Review of Bal à Versailles by aad de gids

with Jean Desprez's Bal a Versailles I had a hell of a trip these last days. (2024) I can still remember buying it in the 1990s. therefor I had to visit the Hague for there was a luxurious niche perfumery. I bought a 50ml Edp at an exorbitant price but had then long passed the 'Oh how expensive it is' line. I HAD to HAVE it. viva consumerism and warehouses as the new temples. but I still remember the scent of this perfume (seems a tautology but I feel it is right) and that proved very handy. because it was, after approximately thirty years the first time again I used this perfume. that is the case with the collection of 260 perfumes. some flacons vanish within the collection. standing behind 100ml flacons (a format I often use and ALWAYS blind-buy, and behind a Creed decanter of 250 ml of Jasmal), the lyre shaped flacon with yet enough gold to shimmer, just stood there. and that was the beginning of a mysterious trip which I never had anticipated. I spritzed two times and UP came a scent I didn't remember from the 1990s. UP came this WALL of 'Petrichor' (the word I just learned by reading fragrantica faithfully) but then still to the N'th degree. it was a scent of thick, heady, hefty, inimpenetrable, rather uniform than facetted, scent of humus, hubris, debris, putrid thickness. I am used to all kinds of ouds. Dusita's Oudh Infini, Terry de Gunzberg's Terryfic Oud and Terryfic oud Extrême. Ex Idolo's Thirty Three, a 30 yrs old chinese oud oil with white roses, the Montales, sultan Pashas Douce Amere (Bitter Sweet) oud attar for $ 250. al Oudh from l'Artisan Parfumeur, Juliette has a Gun's Midnight Oudh, Maître Parfumeur et Gantier's Oud Extravagant, etc., etc. but THIS was different. yet it immediately reminded me of Creed's Irisia. a perfume which I love (I had almost written 'I adore'). that thick, dense and lush-louche layer of oakmoss, patchouli, ambergris, iris, violet, mimosa, a dense and oversatiated perfume of through-and-through maceration almost upon decay, which I love, coming from the 1980s with all the hooker perfumes and then still the worst. Poison, Obsession, chanel COCO, Giorgio, Knowing, Moschino parfum de toilette, GEM, Nahéma, Creed's Fleur de Bulgarie, Irisia, Vanisia, Tuberose Indiana, etc. but this brick wall of unscent came UP right into my nostrils yet I could endure it for a couple of days. yes it was the scent of decay, wilthed roses, tubéreuse, jasmine, syringa, mimosa, lilies, as also Oriza L. Legrand so masterfully can conceive: Marrions-Nous, Vétiver Bourbon, Relique d'Amour (which someone once described here as 'it develops into an almost ghastly perfume' and I had to laugh loudly), with civet which I also love. it was almost unbearable but then a wonder happened. after a few days of persevering spritzing, suddenly there came islands of what had to be the perfume sans 'Pétrichor', Chypre Mousse, and yet enough 'complicative' for me to appreciate and I REMEMBERED the perfume. not that it was the classical 'a scent, then the memory', but my memory of this perfume in the 1990s. I smelled sandelwood, roses, ylang ylang, lilac, orris, civet and several resins. a 'proto 1980s hooquereuse'. so in came aspects of the real Classic, Amber-Floral-Animalic-Fougere-Chypre perfume and all at once. by using the nozzle (isn't it called thus?) I let the oxygen again in contact with the perfume and had dissipated the BLOCK of mummified perfume in the petite tube and sprayer. I at least wanted to share this story and I DO find it a Versailles-Vercasiste perfume, denoting to the Grand Bals in the Versailles Baroqueries and Jardins, the tons of clothing all participants wore, satin and silk and damast dresses, the Gentlemen these peculiar trousers with 'Flaps', all urinous and sweaty (civet), the Ladies hidden and yet themselves under striatae and striae of make-up. yes it shall be festive and glorious. but above all it is a ripe perfume nor shunning wilthed flowers nor the humid, petrid floors of the forests but even more so the parquetterie on the floors of the Salle des Miroirs.