Vintage Caron Bellodgia

We had a brief good weather respite: no rain and mild temps. I was thankful. Gone now though.

Another flood meeting is being discussed, but I don’t think I can stomach it.

Anyway, February is my birthday month and I sort of shrugged my shoulders and did some damage simply because it felt right (there you go: not much of a justification but it will do).

I finally bit the proverbial bullet and bought a 50ml bottle of Perfumer H Smoke – because every time I’ve worn my sample it’s made me swoon and the juice in the sample bottle is getting quite low. It clearly tickles something in my perfume being, so now I own it.

I also was tooling around Surrender to Chance even though I keep telling myself the shipping from the US is silly and found myself looking at Bellodgia. Caron is not my classic house. That’s Guerlain. I can wear some Chanels and Diors but not much from Caron works that well on me. And the masculines in general are better.

But years ago, I read an article in UK Vogue about Dark Lady scents (ie, pongy stuff) in which it was included.

Since then, it’s stuck in my head (nose). Whenever I’ve mentioned it, people have offered some very interesting looking perfumes to try that might scratch the itch. But most are in the US and I’m really trying not to even think about things that might originate there (after saying the above about trawling StC).

But a decant of vintage EdT just seemed too good to pass up (using the excuse of bday month). So, I ended up with one.

The first Bellodgia was released in 1927. Earnest Daltroff was the nose. Notes include carnation, rose, jasmine, violet, lily of the valley, clove, sandalwood, vanilla and musk. What a straight-forward list versus all the kitchen sink ones.

It was discontinued and reissued at least twice. I asked StC what ‘vintage’ my decant is but haven’t yet heard back.

The opening of this is a lovely scratchy carnation-violet on me, with a strangely minty accord, and with a definite something skanky under it all – even so early in its development. I wonder about the carnation. Modern ones aren’t supposed to have a scent, but I’ve read about older style Cottage Pinks, which are supposed to be quite fragrant.

As it opens up, it gets peppery – maybe the clove and carnation? And a bit stronger. As noted above, my decant is EdT and due to my lower body temp doesn’t go completely boom which is actually rather nice. It’s definitely not quiet – it just doesn’t scream at you.

And then I could smell the rose which is a wonderful foil to the peppery-spicy other notes.

Deeper into its development – which, as an aside, is quite linear (actually, I think legible is a better descriptive) in the way of classical perfumes – we’re talking a deeper rose, modified by the sandalwood. It’s still peppery but less pongy.

The drydown is interesting. Rather than just the usual sweet or resinous thing you get a lot now, there’s a weird, slightly grassy undercurrent of what otherwise would be a slightly peppery floral musk.

Longevity is very good for an EdT, like at least eight hours.

All in, really pleased I got this decant after all the years of mooning over the perfume.

Anyone own any of the various iterations?

Pics: Pexels and mine