Roja Dove with his mother Eileen photo kindly sent for this article by Roja Parfums
Early childhood memories linger forever: they mold us, haunt us, and reverberate in the blood. Olfactory memories in particular hold sway over all our other senses in their immediacy, their unique ability to awaken slumbering recollection. Roja Parfums A Goodnight Kiss is a very personal homage to Roja Dove’s mother Eileen and the dawning of his lifelong veneration of All Things Fragrant. We can identify with this on many levels – be the triggers cooking aromas, the smell of gasoline, cigarettes, coffee, the garden and more. Mr. Dove’s love was precipitated by a specific recollection at age six: his glamorous gold lamé-garbed mother stopping in to kiss him good night en route to a cocktail party. Young children are impressionable; many years hence in 2015 he released Roja Parfums A Goodnight Kiss on her birthday, January 6th.
Roja Dove photo via Roja Parfums
It is an undeniable labor of love and tribute to his first elegant woman. There are tendrils in A Goodnight Kiss which reflect several elements present in Eileen’s beloved Coty L ’Aimant (note the double meaning: “Loving Her” as well as “The Magnet”) – a loving accolade to her favorite perfume.
Mary Cassatt The Goodnight Hug from the collection of Bunny Adler
I feel Mr. Dove’s fondness. My mother was stunning; she adored perfume, an unabashed sensualist. Estelle enlisted Tante Sylvia as ‘cultural attachée’: together they ventured out into the evening (Sylvia’s treat) to gorge themselves on art and music. It was then that I’d be bewitched by lashings of Lanvin Arpège, Le Galion Sortilège (Estelle) and Carven Ma Griffe and Raphael Réplique (Sylvia). This was the late 1950s-early ‘60s, heyday of aldehydic florals. My mother craved millefleur scents; Sylvia was enamored of mossy green florals. I buried my nose in everything they touched, trying to capture all that fragrant sorcery. Sylvia was slender, an impeccable Manhattanite; Estelle’s nimble fingers knit elegant ensembles in mohair and cashmere to accentuate her curves. It was thrilling to feign sleep as they entered on tiptoe and kissed us! I wonder if Roja did likewise: stealthy, secretive pleasures in dimly lit chambers. How I longed to be them – graceful, raffinée, gloriously perfumed.
Coty L’Aimant Vintage Ad circa 1945
Roja Parfums A Goodnight Kiss is emblematic of gracious living. Consider what’s best of Chanel and Guerlain and then some, and you’ve got it right. Available as parfum strength, it opens triumphantly with blindingly dazzling aldehydes firmly sandwiched in between the camps of Chanel No.22 and Chanel No.5. Pair them with bergamot and you are off and running – a masterly prelude.
Roja Parfums A Goodnight Kiss via Roja Parfums
From here on we wax floral with exquisite absolutes of all sorts: jasmin de Grasse, orange blossom, rose de mai, ylang ylang and carnation among them. The carnation and violet are distinguishing markers in that they are more likely to appear in beloved Guerlains such as L’Heure Bleue and Après l’Ondée. Eileen’s Coty L’ Aimant shares these aldehydes, ylang ylang, rose and ionones, dianthine bursts of spicy carnation; its green notes are the result of herbal armoise, cyclamen aldehyde and vetiveryl acetate. Amyl cinnaminic aldehyde imparts a soft fresh jasmine with a wisp of spice. Roja’s mother possessed impeccable taste, and classics meriting the name are ones to study and cherish. They inspire: in A Goodnight Kiss modernity fuses with what one loves most about vintage – its degree of discernment, marvelous materials, consummate artistry and capacity to evolve upon the skin revealing layer upon layer of subtle entanglements. It takes a while for the perfume’s initial ebullience to quieten and when it does, you find yourself enveloped in a floral flesh-identical rice-powder accord which echoes finely-milled face powder and insinuation of a buttery leather handbag. Such a fragrance makes one feel utterly beautiful, with wings…
Notes: aldehydes, bergamot, carnation, jasmin de Grasse, mayflower, orange blossom, rose de mai, violet, ylang ylang, green notes, spice notes, clove, cedarwood, orris, rice powder accord, leather, musk
–Ida Meister, Sr. Editor and Natural Perfumery Editor
Disclosure: I received a tester of A Good Night’s Kiss, and am very grateful; the opinions are my own
Thanks to the generosity of Europerfumes, we have a draw for a 7.5 ml flacon of Roja Parfums A Goodnight Kiss for one registered reader in the USA only. You must register here or your comment will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what you enjoyed most about Ida’s review of Roja Parfums A Goodnight Kiss. What was the first perfume you remember your mother wear? Draw closes 7/26/2019
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Available at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and other fine stockists worldwide
Please read Roja Dove’s History of British Perfumery written for CaFleureBon here. Michelyn thanks Jack Cassidy of Roja Parfums for Roja’s personal photos and for his friendship.
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