En Avion (1929)
by Caron

(I don't know how old my sample is - It is dark and thick.)
I would like anyone, immediately, who wore this scent. Yes, I smell the cloves, but I also smell magic.

This is literally Heaven Scent - I have tried and never bettered this .
The die down is so long and powdery, the scent is difficult to place . Is it a floral oriental or a chypre with hints of leather Who cares !
Not a girly girly fragrance - you have to be all woman to wear this . You have to be brave and unafraid . It frightens other women ; it excites men. If you like modern fragrances made up of chemicals then don't buy this as you won't have the confidence to carry it off .

In the first try i found the neroli and cloves is too heavy that i thought it would be suitable to dress up a dead body. Cloying old floral oils and cloves as simple as the dried ones served in an Jordan restaurant to chew after garlic appetizers to kill your mount smell. After the first hour you can put up with the cloves and then later you can enjoy the remaining powdery florals. But i cannot advice it to anyone as it is hard to endure the first half hour of it.

In the first decades of aviation, when we were all blinded by the glare of heroism and miraculous ascent of human spirit above the clouds, defying gravity and other enemies – aviation has inspired art – including books (Antoine de Saint Exupéry, an aviator, spy and an author, has written several books inspired by the topic). And lastly there are two grand perfumes inspired by aviation – En Avion (Ernest Daltroff, 1932), dedicated to the pioneer female aviators mentioned above – Bolland, Boucher and Bastié; and the infamous Vol de Nuit (Jacques Guerlain, 1933), inspired by the book of the same name by the abovementioned aviator-author, which I have already reviewed on this humble blog.

En Avion opens dark, like all Caron extraits, and with a certain bittersweetness that does remind me somewhat of Vol de Nuit (though I have to admit, the only reason I compare the two is because of their common theme). While Vol de Nuit is green and sharp, herbaceous at first – En Avion is far more spicy and floral. It starts off soapy and spicy at the same time. Carnation is apparent immediately, but so is orange flower, which smells like an echo of l’Heure Bleue with pilot-hat and goggles… Although Vol de Nuit has the signature powderiness from the classic Guerlinade and iris notes engrained within its structure; En Avion takes powderiness nearly into central stage, and in a far softer and lady-like olfactory context: rose, lilac and violet, and underlined with powdery opoponaxs which almost instantly bring to mind the scent of vintage face powder. As for the base of En Avion, it is redolent of Atlas cedarwood with its suave, polished olfactory-texture, a bittersweetness of tonka bean (again, a reminder of of Vol de Nuit; but let’s not forget that En Avion preceded Vol de Nuit’s launch by a year…). There is, however, a subtle presence of burnished leather at the base, however it is not as animalic or leathery as other Caron creations (i.e.: Narcisse Noir, Tabac Blond), it is almost as soft as suede… If Vol de Nuit is a wild, ambitious woman with restrained emotions and top-notch professionalism; En Avion is not any less ambitious woman that secretly displays her femininity even when boarding an airplane for what might be her last flight ever… Underneath the pilot jumper, she is still wearing silk stockings and laced lingerie.

Perhaps En Avion is a bit like Mml. Boucher, who interestingly enough, started her career as a dressmaker, which led to her designing leather gear and accessories for pilots; she than became so fascinated with flying she felt compelled to pursue this dangerous field. I wonder if she was the kind of lady who would take her maquillage with her to the aircraft to get all perked up before performing her aerobatics…

According to Perfume Addicts database,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/perfumeaddicts/database
the notes of En Avion include:

Top notes: Rose, Neroli, Spicy Orange
Heart notes: Jasmine, Carnation, Lilac, Violet
Base notes: Opoponax, Amber, Musk, Wood

To that I would add that in the top notes I can smell orange blossom rather than neroli (there is a different between the two!), I can't say I'm particularly smelling orange (there is a citrusy freshness, but it is well hidden with all the additional dense notes); and there is definitely a dry allspice note weaved in, as well as cloves and perhaps even a hint of nutmeg. While I can't say I smell much of the lilac (I would have to go back to it once I'm fully recovered from my cold though...), violet and rose have a strong presence, and so is the carnation. The base is neither particularly musky nor ambery; but there is certainly the animalic powderiness of opoponax weaved into a dry tobacco-leather base that might include castoerum, and the woods in question are the beautiful Moroccan cedarwood from the Atlas mountains.

Another perfume of the legendary Caron house ruined by reformulation incompetance, if you used to wear En Avion before 2001 you know this has been recently tweaked. Unfortunately vintage En Avion is hard to find but please stay away from new EA, the new one is just a shadow of what it used to be. The new version lacks refinement, grace and elegance, typical of reformulated creations by current Caron in-house perfumer Richard Fraysse.

My first impression after putting this on was a very literal interpretation of the aviatrices; orange peels and carnations floating in aviation fuel. An acrid and heavy scent that is both fascinating and repellant, both ancient and new.

After a couple of hours, the sharpness was gone, replaced by powdery roses on leather; soft and intoxicating.

A few hours more and the powder and leather begin a long dissolve into moss. It has now been 13 hours and the moss is fading away, too.

A complex and multifaceted scent. I admire it greatly; not sure it will have a regular spot in the rotation.