Rogue Perfumery 40 Rogue 40 Rogue, image via the brand
Many are the fragrances perfume lovers have ruefully wished would return, haunted by the ghosts of fragrances loved and lost, discontinued amidst ingredient bans, changing tastes, or falling sales. But the recent revivals of Cherigan, Ciro, Le Galion and a host of other hitherto defunct houses, shows that appreciation for older fragrance styles is very much alive. Happily, ingenious techniques to identify fragrance components and volumes, most famously, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis, which identify and separate fragrance molecules, has made it possible for vintage-loving perfumers to resurrect dormant perfumes. Enter Manuel Cross of Rogue Perfumery.
Manuel Cross courtesy of the perfumer
“Last year I was gifted a very generous and very rare sample of the long discontinued 40 Love Pour Homme by Jean Desprez,” says Cross. “I was then determined to resurrect it so others may have the opportunity to experience a great fragrance from yesteryear. I sent a portion of my sample out for analysis and, with the results, set out to reverse engineer the dead formula.”
The result of this enterprise is 40 Rogue, subtitled “Resurrection No. 1,” a recreation of the 1947 Jean Desprez perfume 40 Love, slightly tweaked to account for components that were damaged by age, as Cross explains: “I made very, very few changes except to repair areas of the formula where there were chemical breakdown products, due to age. I toned down the animalic aspects by almost half – but no worries! The animalic note is still quite present. I also expounded upon the floral notes by adding small amounts of rose and jasmine absolute.”
unopened 1947 bottle of 40 Love courtesy of Jana Menard©
Now, I am lucky enough to have a bit of the original 40 Love to compare with 40 Rogue, thanks to the lovely Jana Menard of The Fragrance Vault, who gave me a sample of the original from her own bottle. According to Jana, “40 Love was one of the breakout sporting fragrances for men.”
Desprez 40 Love opens with a huge spray of champagne-like aldehydes, tarragon, and some skeletal bergamot and lemon that have decayed with time. Soon, there’s a rush of creamy, fruity-floral notes, particularly carnation, and, to a lesser extent, gardenia. In the heart, the fragrance swirls like a stirred cocktail of flowers and herbs, and animalic notes of civet and musk come through quietly, bringing the smell of expensive furs and that necessary bit of skank – that deshabille, sex in the back of the Rolls note –that makes so many highbrow vintage perfumes so deliciously, mischievously addictive.
Desprez’s chypre structure becomes evident quickly. Stepping away from 40 Love and retesting a half hour later, the citrus has evaporated and what is left is a sensual floral chypre, thick with moss and flowers but still fizzing away like a delirious debutante who’s had too much Bolly. It’s bubbly, warm, rosy, refined but fun and definitely sexy, a bit like Madame Rochas acquired a sense of humour and went on a country pub crawl with Guerlain Nahema and Mitsouko.
scene from Casablanca Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman 1942
I would not call the two perfumes doppelgangers; rather, Rogue Perfumery 40 Rogue strikes me as the younger self who most certainly has a past. The opening reimagines the start of 40 Love as a volley of citrus and herbs (tarragon and basil) There’s also a big dose of those bubbly aldehydes to go along with the fruit notes, so that in its earliest stages, 40 Rogue smells like an old school cocktail made with bitters and fizz. In just a moment – wowza! That tarragon turns out to be the naughtiest herbal note this side of Schiaparelli Shocking: anisic, chartreuse green, and grassy. Coupled with drippy, ripe fruit notes (is that melon?), it smells like mischief al fresco.
And it makes a perfect segue for carnation in the perfume’s heart. The carnation picks up the spicy aspect of the herb and runs with it … smack into a big, fluffy, thorny rose that is dewy and fresh but just a little bit spiky. There’s narcissus listed in the notes, which may be responsible for the indolic creaminess in the heart. As with its predecessor, there’s plenty of oakmoss and bergamot in Rogue Perfumery 40 Rogue to put a chypre stamp on the proceedings. The animalic quality is still, as Cross promised, quite present, but in the way of jasmine and narcissus, bodily rather than animal until the drydown, when that hint of fur coat pops in to reassure us that 40 Rogue hasn’t forgot its retro roots.
40 Rogue goes its own way in some respects (it wouldn’t be a Rogue if it didn’t); a technicolor riff rather than a reprinting. The animal notes are less prominent than in 40 Love, the emphatic herbal and rose notes bolder, the citrus brisker, almost pineapply; the bold style more fougere than chypre. But the DNA of the two fragrances reveals their kinship: the rich mossiness, the elegant interplay between herbs and florals, the furriness of the musk – these keynotes are all still intact in 40 Rogue. There’s a prickly refinement to 40 Rogue that makes it perfect for snappy dressers good with a wisecrack, treading a fine line between suave and soignee, 40 Rogue is genderless, highly wearable, and very appealing.
Notes: Citrus, aldehydes, fruity notes, basil, tarragon, carnation, rose, narcissus, oakmoss and musk.
Disclaimer: Sample of Rogue Perfumery 40 Rogue generously provided by Fragrance Vault. My opinions, as always, are my own.
Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
Bottle of 40 Rogue, image via the brand
Thanks to the generosity of Jana Menard at Fragrance Vault, we have a 50 ml bottle of Rogue Perfumery 40 Rogue for one registered reader in the U.S. ONLY. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what strikes you about Rogue Perfumery 40 Rogue based on Lauryn’s review, what your favourite Rogue fragrance is. Draw closes 5/3/2023.
Rogue Perfumery 40 Rogue is sold at this time exclusively at The Fragrance Vault who stocks Rogue Perfumery and over 1000 vintage fragrances here in the V Vault.
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Manuel Cross was Lauryn’s artisan of the year 2022
L’Homme M. LaCroix was one of Michael’s and Lauryn’s top ten best perfumes of 2022
Rogue Perfumery Rostracto was one of Karl’s Top 10 best of 2022
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