Parfums Caron Perfume House and Its History
Established by Ernest Daltroff in 1904, Parfums Caron was originally located on Rue de la Paix in Paris. Daltroff purchased the perfumery from Anne-Marie Caron and kept the original name. At the same time, he met Félicie Wanpouille, who became his partner and an important contributor to the rise of the house. While Daltroff created fragrances, Wanpouille designed bottles and served as an artistic director.
From the beginning, Parfums Caron was the house dedicated solely to fragrance, unlike houses like Chanel or Christian Dior that were first and foremost fashion houses. While the perfume houses produced more fragrances than fashion houses, by the 1920s women started to look at perfume the same way they regarded new fashion styles as Marylène Delbourg-Delphis noted in her book Les Sillages des Elégantes (1983). However, as the couture fragrances became more and more popular, they provided a stable point in the ever changing world fashion, therefore the pace of perfume production began to decline.
Daltroff was a true experimentalist when it came to fragrance creation in his departure from the traditional reproduction of floral scents. He used synthetics and rare absolutes daringly, and would not shy away from combining rose and jasmine essences with phenyl acetic acid and terpineol. Although Caron fragrances are rather diverse, despite being created by the same perfumer, many of them share a wonderfully dark undercurrent, which is based on a blend of geranium, licorice, leather, iodine, and vanillin. This accord gained the name of “Mousse de Saxe,” revealing its mossy, dark and cool edge. When creating Nuit de Noël, Daltroff daringly incorporated this dark accord both in the heart and the base of the fragrance, which made the finished composition very unusual. ….
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