The Smell of Boys ...

As we were long talking about masculine citations as a trend in feminine perfumery, and well with overcrowded floral, fruitchouly, gourmand and moden chypre (à la 'Coco Mad') families –without a revolution by novel captives creating new families that is– the "only way" into new feminine territory with existing families would be feminine fougères. The feminization of the prime perfumistic virility. There has been a period of course when many women would wore fougères such as the sweet-powdery old-school fougère 'Brut' (Fabergé, 1964) by Karl Mann, or the rosy-patchouli-ambery fougère 'Zino Davidoff' (Davidoff, 1986), so it is no mission impossible for sure. 

Actually, Jacques Polge patchouli-amber 'Coromandel' (Les Exclusifs de Chanel, 2007) can already be smelt in relation to 'Zino Davidoff', but the lavender was largely missing. Now, his son Olivier Polge went the full way, and feminized a most classical aromatic fougère theme, the result being 'Boy' (Les Exclusifs de Chanel, 2016) – the nickname of Arthur Capel, who had kept Gabrielle Chanel as a mistress but then became her benefactor.

Coco Chanel's fashion was of course also driven by introducing masculine citations into feminine fashion thereby making it more casual and sporty. So the task seemed somewhat overdue. 'Boy' is for the moment exclusively available in Chanel's flagship Marais boutique in Paris, but will roll out now soon. We have been wearing and analysing it nof for about 2 weeks against 'Fougère Royale' (2010) by Rodrigo Flores-Roux – the fougère benchmark per se.

The similarity of 'Boy' and 'Fougère Royale' is striking, so you get the masculine barbershop atmopsphere quicky, and of course lavender galore. 

Yet the way to feminize is obviously to shift the rose–geranium equilibrium towards rose, and 'Boy' in contrast to 'Fougère Royale' starts out with rosy aldehydes nonanal (C9) and decanal (C10), also occurring naturally in rose and citrus oils and building a Chanel connotation. So the rose is early visible, and then is paired with methyl pamplemousse, just as Jean-Claude Ellena did so skilfully in 'Rose Ikebana' (Hermessence, 2004). This does work in lieu of the more minty freshness classically seen in masculine fougère, and hesperidic lemon freshness helps as well.

That always works nice with the rose, which is backed up with some Florosa. Of course the lavender is very visible, and very natural, and given on the content of (–)-(R)-lavandulol as detailed in the lavender chapter 7.4 in 'Scent and Chemistry' (pp. 242), we can estimate some 6% of genuine lavender.

The geranium–rose heart is envelopped with orange blossom and Hedione, and a sandalwood–amyris–Radjanol accord projects the rose downwards into the very classical Evernyl–coumarin fond (ca. 1:4). This fond is feminized by a pronounced powdery heliotropin character, some 2.5%, backed up by vanillin. We get an ancient animalic touch with patchouli and civettone and muscenone, but to avoid anosmias the musk foundation is quite complex. Interesting enough, albeit quite musky, 'Boy' looses out fixation-wise against 'Fougère Royale', but its substantivity is still adequate.

Overall 'Boy' is still a compromise, it is no real feminization, which would be cool, going higher with the aldehyde levels, with the rose, juxtaposing to peony, and playing with more feminine elements. It is a powdery rosy version of a regular fougère, and rather unisex than feminine. But it is a great fougère for females to wear, with traditional Chanel perfection. It can still be layered with more feminine rose scents, by the way. So let's see if others take the feminitization of fougère even further without complete emasculation that is.