Reviews of French Cancan (1936)
by Caron

Diptyque does a jasmine candle that smells like jasmine for a few minutes and then the magic falls apart and it smells of cloyingly sweet synthetic white floral + violet. This is exactly what French Cancan smells like. All of the highly evocative descriptions of beds of dark purple violets and va va voom vampy naughtiness that can be found on some other sites seem to be based on the listed notes + the name + highly active imaginations.

That old lady with diminished eyebrows and growing dementia on the show again. You can have hint of many flowers jasmine, lily, violet... all in cloying heavy old oil forms. I cannot understand it. Some fragrances do not smell old though they are older (bellodgia from caron or rose bulgare from creed etc.) Sometimes that oldness comes from over usage of similar or replicating scents in cheap colognes of these old years. They remind me of my grandgrandaunts home colognes. They are old and worn out (like le heure bleu, vol de nuit etc). French cancan is a floral and is not worn out. But i think the scent material used in it is old kind of oils. I have jasmine oil from skinbiology. And we had a arabic jasmine on the terrace last summer. I liked to use this jasmine oil on me to power up the nice jasmine smell of a hot summer night. My husband is faked up many times though he knows i like to wear that jasmine scent for supper. But that old lady smells like not flowers but heavy old flower oils which i can name "old" immediately where ever i smell them.

I have this in pure extrait. The other reviewers must have a better nose than I because I cannot make out any distinct notes, violete, carnation, or otherwise. It is not overly sweet, and a little spicey with that special Caron familiarity. All in all I like it very much.

I'd say French Cancan is mostly a violet scent, and distinctly vintage. That doesn't mean it's overly heavy, but it opens with a chypre accord and then turns more floral and sweet. Apart from violet I get lilac, rose, orange blossom, lily of the valley, jasmine, pretty much everything that's listed, and they are great floral notes too. I'm not even a huge fan of florals and I really enjoy it. So does my girlfriend. It's not too sweet, like many modenr florals. It reminds me perhaps a little of Armani Priv'e Cuir Amethyste, only more "vintage" with the chypre accord.

Again, analysis of notes I leave to others, but I can tell you how this makes me FEEL.
Wonderful! Fast moving, ultra feminine, experienced in life, travelled widely.
Lasts on me well (and I'm a difficult skin in that regard), and I feel very special when using this scent.
The bottle alone (as all Caron's do) makes me feel that the perfume is very precious.

A sweet mix of flowers, lilac, carnation notes with just a hint of warmth. This is a happy perfume, certainly worthy of it's name Cancan. It is long lasting, even through a shower. Use it sparingly and experience the bright and lively bouquet nearly all day.