Rossy de Palma, Eau de Protection for Etat Libre D’orange - osMoz

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Rossy de Palma, Eau de Protection for Etat Libre D’orange

From name to bottle
Rossy de Palma and Etat libre d’Orange… What a great idea! It just feels right, almost organic, like a match made in heaven as far as mind-sets and attitudes go, kind of like Jane Birkin and Miller Harris creating “L’Air de Rien” together. Another celebrity perfume, cynics could say. Yes, but… the kind of celebrity we love! Involved, outspoken, funky, baroque, singular, not the type to let someone use her name just for the money… Etat Libre d’Orange even made an exception to its rule for her: package and bottle are tattooed with a rose and a dragon, there’s a red-metal cap… small but carefully thought out details that fit perfectly into the house’s aesthetic, and don’t look out of place.
Then there’s that intriguing name that invites us to consider the uses and powers of fragrance… Eau de Protection, it makes you wonder… does the appellation “eau de toilette” still mean anything? Does anyone still “faire sa toilette” (French for having a wash or getting washed, whence the terms “toiletries” and “toilet kit”), and if so, do they still use “eau de toilette” to do it? Is perfume nothing more than the vestige of bygone hygienic rites? More than 20 years ago (has it really been that long?) Clarins was the first to ask that question, with their “Eau Dynamisante” (“Energizing Eau”). Beyond simply smelling good, fragrance was claiming new powers: energy, well-being… smelling good could be good for you, too… Since it was a winning concept, a lot of other brands jumped on the bandwagon (with aroma-therapeutic or aromachological arguments in their favor), but most of them didn’t do very well. Not really validated scientifically, not exactly sexy in terms of image, twenty years on, the question of the “functions” of fragrance still hasn’t been entirely answered, and this “Eau de Protection” reopens the debate. Wearing scent as a form of protection? After all, why not? It’s pretty. It’s about equal parts in-the-know and whimsy, it’s poetic with a dash of irony, it doesn’t take itself too seriously… but it’s nobody’s fool either!

From bottle to scent
Psssssst!
Rose grabs you from the first whiff. Rose, when your name’s Rossy de Palma, goes almost without saying… But be careful, even the loveliest roses have thorns. This blood-red rose also has leaves and stems… and thorns that prick, too! A rose that starts out fresh, sparkling and vigorous, with a pinch of spice at the opening and a plant-like texture enhanced with rosa geranium. You grabbed it, it pricked you! The drop of blood forming on your fingertip soon melds its metallic taste to an ardent, hardy and almost savage heart that draws on naturalness the better to hide its discreet sophistication. Because rose is to perfumers like Bach is to pianists: a (practically) required passage, a score that looks easy as pie, but one whose interpretation you can never totally master… You go after it as a beginner and you can spend the rest of your life pursuing its substance, like a Glenn Gould of fragrance.
Because not just anyone can recreate the impression of the living flower. All by itself, the essence has slightly cooked or candied nuances (depending on the extraction method) that rarely bring out the subtle atmosphere of the queen of the garden. Working it – giving it color, style and a signature – is a job that requires both skill and virtuosity. This one has something of the witch about it: authentic enough to awaken memories, a touch rock & roll with its cacao-patchouli accents that make the trail swing, and willful enough to avoid both going unnoticed and sliding into cliché. It’s not exceptionally long-lasting, but that suits it: it’s on the move, and it changes with the rhythm of your skin. The very idea that it could slip away appeals to me. You can forget it’s there, and then suddenly you notice it again with pleasure. I’d compare it to a lesson in sensuality, if the word (like rose itself) weren’t so hackneyed…

	In a nutshell Name: Rossy de Palma, Eau de Protection Brand: Etat Libre d’Orange Size(s), price(s): Eau de Parfum spray 1.7 oz. ( ???). Concentration: Eau de Parfum Gender: Fairly feminine, but men could wear it too, why not? “Official” olfactory family: Rose floral Perceived olfactory family: Fleshy rose with thorns… and maybe more… For whom: Funky diva, simply fabulous sex bomb, nymphomaniac poet… this is the rose for you!		Evolution: The tempo is quick! It quivers, barely holds anything back, explodes in voluptuous waves and falls asleep with a sigh of mauve. Remind you of anything? Long-lastingness: It lasts as long as roses last, and dozes off on your skin, tipsy with patchouli, in a powdery cloud of cocoa… Its light presence is almost an incitement to repeat the offense, but who says you can’t?
	Innovation potential:		Sex-appeal factor:
			if you love rose …

Fabienne ANTONIEWSKI
Fragrance journalist

From marketing to journalism, the world of cosmetics and fragrance has been the common thread in her career for over twenty years.
A frequent contributor to Elle magazine’s ‘Beauté’ column since 1995, she reconnected through her writing with one of her first loves: perfume.
Helping readers smell and dream, inventing new scenarios, putting feelings into words; she aims to evoke the most intimate and emotional facets of a fragrance, the better to resist reducing it to a banal consumer product.
She still considers that defending the artistic side of perfumery and encouraging creativity and the search for meaning and quality is one of the main points of her profession.