Christian Dior Fahrenheit Absolute Review – Francois Demachy; 2009 – The Fork In The Scented Road

I don’t think of myself as nostalgic. Mind you… as soon as I typed those words, I imagined the spying gremlins in my phone raising their little green hands and begging to differ: one of the first things I do every morning is to have a quick scan through Timehop. But I’m not sure that’s about nostalgia. It doesn’t stem from a desire to return to the past. It’s not about some kind of bitter dissatisfaction with the present — feelings which I think are the defining features of angst-filled, nostalgic musings. But, for the last few days, I’ve found my thoughts returning on more than one occasion to Dior Fahrenheit Absolute in a way that has prompted quite a few, unexpected reflections on the last decade.

I’m fairly certain they’ve been caused by journeys. I first came across this now-discontinued Fahrenheit flanker ten years ago, when it had been on the market for just a few months. I was at Warsaw Airport’s Duty Free, about to fly back to the UK after a week in the snow-covered, sub-zero city. Most uncharacteristically for me, I bought the scent straight away: something about the darkness beneath the familiar violet leaf opening proved impossible to resist.

I now find myself about to embark on another winter journey to Poland. I’ve been to the country several times over the last decade, but never during these months, so perhaps that’s why I’ve found myself reaching for Absolute again. Is it a case of my subconscious drawing my thoughts back to the olfactory background of all those years ago?

I’ve enjoyed getting to know it again. Released to mark the 21st anniversary of the original – which I wore incessantly when it appeared, in combination with its soap, deodorant, after shave balm and any other product I could get my hands on – this Francois Demachy re-imagining remains interesting because of its ability to conjure a sense of texture. A decade ago, I found myself thinking there was something fuzzy about it, and that is precisely the word that comes to my mind now. A feeling of being enveloped by scent: an incense-laden defence shield of nocturnal resins somehow made steelier through the inclusion of the violet leaf at the top, minus the petroleum-like blast that had already been excised from the original, thanks to the demands of anti-allergen regulations. Its drydown isn’t especially remarkable: a straightforward combo of woods and vanillic inflections. But the journey towards the final stage isn’t without its highlights. 

By no means is it one of the standout scents in my collection. Nor is it one of my favourite Diors. So I think there must be more at play than a mere repetition of winter journeys to cause my thoughts to keep returning to it at the moment. I suspect it’s more to do with markers and boundaries. 

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that 2009-10 was something of a turning point in perfumery. It was a time when flankers weren’t quite as ubiquitous as they are now (hard to imagine!) and when their arrival brought genuine, and justifiable excitement (for just one example, see the earlier Fahrenheit 32, a few remaining drops of which I continue to treasure). But it was also a moment when the mainstream still just about felt comfortable enough to play with niche codes (which were themselves gaining prominence, of course). And guess what: Fahrenheit Absolute was listed as containing a note of oud. The marketing didn’t make a huge drama of this. Dior didn’t splash the fact across every Dubai-targeted advert. And they didn’t stick those three letters in the composition’s name. And yet, there it was, tucked away in a fairly low-key flanker: the ingredient that was on the verge of gripping the global fragrance industry with unshakeable force. 

I suppose the fact that Dior quickly discontinued Absolute suggests the oud card didn’t work in their favour on this occasion. Or perhaps they just got a clearer sense of where to play it next. Not long after Absolute’s release, the brand gave us the first wave of their ‘exclusive’ collection (which featured Leather Oud) thereby marking the divergence between the mainstream and the ‘haute’: a division which remains with us to this day. At the fork in the fragrant road stands Fahrenheit Absolute.

Finally, the scent has taken on a significance in my own life. Mere weeks after I bought it, I created Persolaise.com, which suggests to me that the idea for it must already have been flitting around in my mind. Some of you will be aware that the site came to life as a means of helping me carry out research for a fiction project. The blog found an audience… I found myself enjoying writing about perfume more and more… and ten years later, here I am, still keeping it going. But back in Feb/Mar 2010, when I hadn’t yet set up a Persolaise Twitter account, when Instagram hadn’t yet been launched and when I never thought I’d see myself on YouTube, my relationship with perfume was undeniably simpler. I suppose Fahrenheit Absolute marks the moment when that began to change. And now it serves as a pointer that some things have travelled full circle, because I’m devoting more time to fiction writing and, fingers crossed, hoping to find an agent and publisher for a piece of work that is nearly complete. 

So much meaning piled onto such an unassuming bottle. But never mind: I think it handles the pressure well. And even though the actual smell of its contents may not have shaken up the perfume world in any profound way, its importance in my personal story seems to keep growing. I wonder what I’ll think of it in another ten years’ time… when I expect I’ll still be trying to convince myself that I’m not a nostalgic person. 

Persolaise

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