Nocturnes (1981)
by Caron

Oh, Nocturnes! One of the nicer BIG eighties scents. Floral with spice is always a good thing in my book. I haven't given this a smell in years, but I hope it's doing well.

15th May, 2011.

Having never quite ‘got’ the Caron line (I know - for shame!), I found Nocturnes at a tantalisingly low price and took a punt that I had evolved enough as a sniffer to appreciate this juice. A good punt indeed.

Nocturnes scared me a bit with its initial trumpet of aldehydes (a ‘Hello Granny’ moment), but swiftly seduced with a beautiful rendition of white florals, offset with a sparkling citrus note. At this stage I was thinking ‘What’s the deal with that name? This is definitely for day...’ - but then the base came through. Oh my - Nocturnes becomes a midnight vixen, albeit a subtle one. The phrases ‘a little musty’ and ‘slightly meaty’ may not sound too sexy, but in this incarnation those down-and-dirty notes combined with the glimmering top translate to a sensual mix of Miss Prim and Lady Panther. What’s not to love about that?

19th July, 2010.

San Francisco is a beautiful City

This is what i was told for years and years. Finally I ended up at a company where i supported their software package, and I was flown to San Francisco for training. I was beside myself to finally see this beautiful city for myself.

I was disappointed. SF isn't pretty at all - it's nothing but street after street of drab, dull colored row houses. There is no skyline worth mentioning and those steep streets are terrifying, not fun.

SF is only worth seeing, I now realize because I live here, from the West side of town. Golden Gate park. The Bay bridge. By boat from the bay and Baker Beach. Had I only known.

Here's what you need to know about Caron, because I've now sampled 75% of their offerings and my opinion is set. Go to their parfums. Don't piddle around with the EDTs, they're disappointing and bland, like hte row houses.

Nocturnes smells like a tray of guest soaps. Nice, sure, but not original and certainly not interesting. Caron is only interesting at full strength.

I know this comes in a parfum, and that is my next stop wiht this one.

16th July, 2010.

I loved Nocturnes during the 80s, and wore it for several years. Everything about it spelled contempoary elegance; from the colourful modern art picture on the packaging to the beautiful black Parfum bottle. I remember that Nocturnes was available in an amazing Baccarat crystal bottle with lions on it's sides, exclusively from Harrods during the 80s; unfortunately I was never rich enough to afford one.

Nocturnes was a beautful and well balanced fragrance: slightly sweet, with floral (orange blossom being most noticable), subtle spice notes, tempered by subtle aldehyde.

I tried Nocturnes for the first time since the 80s a few years ago, and was very disappointed: the fragrance had changed drastically: it was far less sweet, and not nearly as full bodied; it was like Y, with added chypre. In fact, if I hadn't known what I was trying, I would not have recognised it as Nocturnes. At the same time I discovered that the beautiful original packaging, the parfum, and the wonderful bath products have all been discontinued - it has quite saddened me.

I am very unlikely to buy Nocturnes again; the fragrance has drasically changed since I last wore it in the 80s. It is by no means an unpleasant fragrance, but very different from the one I remember.

28th March, 2010.

Nocturnes is a classical fragrance, aldehydic, flowery, and elegant and in spite of its date of birth (a child of the 80's!), it's neither loud nor vulgar. Fortunately enough, it seems to be "intact" - i.e. not yet reformulated. Nocturnes is neither exciting, nor a milestone, but I find it quite wearable and ladylike.

23rd March, 2010.

I smelled a sample of this in the 80s and always remembered it for it's lovely 'grassiness'. I bought some recently by mail order (it's hard to get hold of by any other method) and on spraying recognised it pleasantly at once. The top notes are beautiful and remind me very much of the much missed original Armani for women perfume. However Nocturnes dries down to a horrible 'dirty wang' (to borrow the brilliant phrase that another Basenoter has used (why, why???!!) to describe Agent Provocateur) on me. There's a hint of something carnation or lily like there that just spoils it for me. I'm going to try wearing this perfume again once the weather turns really cold, it may work better then.

3rd September, 2009.