If you could smell one perfume in its original formula, what would you pick? For me, it would be a tie between Coty Jasmin de Corse and Guerlain Après L’Ondée extrait de parfum. Well, it might be possible. On Saturday September 15, 2018, 10am-5pm, the Osmothèque will open its doors to all vintage perfume lovers. Located in Versailles, the International Conservatory of Perfume has the largest collection of rare and long vanished fragrances recreated according to the original formulas. To date, the Osmothèque holds around 4000 perfumes, of which 800 are no longer available commercially. My beloved Jasmin de Corse is part of its archives.

The Osmothèque event is part of European Heritage Days, and visitors will have a chance to meet the perfumers, smell rare fragrances, raw materials and learn about the art of perfume creation. Each visit takes around 1.5 hours. A donation of 1 € is appreciated.

Continue reading →

Our recent talk about Mughal empresses, attars and roses reminded me of a perfume I’ve been meaning to review, but it somehow slipped my mind. I mentioned The Different Company’s Kâshân Rose for my FT article about the rose capital of Iran, The Roses of Kashan, but the perfume deserves more attention.

To be fair, it’s not the be-all and end-all of rose perfumes. Kâshân Rose is a bright, transparent composition that seems uncomplicated and linear. Leave the complex stories and intricate turns to the grand roses like Frédéric Malle Portrait of a Lady, Guerlain Nahema or Serge Lutens La Fille de Berlin. Kâshân Rose is about sunlight and pink petals.

Continue reading →

One doesn’t often see empresses portrayed loading a gun, but among the many representations of Nur Jahan, the 17th century Mughal sovereign, the most famous shows her doing just that. She’s standing against a leafy landscape, dressed in a man’s turban, orange trousers and a transparent silk coat. The musket is long and unwieldy, but she handles it with ease. Her posture is confident, bold and self-assured. When the painting was presented to Nur Jahan’s husband, the emperor Jahangir, he proclaimed it perfect and named the court painter Abul-Hasan, Nadir uz-Zaman, the Wonder of the Age. But as the historian Ruby Lal notes in her book, Empress : The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan, the true wonder was the subject of the painting herself.

Nur Jahan (1577-1645) was born Mihr un-Nissa, a daughter of Persian nobles who left the repressive conditions of Safavid Iran for the greater freedom–and wealth–of Mughal India. She became Nur Jahan, the Light of the World, when she married Jahangir in 1611. She was an unconventional imperial spouse, because she was not only past the nubile age–she was 34 at the time of their betrothal, but also a widow and a mother. Records don’t tell us exactly how the meeting between Mihr and Jahangir happened. What we know for sure is how much the emperor esteemed his wife, describing her bravery, archery and shooting skills, her wisdom, and her generosity at length in his journal, Jahangirnama.

Continue reading →

Deauville doesn’t evoke a particular scent for me. The name of this resort town on the coast of Normandy mostly reminds me of A Man and A Woman, the 1966 French film starring the incomparable Anouk Aimée. I have visited Deauville several times but only for work, unlike most normal people who travel to Normandy on vacation. As a result, when I sprayed Chanel’s Paris-Deauville on my wrist, its fragrance made me bypass France entirely. Instead, it took me to Sicily.

I smelled the bitterness of orange peel and green leaves unfolding on my skin and I could almost feel the breeze from the Ionian sea and the bright flavor of orange granita. The hot stones and sun bleached grasses slowly enter the picture. And then before the fragrance even reveals its jasmine inflected heart, I already recall the opulence of blossoms in Aci Trezza, the rocky strip of the Riviera where Ulysses might have fought the Cyclops. My memory erases the misdeeds of the 1960s real estate developers, which make the Cyclops seem rather innocuous, and instead as I wear Paris-Deauville, I escape to visions of endless blue sea, cliffs, orange orchards and jasmine vines.

Continue reading →

La canicule, the heatwave, has reached Brussels, with temperatures in the city these days exceeding those of Delhi. Unlike in India, life in Belgium is not designed for a hot climate. Air conditioners are a rare item in most households. The buildings trap heat. The large windows turn apartments into greenhouses. Last night I was dreaming that I was sleeping on the edge of an exploding volcano. It might as well have been our bedroom.

Trying to retain sanity in this heat, I turned to classical Delhi remedies. Since escaping to the cool mountain resorts in Darjeeling wasn’t in the cards, I made a refreshing fennel seed sherbet, saunf ka sharbat.

Continue reading →