Jicky EDP (Guerlain/Les Légendaires Collection)

Let's talk about Jicky. 

Here's the thing.

Jicky's reputation precedes it, and there have been approximately 889,000 internet reviews of Jicky written in the past 26 years. I don't need to get into how Aimé Guerlain created the world's first abstract perfume in 1889 using more than one entirely synthetic material (De Laire's coumarin and vanillin). I don't need to mention that up until very recently, Jicky was the oldest preserved (not hugely fucked with) perfume still available to buy new. Guerlain has apparently discontinued it, but hey, it had a good run. And I really don't need to mention that Jicky holds the original "Guerlinade" that the house would infuse into nearly every major release thereafter. It's an "oriental fougère," the very first of that breed. 

Since I don't need to mention any of that, let's get into the issue I have with Jicky in its latest, and probably last incarnation. I own a bottle of the "Les Légendaires" heart-stoppered EDP, pictured above. This version is, according to Thierry Wasser, Guerlain's master perfumer, a faithful reconstruction of the original 1889 formula, as it would have smelled, vs. how subsequent 20th century reformulations of Jicky smelled. Wasser's angle is that Jicky was animalic, but not that animalic, and was really more about showcasing the two synthetics pioneered by Aimé. Indeed, the fragrance reads to my nose as more fresh than fierce; I'm pleased by the brisk but delicate sunshine-in-the-morning lavender accord that introduces this fragrance, and impressed by how it's couched in gentle brushings of basil and rosemary, the former of which is shockingly evident throughout Jicky's considerable 14+ hour lifespan on skin and fabric. (Was Aimé Italian?)

This all dries very gradually into the base, with barely any heart notes, save for a whisper of nondescript florals that literally breeze into a foundational and everlasting civetone-laced coumarin and vanillin. The coumarin is gentle, hay-like, semisweet and balsamic, the finest and possibly best balanced coumarin that I've ever smelled. Wedded to that is the cushy sweetness of the vanillin, but conjoining the two is that infamous animalic rasp. I'm puzzled by the rasp, because more than a few reviewers seem to find Jicky, even in this formula, borderline unwearable for having too much civet. I, however, sense barely any. It could be my nose, or perhaps it's simply a musk component that jumps out at some noses and not at others, and I'm one of the lucky chosen who can happily wear Jicky. 

Whatever the case may be, it's a tremendously pleasant and enduring fragrance, but my issue with it is that I want the animalic component to be more pronounced. For that matter, I want everything to be more pronounced. "But Bryan," you shout, "This is Jicky, so take it or leave it!" Well, not so fast. It may be that Jicky is set in stone, and it's unreasonable to expect anything but what I get from it. If I want an even brighter, smoother, and more penetrating lavender, I'm out of luck, right? If I find the sedate blush of barnyard hay in its base too evanescent, I can kick rocks, correct? Wrong. I have a fragrance that delivers in these departments, and yet smells about 95% similar to Wasser's Jicky: Ungaro pour L'Homme II (1992). 

Jacques Polge's 1990s entry in the Ungaro masculine line says, "I'm like Jicky, only more so." Bigger, more lucid lavender. Heavier civet, right from the outset. A bold, coumarinic-ambery quality that speaks to more recent contemporaries like Brut, while also nodding to Guerlain. Vanilla, just as restrained, and folded into more tangible wood accords, i.e., rosewood and sandalwood. Ungaro II is the logical reconfiguration of Aimé's 19th century masterpiece. Take all the good ideas, blow them up, rebalance everything to scale, and voila! If you want what Jicky actually smelled like when it was first released, you can now have it. Just don't tell anyone. For all intents and purposes, this is just another in a long line of "fougèriental" masculines pushed into department stores for mass consumption. (Except it's actually an educated remake of the original Jicky . . . don't tell anyone.) 

Wasser can claim that his formula is closest to what Jicky once was, but I'm not entirely buying it. Sure, the fragrance is gorgeous. The lavender is crystalline, the herbal notes are like fine porcelain accords brushed with tender love and care, and the "purr" of animalism in the semisweet base is fun to wear. But the 19th century formulas used more naturals, and probably more real musks. The early forms of coumarin and vanillin were, from what I've read, a bit cruder and louder than the stuff being used today. And if Guerlain wanted people to notice this very first abstract composition—as in, not just representing literal flowers—he would want it to sing. People were stinky in the years before deodorant soap. Perfume was the answer, but it was, by sheer necessity, stern about it.

I encourage you to grab a bottle of Jicky while you still can. It doesn't show up on Guerlain's website, and the rumor is that it's been canned. Who knows if that's true. But I'd also warn you, if you're looking to drop $150+ on a vintage bottle of Jicky: Perhaps take a moment to reconsider. You can spend the same big dollars and buy Ungaro II, and I promise you, you're essentially getting the same fragrance with more balls, and also frankly more dynamism. Ungaro II smells like it contains real civet, although I doubt it does. The current Guerlain does not, that is certain. If you're looking for something like Jicky, but richer, then you're looking for Polge's fragrance. Just be ready to pay for it.

Of course, you could always just buy a vintage, or even "deep" vintage bottle of Jicky, which by many accounts has a much more fecal civet note in it. I could do the same, but my issue there is with Guerlain's unpredictability. This stuff isn't available to sample, especially in vintage form. Finding a truly satisfying vintage means picking through 137 years of formulas, spanning literally dozens of different bottle types, with all sorts of concentrations, and I'd probably have better luck playing lotto tickets. 

Jicky has a superior lavender note, of that there's no doubt. But Ungaro's lavender is pretty damn close, and as I mentioned before, it's brighter, louder, and richer. So, if you're a vintage hound, and you're not sure where to start with Jicky, Ungaro is your one-and-done shortcut. No multiple formulas (Ungaro II had one run), no weird bottles and concentrations to pick through (Ungaro comes only in EDT concentration), and no b.s. with the civet (Ungaro's civet is no joke). I'll let you decide which road to take.  

Victoria (Lattafa)

Basic Victorian Bitch

There's fine perfumery, and then there's Basic Bitch Juice. 

Let me make the distinction: fine perfumery entails the complex and abstract blending of accords that, when conjoined a certain way, create something moving on both a sexual and intellectual level. Think Mitsouko, Catherine Deneuve's signature, and picture her naked in a bathtub in Pola X (1999). Mitsouko = Not that Basic. 

Basic Bitch Juice is bright-fruity meets intense, sugar rush vanilla, followed by six hundred sprays and an influencer vid gushing about the compliments she gets wearing it. Sweet, saccharine, edible, evoking only calories and candy. In other words, even a coma patient would find it agreeable, but nobody finds it particularly interesting.

Such is Lattafa's Victoria. It's trashy in a good way. Often compared to lemon meringue, I think it smells closer to shortbread lemon squares baked by a chef with a fondness for ethyl maltol. I smell Victoria and immediately think, "Basic Bitch." She never stopped celebrating her "dirty thirty." She shops at Poshmark. Spends $150 a week on Starbucks. Pulls her hair up in severe ponytails all day, every day, instead of just getting a pixie cut. Melts for other people's dogs but shudders at the thought of having children. And she exclusively wears perfumes that smell like cotton candy. It doesn't smell good to her if it isn't identical to what she can stuff in her face and feel guilty about as she goes for seconds. Hell, she's even named Victoria.

With all of that said, I should be fair to Victoria (the perfume); while it won't win awards for originality, it should get noticed for being incredibly well made, and well heeled. The box is studded with leather siding meant to resemble the corinthian style of Victorian fainting couches, and frankly it looks great. The faux marble patina on the box and bottle evoke cold marble staircases and gothic horror. If I didn't know better, I'd look at it and think I was in for a dusty rose chypre. Instead, the fragrance opens with a pert blend of fizzy lemon aldehyde and d-limonene, which I feel leans into an orange character as it dries, with distinct nuances of neroli and petitgrain lending greenness and depth. Maybe a careful dose of something like valencene is in there. Clearly they were going for a Meyer lemon, and they did a fair job. This smells convincingly edible-citrus. 

Eventually, a pastry-like accord shows up, and this is where the fragrance begins to resemble a graham-cracker-crusted lemon square to me. Its subtle florals still wisp along in the background, undergirded by an ever-present ethyl-maltol sugary sweetness that is probably the only annoying aspect of this thing, at least in its first hour. As a creamy vanilla accord wells up in the base, this spun-sugar effect begins to cohere better, and by the five hour mark, it's basically a great big fluffy vanilla with a halo of candied lemon. Projection is modest and longevity is longer than a CVS receipt, so you'll get a work day and then some out of it. Victoria is both fresh and warm, another plus, as it works well in both winter and summer. It's like a splicing of traditional lemon cologne and vanilla cookie candle, or perhaps just the cookies, an unadorned and direct gourmand. 

It does smell good, overall. There's no arguing that. And the floral facets of neroli and petitgrain do inject some much-needed sophistication into an otherwise Basic scent profile. The vanilla is very foody and overly sweet, what with the ethyl maltol and whatever other candy flavoring is in there, and you really have to like gourmands to wear this on a regular basis. Not really my thing, but every once in a very blue moon, I get the urge to wear a good vanilla, and Victoria is definitely a good vanilla. To me, personally, it reads as a serviceable post-shave fragrance that strays well over the border of common 20th century citrus-vanilla barbershop tropes, and thus is worth having around. I find it works pretty well with Limacol aftershave/cologne splash, which basically smells like one-note mentholated Meyer lemon (and is severely underrated imo). 

It's a quality perfume, but it leaves me wondering, why? Who briefed this thing? Who woke up one day and said, "Lattafa, you must clone Dolce&Gabbana's Devotion, and put a Caffè Sicilia spin on it!"  Then gussy it up with cod Victoriana and a blue-marbled bottle that looks like a prop from a Roger Corman film. Why, Lattafa? Why?