oakmoss oil or extract - I forget its form - and it can smell dusty sweet and quite a lot like aged cinnamon bark. So I think my nose is filling in the blanks because oakmoss and cinnamon may share some chemistry.)

While still not a sweet fragrance, the newer EDP is sweeter than the vintage, and a degree or two closer to being an oriental. For something drier but in the same ballpark I'd look to Goutal's Mon Parfum Cheri, par Camille, which I'm pretty sure is based on Femme.

Femme Fatale, indeed! Femme is timeless, and quite seductive. I can detect sweetness flittering around the deep, dark notes like oakmoss, clove and leather. Very earthy, natural. The peach and plum aren't the juicy variety; they're powdery, spicy and rolled in cinnamon. That warm cinnamon is my favorite part of Femme. For some reason, this strikes me as animalic - probably the cloves.

It's spicy, sweet, and encapsulates the '90s perfectly. It vaguely reminds me of Poison, for a frame of reference. Mysterious, angsty, dark, sexy, provocative... It's classic as well as classy, it's got that rich, warm, vintage feel, with the deep & rich complexity you'd expect from a chypre formula originating from the '40s. Despite my praise - it's probably not for everyone, though!