From the Vault: Malle Eau de Magnolia

I grew up (and spent much of my adult life) in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., which JFK famously described as “a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.”* (In case it’s unclear: that’s not a compliment.) It certainly felt like a much more southern town when I was growing up, and although the Northern Virginia suburbs have grown enormously, there’s still the vibe, and the climate.

So, a thing I miss here in the desert is magnolia trees. I never had one in the yard of various places I’ve lived Back East, which is fine by me – the big ones can be messy, and it’s hard to get anything to grow underneath them – but the smaller star magnolias and the enormous proper Southern magnolias feature prominently in my memories. Their blooms have a delightful lemony-green-vanilla smell and a waxy feel, and I loved to stick my face in the flowers as they presented themselves, whether I was a child on a bike or an adult on a walk.

Star magnolias bloom early and are more delicate and whimsical, whereas Southern magnolias could fairly be described as majestic. Stately. Monumental, even. They can grow to 80 feet tall, with a spread of 30 – 50 feet. While their main bloom time is late spring, they also randomly bloom whenever they feel like it; I’ve seen flowers year-round. There’s something vaguely … prehistoric about Southern magnolias, and google confirmed my suspicions: they are “often described as ‘living fossils’ that existed over 100 million years ago, long before dinosaurs went extinct. They are among the oldest flowering plants, evolving before bees, and are designed to be pollinated by beetles.” That’s pretty wild.

Today’s quick review is a shout-out to that classic, Frederic Malle Eau de Magnolia, which comes the closest I’ve found to the scent of magnolia blooms, with the bonus that it lasts surprisingly well on me given how delicate the scent is.  Notes are bergamot, lemon, grapefruit, peach, apricot, oakmoss and patchouli, and the esteemed Carlos Benaïm is the nose.

I couldn’t have guessed any of those individual notes – to me, the citrus at the top makes “lemony” and the fruity middle adds the necessary sweetness, all in one go. The oakmoss and patch I guess help ground it, and if you’ve ever stood near (or under) one of those glorious giant Southern magnolias it’d be the earthy, loamy smell of leaves in the deep shade.

I never paid much attention to Malle’s Magnolia; I was too busy getting lost in other, more weird or aggressive scents like Carnal Flower, and also for the most part I could go smell a magnolia flower if I wanted to. Here, though, with nary a magnolia in sight unless it’s a small star magnolia tucked away in the no-trespass zone of someone’s irrigated and walled garden, I’ve come to appreciate this fragrance a lot more, especially in spring.

Eau de Magnolia comes in a (spendy) body wash and cream in addition to the perfume, which makes sense to me; it doesn’t smell a thing like laundry soap or the ubiquitous musky skin scent, but with a similar kind of soft, all day freshness. I think it’d make a grand signature scent, if I were into that sort of thing.

Do you have a favorite magnolia scent? Do you have a magnolia tree nearby?

*This delightfully clever insult is generally attributed to JFK, although some say he attributed it to “something he’d heard” elsewhere.  Also, one of my favorite D.C. restaurants for a time was called Southern Efficiency, now (sadly) closed.

images via Pexels