Bergdorf’s
Portia talked about immortelle in a recent post and that sent me off to Surrender to Chance for a few samples (including the one he bought- coming in a future review.)
But for me the GOAT. the original, the reference scent of immortelle is Sables.
A bouquet of Immortelle
Sables came out in 1985 and I do remember it as being very strange. Especially considering that, at the time, AG was known as the house of delicate white flowers and citrus: Hadrien and Eau de Lavande held up the masculine end while Folavril and Eau de Ciel was doing their duty on the women’s side. Yes, Eau de Monsieur did kind of travel the same ground but Sables really turned it up to 11.
Whenever I smell Sables I am taken back to NYC where i first smelled it. This was the New York City of the early 80’s, before Giuliani and the big clean-up (for better or worse.) Some wag at the time that you could get rabies from just sitting in a Times Square movie theater and they weren’t exaggerating. Much. Urban blight still, well, blighted block after block in New York, even in the trendy East Village where I lived.
Perfect Sables weather..
At Bergdorf’s however, it was, as always, perfectly serene. I remember it as being fall, with the smell of roasting chestnuts in the air (do they still do that? I thought and still do think they taste vile but the smell is so 80’s New York in winter it’s transportive.) and a wooly scarf and tweed jacket pulled up against the cold..
Me, back in the 80’s. I was an ovum.
IDK if the sample I received is vintage or not (and I am too lazy to unearth my bottle to compare) but when I smelled it the memory of old New York and my reckless, feckless yoof came running back.
AG is the original (and best IMHO) packaging
What does it smell like? A lot of people say that it reminds them of pancake syrup and that’s a part. The discernible cinnamon in there does sort of reinforce the effect, but in a way that’s just maximum comfort. Reading Raymond Chandler by a roaring fire on a stormy night comforting. Black tea and black pepper take it out of Mrs. Butterworth territory: It’s not just for breakfast anymore.
Sables is apparently still out there. I am not sure that you can get it retail but it’s out there on eBay and at decanters like Surrender to Chance, where I got mine.
Are you a fan of immortelle? Let us know in the comments.
Photos: My iPhone, Pexels, Wikimedia Commons
Immortelle is Not. My. Friend. Gives me the ICK & heebeegeebees. Nausea & headache inducing 1000%.
Think I’ve mentioned this before but I fell for Songes & couldn’t afford a bottle. Obviously ordered a decant/large sample. It arrived, I tore into it & copiously sprayed myself. BLEUGH!!! Sables not Songes. Dunno where the mistake was made but no amount of scrubbing/alcohol/sterilising wipes/bathing could remove it. I stank like curry for what felt like a week. It’s called immortelle for a reason. Stinks like death yet refuses to die. The worst cumin & asafoetida cross ever.
I was in need of counselling for a decade, might still need therapy even now.
Oooh then this might actually ki(( you.
Alas… not an immortelle fan. At All. But I am ( still) a huge fan of Bergdorf.
And of you!
:: btw… I remember my first time back in Central Park, post Big Clean ( which I wasn’t aware of)… it was .. startling, to say the least, with repaired and freshly painted benches and no syringes anywhere… like Disneyland!::
I am not one of those who blanket hated Giuliani for cleaning up NY. Someone had to. It just isn’t a city I could live in. Not without piles of money anyway.
Love immortelle! Serge Lutens Le Participe Passe is a warm, cozy blanket of immortelle. Sables was my first exposure to the note! Presently I have a bunch of immortelle plants in my garden and I love running my hands through them to pick up the scent. As an aside, I’ve always wished I had moved to New York in my 20s. Would have been an adventure!
Why don’t I remember that one?
Your 20’s is perhaps the best (if only) time one could put up with New York. The hoops you have to go through just to do laundry. Cute and edgy and funky in your 20’s. Just kind of sad at 60.
I think it was released in 2018 and you really have to like immortelle to like it. I love rich, syrupy style perfumes so it was perfect for me. Still remember the hours spent at the laundrymat during college. Don’t get me started on how there need to be concerts that start on time and have comfy chairs. I’ve seen people like Alejandro Escovedo and Steve Earle at a small performance room in the Seattle Symphony building. It was a perfect venue!
I think I remember it. I think it’s gone now.
What Dina says about your NYC memories, such fun! Sables is kind of A Lot for/to me, although I admire it. I appreciate the lesser immortelle dosage of AG Monsieur and am also grateful I have a bunch of older, original bottle AGs.
AG was brilliant and because it was one of the first kind of under-rated. Time for a rediscovery.
Sables really needs cold weather to sing. But I did get compliments.
Did a “search by notes” and apparently I am not a fan of immortelle. Like, at all. It’s in none of any of my collection. Which tracks because it’s a gourmand-ish scent, and that’s not my wheelhouse. However. I loved, loved reading about your memories of fall in NYC in the 80s, and had such a strong yearning to be there once again to visit and experience the things I missed out on. Like all the high-end department store shopping — the 3 Bs! I went to NYC at least 5 times throughout the 80s decade for different purposes, but this was decades before the start of my perfume hobby.
I wasn’t nearly the fume head I am now (how could I be on that budget?) but I did love AG..
I think I will look at the pre-covid shopping in Beverly Hills wistfully in future.
Love, love, love immortelle. Even when it gets decidedly hard work, like Sables. I haven’t seen this anywhere in a long time, but there’s a weird perfumery about a half hour’s drive in a town that is known as a retirement area for wealthy conservatives that stocked Goutal and had this. I haven’t been there for probably close to 15 years. It’s not a fun town.
Anyway, I love your NYC nostalgias. It makes me miss Takashimaya and Bendels, and indeed how gritty the city was. If you watch influencers now everything 14th street and south is cleaned up and very expensive.
Yes it has cleaned up. But the sad fact is that a lot of what they have (especially housing) is old and wasn’t designed to be nice in the first place: I lived in Alphabet City and I was considered livin’ large because we had a view of the park and out bathtub was actually IN the bathroom..
Those are the less sepia-toned NY memories I have..
I had a friend who lived near Little Italy in a 5th storey walk up. Bath in the kitchen, toilet in the hall. It was actually a really nice building.
Some of them are. This one was not. I can just imagine what they’re paying now since a 2 bedroom in the next block over (not with a park view) is almost $7k and our apartment was the whole floor in a tenement walk-up.
I love that photo Tom. Like a Hollywood call boy from the series.
IMMORTELLE! One of my all time fave notes. There is a current bottle and backup of Sables here. Such a rare beauty but a little too flamboyant for some moments. I need to be very careful with my spritzes or it can overwhelm even me.
Portia xx
SL is the queen of “Go Steadily In Application” scents. This one won’t go toxic like Miel de Bois can but it can be suffocating if overapplied.
I can’t answer whether I’m a fan of immortelle or not, though I would remember if I hated it or loved it. It’s a note I should like. I do know it’s in L by Lolita Lempcika, which I love. Also, Voyages Imaginaires – Camille Goutal/Isabelle Doyen – have a perfume called L’ Eau des Immortels with the main note being immortelle. I am a fan of this line and will be adding a sample of L’Eau des Immortels to an order I am in the process of putting together.
Great picture! Youth, the best time of everyone’s life to be a bit (or more) wild and crazy and free!
Immortelle can get cloying and Sables skates right up to that edge. Eau de Monsieur had the same note just far less of it. (Fragrantica says it’s from 2013 but I know I had older bottles I got heavily discounted at TJ Maxx (Formerly Loehmann’s and now an empty building) on La Cienega. So I think it was more like 1983 when it came out.