How to live as Genevieve (A perfume review)
When you are called Genevieve you will not find a key chain or pen with your name on it. Maybe in Quebec or France? (Someone should report back what the personalised object situation is like there.) It is a lonely life with all of the Es in your name and having to explain, “It isn’t Guinevere.” It is also a good life because you are instantly intriguing to others with your outlandish name.When you run into a fellow Genevieve it is a moment of great excitement and potential suspicion. “Are you a good Genevieve or a disappointing one?” (They exist, I ran across one recently and I had to make it clear to everyone else that she was not in the union.) The good ones become instant allies. While you can’t get a t-shirt you can collect Genevieves in different forms, which brings me to the perfume Genevieve 1907. It is out of Slovakia and the creators have a romantic and apocryphal origin. (Named after and in honour of a Grandmother who allegedly had ties to a countess, and made cosmetics for the court. Not quite a Stefan Zweig story but something in that Austro-Hungarian empire tone.) You half expect sepia-toned photos, and a bouquet of hothouse flowers to surround you making it clear, “We are old and fancy.” The perfume is something that plays comfortably with tradition while not being held hostage to ritual. That combination of woods and florals is feminine but it isn’t helpless. Think of a woman who may wear the laciest underthings but knows how to sail, build a fire, and could tell you where a fish fork goes. (To the left of the dinner fork, and placed face down if dining on the continent) She has her lovers and isn’t ashamed of loving people the way she does but she won’t let things end up like the Mayerling incident. (First rule: never get involved with royalty, elected officials, or police officers. Stick to poets, spies, and intellectuals.)
Not everyone likes aldehydes but I do. They make me think of that combination of candle wax and incense on holy days. You may not be visited by the Holy Spirit but you smell that cozy powdery touch, and you know exactly what to do next in life. Be it doing the sign of the cross, or looking at a man seated across from you at a tension-filled lunch and opening your eyes just a little bit wider with amusement when he tells you a secret. When you wear this perfume, you aren’t in just any restaurant. You are somewhere in central Europe where there is a trio playing Dvorak, Bella, or Lizst, and the cakes on display are perfect and full of cream. You flirt with the waiter, your companion, and possibly the person at the next table when you ask them about the dish they are having. And as you are making decisions you decide you need to kiss your companion -not in the restaurant because there are better places to kiss. Maybe on a bridge as it is snowing; with promises to kiss again in that same spot for you must now go. That is the sandalwood talking. You always have your passport ready when you smell that. You have to leap onto a train because there are adventures waiting for you.You aren’t sensible sometimes but that is fine, you are Genevieve. (Or you can pretend to be for a little bit. The lacy underwear is up to you.)
