Attrape Coeur / Guet-Apens by Guerlain, 1999

The liquid in my sample vial (whose provenance was ultimately a decanter, by way of a fellow fragrance traveler) of Guerlain ATTRAPE COEUR smells suspiciously familiar to the dregs in the bottom of my now nearly empty bottle of YSL YVRESSE, which is so old that it actually bears the original name of that perfume, CHAMPAGNE. Thick, somewhat gunky stewed peaches and parched vetiver? Hmmm... this seems very similar to the result which I might expect to derive from attempting a reduction of MITSOUKO over the stove. The flowers are really all stuck together in an amorphous blob in this composition. Eventually the drydown smells more like MITSOUKO than YVRESSE, but I never detect a single isolable flower petal anywhere: rose, violet, and iris are nowhere here to be sniffed. I do believe that my sample may simply be old. I never had a chance to try the 1999 launch of "this" perfume, GUET-APENS, but I am curious as to why it should have been totally renamed if in fact there was no significant reformulation for the 2005 launch of ATTRAPE COEUR. I also wonder why two extra perfumers should be given credit for a perfume originally composed by Mathilde Laurent, if in fact the two creations are really one and the same.

If you can olfactorily envision an amalgam of Mitsouko's spicy peach-jasmine-oakmoss harmony and the baroque and burning sandalwood-amber of Samsara, you get the feel of Attrape Cur. Behind this touching name ("heart catcher") you find one of Guerlain's most lavish and layered perfumes one that quickly gained neoclassical status. Originally conceived in 1999 as a limited edition Eau de Parfum by the talented Mathilde Laurent, it was at that time called Guet-Apens which means "ambush", a surprisingly violent name for a perfume. For a short period, it made part of Guerlain's Fragrance Collection duo as "No.68", before it finally was featured as the centrepiece for the reopening of the Guerlain House in July 2005, presented to media and industry people in a quadrilobe bottle just labelled "Maison Guerlain 7 Juillet 2005". For the commercial reissue, it was poetically named after J.D. Salinger's 1951 cult-novel "The catcher in the rye" (translated as "L'attrape-curs" in French) and placed in the Parisiennes line. Salinger tells the story about a young man who, faced with a hostile adult world, develops a fantasy of catching children and saving them from falling into alienation, phoniness and superficiality. This is the perfume's aim: to catch us with its playful and rich scent and bring us back to our senses. And the perfume is indeed the antidote of superficiality. As perfume expert Luca Turin notes, it's "an essay on amber" of the most delectable and opaque kind, with an intoxicating, wealthy aroma of spiced Swedish glögg, burning hot and prepared with all sorts of luxurious ingredients: a huge jasmine heart garnished with violet, peach, rose, orris, cinnamon, amber, vanilla, and lots of shining sandalwood. Any flimsy sweetness from amber and fruit is contrasted by oakmoss, dry and dark. And all these things are put together, not in a messy way but on the contrary layered intelligently like a Babette's Feast: caramelized indolic jasmine buds flambéed with fiery oak-aged peach brandy. To many Guerlain lovers' regret, Attrape Cur was taken out of production after 2009.

Reading through the reviews of Attrape Couer I'm struck at how differently people experience this perfume. Some people smell Mitsouko, others smell an animalic, dirty floral while others experience A/C as being nearly gourmand. My own personal experience with A/C represents this same wild variation, and it has taken me years to finally wrap my head around it. When I first sampled A/C the combination of vanilla, amber, iris, and citrus presented itself to my brain as a lemon-meringue like gourmand. As my nose developed and I became more attuned to Guerlains A/C's floral notes became more evident. The accord that I had initially experienced as simply gourmand I now experience as a stunningly intricate floral/oriental. Driven by a sweetened rose note the heart of A/C is rounded out by violet and softened with a delicate powdery iris. This heart presents itself slowly as initial hints of citrus fade, but the vanillic topnotes apparent from on application persist throughout the life of the fragrance and eventually meld into a classic Guerlinade-and-amber base. Personally I don't find any similarities whatsoever with the classic chypres like Mitsouko. Rather I draw the connection between powdery soft iris/violet perfumes like Apres l'Ondee and vanilla-heavy orientals such as Shalimar.

In early 2010 Attrape Couer fell victim to IFRA restrictions on oakmoss. Interesting that it should contain so much oakmoss such that it could not be reformulated without it, especially since one does not experience oakmoss distinctly. I suppose this goes to show just how useful oakmoss is in the structure of perfumes and just how much we are losing in its absence.

A comment on A/Cs many versions over which there is often confusion: Initially released as Guet Apens, this perfume was also released in a 250ml bee bottle under the name "No.68" (which is a different fragrance from the later "Cologne du 68"). The same perfume was also produced in EdT strength under the name 'Vol de Nuit Evasion'. Despite different names all of these fragrances are produced from the same formula. Any variation in color or aroma between Guet Apens and Attrape Couer is the result of variations in natural materials and not formula change. Info from perfumeshrine.com (not affiliated).

Thumbs up, up, up.

Guerlain Attrape Coeur

Notes: rose, violet, iris, vanilla, woods, amber (from perfumeshrine.com)

Attrape Coeur starts as a dark and rich, slightly dirty floral with clove, liquored rose, powdery iris, vanilla and sweet amber as the main notes. Development is extremely slow and graceful on skin, and the indoles are the first things to soften as AC moves to a lush, creamy, boozy, spicy rose bouquet in the heart notes. In the late middle stage, there is some artificial bitterness that seems inappropriate to the composition--I have noticed this mostly in mainstream floral-orientals (Rochas Tocade is an example). In AC, it does not detract very much from my enjoyment, though I think this would have been an almost perfect fragrance if not for the bitter note. The drydown is absolutely gorgeous, and is a vaguely spicy, floral, vanilla feminine "guerlinade" of typically high calibre.

I agree with comments I have seen that compare AC with Chanel 31 Rue Cambon. However, AC is much dirtier, less iris-pronounced, and the sour fruit note present in 31RC is better tempered in AC. I find both fragrances beautiful, but Attrape Coeur behaves much better on my skin. AC falls squarely onto the line between floral and oriental, a genre that I love for its complexity. In that sense, AC does not disappoint, and yet, despite having a seemingly unfathomable depth bordering on melancholy, Attrape Coeur is as quiet, lighthearted and unassuming as the Mona Lisa's smile in DaVinci's famous painting.