Nuit de Noël (1922)
by Caron

So I have chosen Nuit de Noel for my first basenotes review. Although this is a rich and arresting scent, I have never thought it smelled, or indeed was meant to smell, of Christmas. Rather, it was created for the festive season, as something appropriate to be worn at that time of year when you've got a month's worth of parties to go to, and days become nights. I can imagine a big dinner party at Chez Julien... although it's dark and freezing cold outside, it's warm and vibrant, slightly raucous even, inside. And when you step back outside to leave, your Nuit de Noel is like a haunting aura of warm conviviality, insulating you from the wintry night.

For any fans of this fragrance, I highly recommend a listen to Marc Almond's 'Nuit de Noel' from his 'Heart on Snow' album. As stunning as its inspiration!

Ernest Daltroff had extreme talent, as is proven in Nuit de Noel. This fragrance is everything the previous reviewers have written - and then some! The many notes (and there are many) in this complex creation are utterly seamless, as they transition one to another. It really doesn't matter if you choose to wear it, you should experience for yourself Daltroff's artistry and keen craftsmanship as Nuit de Noel is superb! I have tried the current formulation and the vintage stuff. The vintage stuff is what catapulted this fragrance into stardom as a Caron masterpiece...the newer juice - meh, only a speck of the original.

This isn't a simple, light hearted scent. Nuit de Noel is a glorious gränd däm of perfumes. The beginning is a bit sharp and medicinal like Iodine and Benzoin but once that passes it become a rich blend of jasmine and rose which becomes the glorious drydown that makes it worth the wait. The base is all about chypre to me even though it is often considered an oriental. The drydown is dark forest woods and moss with a bit of exotic spice and tempered with powdery musk. This is a perfume to be applied with care and respect for her history.

Does this really smell like Christmas or is it all in the name? I get all these beautiful Christmas visions in my head when I wear this. I get the citrus in the beginning (oranges in stockings), soft, warm flowers (lighted candles), subtle woods (the tree, of course!), and cinnamon. I think this is one of the prettiest scents I've ever worn.

A very lovely, very intriguing woody floral-oriental from 1922 by Ernest Daltroff, founding "nose" of the house of Caron. This is a chypre in structure, with a citrus top and oakmoss in the base, but in an oriental base note with sandalwood and vanilla. The heart notes are rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, orris root, and precious woods; the "woods" here may include some things we might usually call spices, notably cinnamon. The balance of the floral notes in the heart is exquisite, with just enough orris root to soften and blur the slight sharpness of the ylang-ylang, yet without making the scent in the least powdery. This is a real classic, and in spite of the floral nature of the heart, not something particularly feminine; the general tone of Nuit de Noël is not very different from, say, PdN New York. This is a real classic, timeless in the original formulation; even the EdP is full and generous, round and redolent. Even if you never wear it, you must smell this to get a reference base for the woody floral-oriental as high art.

This is absolutely gorgeous! I don't really get the reason some say that this scent evokes Christmas, unless it's about roasted chestnuts, plum pudding or some other such olfactory association that doesn't resonate with me because I've never had the opportunity to smell it. It was a coincidence that I bid for and won, not one, but two vintage bottles of this on Ebay this past week (guess it was meant to be). This is definitely a scent that has both masculine and feminine qualities and I think it's the overall woodsiness that makes it wearable for both men and women. I am not a big fan of rose scents and while there is rose, the notes are so well blended that nothing really stands out. The word that comes to mind as I sniff at this is BEGUILING. It makes me close my eyes and swoon because it's so mysterious and undefinable. I'll leave the description of notes to others here on Basenotes that can describe it to you much better than I can. I'll just say that smelling something like this makes me sad that our culture has become so wimpy in the 21st century when it comes to scents. They don't make them like this anymore because most people can't handle it, and that's a shame. Where are all the tough "broads" in this day and age? As much as I admire Luca Turin and his judgement on most scents I can't disagree with him more on this one. There's nothing "boring about it".