I too love carnation perfumes, including vintage Bellodgia and the discontinued Prada Oeillet. I also have a flower garden where I grow many kinds of dianthus (the small kind) and they all smell gorgeous, much like the Prada Oeillet. So while I enjoyed this article, I have to challenge the idea that the carnation has no scent and that “carnation” in perfumes is only clove and is not an accord evoking the flower. The clove is certainly an important element and its restriction will have a deleterious effect on carnation perfumes, but it is only one of several elements that make up the carnation scent in perfumes.
You're right! But what I was trying to say: the carnation that got bred mute is the florist one — long stems for the vase, scent thrown out with everything else. Garden pinks are the opposite: bred for the smell, and they kept it. So yours smell gorgeous, no argument.
And fair, "only clove" is lazy — there's isoeugenol, salicylates, a rose under it. But eugenol's the keystone, not one brick among many. Pull it and you don't get a quieter carnation, you get a rose with a cold. Which is exactly why the restriction hurts the way you said.
I left a comment on IG before reading this, but now I feel compelled to leave a comment here as well. Philtre is the only carnation perfume that doesn’t only smell of eugenol to me but of the actual flower. And the actual flower undeniably has a scent to my nose. I don’t know if the carnations that we have here are different, but I doubt it.
I couldn’t understand how this perfume actually smelled of carnation. And then I got my answer. Hiram Green did an interview with Persolaise. He talked about using carnation absolute from IFF in this perfume. It wasn’t only me who thought such a thing didn’t exist. Persolaise thought it as well.
IFF only sell about two kilos a year of this stuff according to Hiram and he bought a kilo. It’s rare but it exists and that why I suspect Philtre is not just a bug spray like Гвоздика. I had infusion d’oeillet by Prada. I got rid of it. Philtre is also the love potion made from the actual flower. That’s why it’s different.
You can watch the interview on YouTube. It’s about 40 minutes in.
Oh, the absolute's real — I'm not arguing that, and Philtre's lovely, you'll get no fight from me there :) But it doesn't quite let the flower off the hook. Pull a carnation absolute apart and most of it's honey and powder and a green edge. But the part that actually makes you say "carnation" is still the clove molecule, the same one in the tin. Hiram just paid for the whole flower around it instead of the molecule on its own. That's the difference between a love potion and bug spray :)
I would give my eye teeth for a bottle of your bug repellent. Real garden pinks are deeply set in my soul. Clove oil much less. I see them on a spectrum from ethereal flower through pink hospital mouthwash tablets, ending in the evil burning numbness of clove oil on a gum.
Eugenol, oakmoss & lily of the valley. All the notes that made me adore perfumery are now gone. I thank my lucky stars that I still have my elderly bottles of Opium, Mitsouko, Diorella & Diorissimo
These three you mourn — eugenol, oakmoss, muguet — all went for the same reason: they're sensitizers. They got restricted for getting under the skin, which is probably why we loved them. We didn't lose the pretty inert notes, but the ones that did something to a body...
I too love carnation perfumes, including vintage Bellodgia and the discontinued Prada Oeillet. I also have a flower garden where I grow many kinds of dianthus (the small kind) and they all smell gorgeous, much like the Prada Oeillet. So while I enjoyed this article, I have to challenge the idea that the carnation has no scent and that “carnation” in perfumes is only clove and is not an accord evoking the flower. The clove is certainly an important element and its restriction will have a deleterious effect on carnation perfumes, but it is only one of several elements that make up the carnation scent in perfumes.
You're right! But what I was trying to say: the carnation that got bred mute is the florist one — long stems for the vase, scent thrown out with everything else. Garden pinks are the opposite: bred for the smell, and they kept it. So yours smell gorgeous, no argument.
And fair, "only clove" is lazy — there's isoeugenol, salicylates, a rose under it. But eugenol's the keystone, not one brick among many. Pull it and you don't get a quieter carnation, you get a rose with a cold. Which is exactly why the restriction hurts the way you said.
I left a comment on IG before reading this, but now I feel compelled to leave a comment here as well. Philtre is the only carnation perfume that doesn’t only smell of eugenol to me but of the actual flower. And the actual flower undeniably has a scent to my nose. I don’t know if the carnations that we have here are different, but I doubt it.
I couldn’t understand how this perfume actually smelled of carnation. And then I got my answer. Hiram Green did an interview with Persolaise. He talked about using carnation absolute from IFF in this perfume. It wasn’t only me who thought such a thing didn’t exist. Persolaise thought it as well.
IFF only sell about two kilos a year of this stuff according to Hiram and he bought a kilo. It’s rare but it exists and that why I suspect Philtre is not just a bug spray like Гвоздика. I had infusion d’oeillet by Prada. I got rid of it. Philtre is also the love potion made from the actual flower. That’s why it’s different.
You can watch the interview on YouTube. It’s about 40 minutes in.
Oh, the absolute's real — I'm not arguing that, and Philtre's lovely, you'll get no fight from me there :) But it doesn't quite let the flower off the hook. Pull a carnation absolute apart and most of it's honey and powder and a green edge. But the part that actually makes you say "carnation" is still the clove molecule, the same one in the tin. Hiram just paid for the whole flower around it instead of the molecule on its own. That's the difference between a love potion and bug spray :)
I would give my eye teeth for a bottle of your bug repellent. Real garden pinks are deeply set in my soul. Clove oil much less. I see them on a spectrum from ethereal flower through pink hospital mouthwash tablets, ending in the evil burning numbness of clove oil on a gum.
Eugenol, oakmoss & lily of the valley. All the notes that made me adore perfumery are now gone. I thank my lucky stars that I still have my elderly bottles of Opium, Mitsouko, Diorella & Diorissimo
These three you mourn — eugenol, oakmoss, muguet — all went for the same reason: they're sensitizers. They got restricted for getting under the skin, which is probably why we loved them. We didn't lose the pretty inert notes, but the ones that did something to a body...