Eden by Cacharel (1994)

I often complain that I hate perfumes that smell synthetic. This is (one reason) why I love vintage perfume, because for the most part, the ingredients are high-quality, and I know I’m not going to smell like a chemical stew someone threw together for Kim Kardashian.

 

But what if a perfume goes out of its way to smell synthetic? I can’t guess at the intention of Eden’s author, Jean Guichard, but I think that an aspect of Eden is too weirdly synthetic to have been an accident. Why, you ask, would a perfumer want the flowers in his garden of Eden to smell like overheated plastic? And lastly, why on earth do I kinda dig it?

 

Eden’s heart and base are classic 80s. It’s a big, gourmand/oriental/“fruitchouli” with amber, tonka and vanilla. But something very strange happens at the beginning. The top half of Eden smells like it’s made of hot plastic soured by green notes and herbalized by anise (from tarragon). These alien top notes join with their more earth-bound counterparts: a sumptuous floral heart (tuberose, jasmine, rose, ylang) that’s softened and fattened by orris and dries down to a fruit-sweetened mossy, patchouli, gourmand base reminiscent of Loulou, also created by Jean Guichard.

 

But no matter how beautiful the florals and base are, that herbal, hot-plastic note (which reminds me a little of unripe mango skin) announces a wonky, artificial and compelling accord that haunts the rest of the perfume. I found myself chasing it in my mind once it disappeared and the perfume became “normal” again. (Its fakeness is compelling the way a green apple Jolly Rancher is delicious. It's precisely because a Jolly Rancher tastes like a fake apple, an almost neon apple, that people like it.)

Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, mandarin, green note, peach, tarragon, orange blossom

Heart notes: Tuberose, jasmine, lily of the valley, rose, ylang-ylang, orris

Base notes: Cedar, patchouli, sandalwoood, musk, moss, vanilla, tonka, amber (Haarmann&Reimer)

(Alternate notes from Perfume Shrine: Top: Mandarin, orange blossom, water lily, lotus blossom; Middle: Melon, pineapple, violet, mimosa; Base: Patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla, musk.)

Throughout the evening, I would sniff my hand to see how it developed on my skin. Through the warm and comforting base, as if peering down a well, I could smell the layers of flowers and fruit, singing clearly even hours into it. In the morning, however, there was that lingering, odd — again, even alien — greenness I could not place, there alongside the more familiar drydown notes.

 

Believe it or not, Eden was released the same year as CKOne. In a way, it was the beginning of the end for the 80s and their stink bombs. Just as Eden exited stage left  — apparently, it bombed, speaking of bombs — CKOne ushered in the era of cleanliness and androgyny. Out with the old, in with the new. The baroque, hyper-gendered stylings of the 80s were denuded with CKOne, and the scentless, sex-ambiguous body was laid bare.

 

Eden's wet, plastic, anise-licorice smell faintly travels through to the drydown, which is mostly classically 80s in its loud too-muchness. What do we make of this alien sour-green-plastic accord, though? What is it heralding or sounding?

I'm going to throw some ideas around. I'm not wedded to them, but Eden made me think...Maybe this artificial, even alien accord is one aspect of the 90s' repudiation of the natural. 90s scents attempted to get rid of human smells in order to make way, Octavian of 1000fragrances muses in a dystopian prediction, for a computerized generation preparing for a disembodied, virtual future. (To be more pedestrian about it: think of all the office scents spawned by CKOne.)

I think, similarly, some perfumers introduced strangely plastic notes to 80s/90s fragrances when they could have just as easily created  "natural" smells. Synthetic and unnatural were introduced as a virtue. (I'm not talking about synthetics in place of more expensive ingredients. I'm talking about the aesthetic choice to make something smell synthetic: think of Poison's sickly-sweet tuberose/grape bubblegum accord, or Angel's bizarre cotton candy/patchouli accord.)

Although Eden and CKOne would seem, initially, to be diametrically opposed, they've both introduced different versions of Unnatural. In CKOne's case, it offers up clean and androgynous as something to aspire to in the olfactory realm. In Eden's case, it sounds its first note in the key of "fake."

The Eden Jean Guichard has proposed for us is one that takes place in some post-apocalyptic cyborg future, after the Fall. (Doesn't androgynous Eve up there in the ad look like a CGI creation, lit by ghastly, fluorescent green, Cindy Sherman-esque lighting?)

In any case, Eden intrigues me. But I could never, ever wear this stuff in public!

                                                            ---------------

Some other thoughts on Eden:

In a case of bizarre synchronicity (I swear, Elena!) Perfume Shrine wrote on Eden at the same time I received my bottle in the mail. So strange — I'd never even heard of it the week before! She tells us there's the ubiquitous Calone* "water" note that is ever-present in 90s scents, and helps me figure out in part what makes this perfume smell so otherworldly: its water-lily and lotus notes. Of Eden, she says that it was positioned as the "first fruity-semioriental-aquatic." Bizarro.

* Calone: an aroma chemical that adds a “sea breeze” or marine note, and first used in large quantities in Aramis New West (1988).

 

And here are some very amusing responses from Fragrantica readers. Enjoy them. I did!

 

"This is horror in a bottle. I believed the hype and bought a bottle, sprayed mysef and on the way home on the bus I remember feeling almost sick from the most synthetic, most alien, most mouldery plasticy and cheap smelling perfume I ever smelled (owned). Obtrusive fly repellant smell. Makes me shiver only thinking about it."

 

"I saw Avatar and remembered this perfume. It's juicy, lush, mysterious and alien."

 

"One of the worst fragrance for women, ever created. Can't describe....pure horror !!!!!!!!!"

 

"Also the name Eden perfectly suits the scent - very green, warm, wet, luscious forest with white flowers - just like Eden."

 

"This is one of the strangest scents I've ever smelt. The opening blast is like an 'out of this world' kind of smell. Reminded me a bit of medicine too."

 

"This one is not for me. It's a pity, because it smells good on my skin but it's totally NOT ME. Too sweet, too heavy, too crazy."

 

"Each time I sniffed my wrist, I'd complain that my nausea was getting worse and my husband told me to stop sniffing, I'd tell him I couldn't help it. It smelled like millions of exotic flowers and fruit in humid weather with the smell of waterfalls nearby."

 

Comments

[Anne]

Lovely review. I've sniffed Eden once or twice and will give it another go. I've seen it selling very cheap at one of my local department stores, and been tempted. But a full bottle? Like you, I'm wondering if I would really wear it.

Interesting thoughts about the Unnatural in perfume. Kenzo's Ca Sent Beau has a reputation as a 'plastic beach ball scent'. It came out in the late 80s, I think. (Do you know it?) Kenzo's whole aesthetic seems to be partly about embracing artificiality, as part of the urban life that many of us live. I'm thinking of those ads for Flower which feature red flowers growing on top of roofs. Quite lovely. (But I don't like Flower itself, makes me run for the hills.)

'Artificiality', or 'unnaturalness', seem to me not that far from abstraction in perfumery, which I admire. Chanel No 5 is often mentioned in this context. Speaking of which, I am wearing the No 5 EDP tonight; this is the 1980s concentration that people say has an unpleasantly artificial note in it. I started out thinking this too, but find myself enjoying that slightly synthetic note now, and wearing the EDP more and more often. After all, in applying perfume, we are all applying scents that are not natural to the human body.

[Perfumaniac]

Hi Anne,

I'm thinking about the Unnatural apart from the notion of abstraction in perfumery. (I'm in agreement with you that, as an art, perfume's artifice and abstraction are good things.)

I'm thinking about a perfumer's (in Eden's case, Guichard's) choice to embed, in an otherwise routine perfume formula, a note that signifies the artificial, and not, say a perfumer who uses vanillin + civet + whatever else to create an accord that wouldn't be found in nature.

Especially given the name of the perfume, Eden, we're invited to think about gardens, and flowers, and well...Nature. So to start your perfume with a nature theme with an incredibly plastic-smelling note, when you have the budget and the ability to create a note that smells "natural," this seems to me to be a provocation, something deliberate and up for interpretation...

In any case, since artificial smells are all around us, in a peculiar way, we might actually grow to like them. I'm a foodie — but I love the artificial taste of Jolly Ranchers, and of all the things in Eden I truly liked, it was that crazy first accord! The problem was, to get it, I had to keep reapplying it. As anyone who's smelled it knows, that mother has SILLAGE. This is not a perfume you want to load on!

I haven't sniffed Ça Sent Beau, but of course now, I'd like to try it. I can't stand Flower (it makes me a little ill, actually), but I have Parfum d'Ete and I'll check it out with your theory in mind! Thanks for your thoughtful response!

[Joan]

Beautiful review. I can't think of a perfume right now that has a similar appeal, but the beautiful-because-its-fake thing isn't below me either!

Now I will have to smell this!

[Perfumaniac]

Thanks, Joan! I had only heard of Eden recently, so I imagine a lot of people have never tried it. (It would be great to hear their opinions.) Eden is an odd bird for any era, but definitely out of step in the 90s when so many perfumes got polite and clean. This one is like a Tweaker/Raver perfume in the age of Heroin Chic...

[Sylvia]

Thanks for your input on Eden! I enjoy your reviews a lot, I just want to add that it seems like the older Cacharel's: Eden, Lou Lou and Anais Anais have undergone quite bad reformulations. I now have vintage bottles of all three of them and have compared them with newer ones.

Eden has always been an odd fragrance, but in the vintage one I don't smell the plasticy burnt rubber in the topnotes. Patchouli is still there but is a lot softer and more delicate, and whatever "bad smelling" is gone. (50 ml splash bottle)

Vintage Lou Lou is a very sweet floriental without the sour anise concoction that I can smell in the new one. (Maybe that can be explained by the two sets of notes you have in your review). (100 ml alladin-lamp shaped splash bottle)

Vintage Anais Anais is more widely flowering and slightly darker from the basenotes, and less cloying IMHO. (100 ml splash bottle)

If you want to look further into this I can send you some samples.

Thanks again for your beautiful reviews

Sylvia

[Perfumaniac]

Sylvia, thanks so much for your sweet message. Im glad you enjoy the blog! I would love a sample of your Eden, and your Anais Anais, thank you! As far as I know, I have the vintage Eden, but perhaps if youre saying that rubbery beginning isnt there, I should take a sniff! I also have Anais lying around somewhere, but again, to compare would be great. (Im positive the Lou Lou I have is vintage.) I will contact you with my info. Thanks again! I may have to completely rethink the Eden review!

[Sylvia]

Hi! Thanks for the email. The samples are on its way, (and it's no big deal for me at all to send them :)!!). I hope you will find the comparison with the current one interesting. Vintage Eden is a bit odd I agree, but compared with the new one it's an odd beauty. I would therefore advice everyone who are considering to buy and try Eden to go for a vintage bottle. The reformulation is (sorry Cacharel) very bad.

[Perfumaniac]

Thanks, Sylvia. I can't wait to see if the one I reviewed is vintage or not! I hope it was! I'll let you know when I get them, and thanks again. :-)

[brigitte]

Sylvia- you seem to be a big fan of the Cacharel fragrances. What do you know of Noa? Has that Cacharel fragrance been reformulated as well?

[Sylvia]

Hi Brigitte. Thanks :) Actually it's only the three: Eden, Lou Lou and Anais Anais that I've compared, and I'm not sure when they were reformulated either. I might have an idea how to differ vintage from new ones (by look), which may be useful for Noa as well. Then you can try for your self. Perfumaniac have my email adress if you want to know more.

[Perfumaniac]

Brigitte — meet Sylvia! Sylvia — meet Brigitte. (I love that I am referred to as Perfumaniac. :-) I should get my name changed!) Brigitte, Ill send you Sylvias email.

[brigitte]

Sylvia-since its inception in the late 90s I have gone through several bottles of Noa not necessarily because I adored it (in fact I couldn't even smell it on myself whenever I wore it) but merely because it is a light,benign scent that garnered many compliments from children whenever I wore it and was non-offensive to my allergy prone/perfume despising co-workers/family members. The reason I ask about re-formulation is that In 2011 Cacharel came out with a mini coffret set in five floral motive bottles of several of their fragrances: among them were Noa, Anais Anais, and,I believe, Lou Lou. They also sold Noa in the same bottles in the 1oz. size. and called them "limited editions". I'm wondering if this was just a ploy to re-introduce older Cacharel fragrances to new perfume-lovers or were they all reformulations. And,yes, Barbara, by all means, we can share e-mail and dialogue that way :)

[iva]

beautiful article! Eden was my first perfume , I was using it when i was 12-13 y/o..Back then, back home (Croatia) seems like every girl wore it. After couple of years , I forgot about it, but throughout the years i would smell something simmilar to Eden and it would bring me back to my early teens..I forgot about perfume's name, but recently i remembered it- it weas Eden! I was surprised that noone ( at least noone i spoke to ) in US didnt hear about it. I found a great deal on Amazon, and now im anxiously waiting for 1oz of the most amazing fragrance. I hope it will smell the same as it was 13 years ago. I am a big fan of Thierry Mugler too, I have Innocence, Alien and Womanity and my favorite-Angel. I just found out about your page and cannot wait to read other articles.

[Perfumaniac]

So glad you found the blog, iva! You are not alone in loving Eden. Many people adore it, and I think it's a really special and strange perfume. And I have always loved Angel...

[Iris Jonquil]

I don't know if this comment will be posted because it's been almost a year since the original post, but this topic is so interesting and I find "Eden" such a compelling scent, that I wanted to offer another take on it.

I feel like the idea of "Eden" was to conjure-up ancient botanical smells, smells that might no longer be able to exist because some plants were left on abandoned boughs of the evolutionary tree, long since extinct; they would have to be imagined, synthetically reproduced as a creative concept, similar to trying to imagine what the 18th century court of Versailles smelled like based on recipes and accounts.

The wacky, chemical-botanical smells of "Eden", imply oversized growth, decay and new birth hidden under such growth, this concept of an unknowable world to modern noses. "Eden" has a steamy, astringent freshness that, at both times, paints an image of a newly fresh natural World -- uadulturated by human development -- but still, bubbling with the poisons and dangers of an absolute wilderness. In regards to the topic above, I think this was the other direction some perfumers chose to take in androgynous synthetics; to tell gender-less stories, to define beauty in new ways and free from the confines of traditional gender roles.

When we also think about all the attention Earth Day was getting in the early 90's, including a more aggressive pop culture focus on Environmentalism, we notice some artists finding provocative ways to open dialogue on it. To use conscious artificialty as a means of generating a human connection to Nature and appreciation of its power, to generate stories and emotional connections to it, is a pretty fascinating concept. "Eden" accomplishes all of that. Over a decade after its launch and we're still talkingabout how weird and fascinating it is.

[Perfumaniac]

Hi Iris Jonquil - Sorry it took me a while to respond to this. I'm glad you love Eden, too, and think that its artificiality is deliberate. I like the idea of the artificial notes as representations of poisonous, swampy plants. Or that they're scents we don't know about now because they're extinct, and hence don't refer to a nature we recognize as natural. So, if I understand you, the notes in Eden that smell artificial are in fact referring to unknown, natural scents in Ropion's fantasy of an Eden nature. Interesting!

[Sea Wolf]

"The baroque, hyper-gendered stylings of the 80s were denuded with CKOne, and the scentless, sex-ambiguous body was laid bare."
I find this interesting because so many women's perfumes of the 80's smell very masculine to 2000's noses. I often wear Obsession to work and get asked which men's perfume I'm wearing - and compliments from men, not in the 'you smell nice' kind of way but in a 'I like that, I want it for myself' kinda way.

[Perfumaniac]

Interesting, Sea Wolf. Maybe what I mean to say is that hyper-gendered just means, hyper-strong or aggressive rather than wan and minimalist. Paloma Picasso Mon Parfum, for example, is overdosed with castoreum (used in leather scents and we usually associate that with men), and others have lots of patchouli, etc. What have you worn that men seemed into? I love that you are wearing 80s scents!

[sea wolf]

The only perfume that I wear that gets compliments from men or women (like mm you smell good) is Casmir by Chopard (1991), that vanilla bomb! Its a real crowd pleaser.
My own husband is a sickly sweet gourmand-lover which is amusingly incongruous with his image, his job (in construction), motorcycle riding, amateur boxing. His signature frag is Matin Calin by Comptoir Sud Pacifique, which completely, literally smells like warm milk brimming with sugar.
In terms of perfumes of the late 20th century that smell masculine I definitely have to vote for Passion by Elizabeth Taylor, Paloma Picasso, Opium, Blue Grass, Cinnabar, Obsession, and a 1 sneaky modern one of the 2000's! Fancy Nights by Jessica Simpson.
The 80's was definitely the last grand decade of fragrances - I wonder if it has something to do with it being the last decade when perfumes had to compete with ubiquitous cigarette smoke!

[sea wolf]

Oh! And Imari by Avon! I am sick with a cold and have lost my sense of smell, but that is one of the few that's puncturing through!

[sea wolf]

Oh! OH! Niki Saint de Phalle. Okay, I promise I'm done.

[iwetta]

Hi

[iwetta]

Does anyone know when did eden was reformulated?? i can't find any info about the year. :(