Guerlain Habit Rouge Review – The Favourites – Jean-Paul Guerlain; 1965

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

Unlike many classic perfumes that are in my life today, Habit Rouge did not feature in my childhood. No. 5. White Linen. Opium. Aramis. Aromatics Elixir. They, and others, were very much a part of the scent-scape of my younger years. But, for various reasons, Guerlain wasn’t a house that made its presence felt on my radar until I was older. 

In some ways, I’m pleased I first encountered so many epic achievements of olfactory creation when I was an unashamedly perfume-loving adult. Shalimar, Nahema, Mitsouko, L’Heure Bleue, Jicky — how wonderful to be able to discover them not by accident, but by conscious design. To seek them out, like Holy Grails at the end of some fragrant quest. That’s how Habit Rouge came into my consciousness: a deliberate hunt for this masculine classic about which I’d read and heard so much. An icon of French perfumery. An impeccable reworking of Shalimar. A career milestone for its maker, Jean-Paul Guerlain. 

I loved it from the moment I first smelt it. So much so, that I started wearing it at special occasions, making it the signature scent of birthdays, Christmases, anniversaries, important family gatherings. It was a way of indicating – to myself, as much as to anyone else – that I wasn’t just wearing perfume. I was wearing one of my most precious perfumes. Perhaps the most precious. So there’s no doubt that it held a very important place in my collection. But I didn’t realise quite how deeply it had worked its way inside me until I was temporarily parted from it. 

Almost exactly ten years ago, Madame Persolaise and I found ourselves stuck in Istanbul after a certain Icelandic volcano caused thousands of flights to be cancelled. The novelty of the situation quickly wore off. The need to spend only one more day in this most fascinating of cities soon turned into an extension with no end in sight. At the time, some meteorologists talked about planes being grounded for as long as thirty days. There was no way we could stay put for that long, the delights of the Grand Bazaar notwithstanding. We had jobs to go back to, families, responsibilities. 

So we decided we had to find an alternative way of returning home. To cut a long story short, we went by rail, a voyage that would have been one of the most enjoyable I’ve ever undertaken, had it not been fraught with so many stresses and uncertainties. I started writing about it over on The Other Blog (click here if you’re interested, but be warned: I haven’t checked whether the passage of time has been kind to this piece) because there was just so much of the experience that I wanted to share with others. But as far as today’s post is concerned, the important point is this: while I was plying train guards with vodka or buying gorgeous Serbian icons or being bowled over by Koln Cathedral, I was constantly imagining the things I wanted to do as soon as we returned home. And to my surprise, one of the thoughts that kept drifting into my head was that I wanted to smell my Habit Rouge. 

Sure enough, that is exactly what I did. A week after we pulled out of Sirkeci Station in Istanbul, I walked through the doorway of the haven that is Maison Persolaise, dumped our bags, went into my study and reached for the eau de toilette (still my favourite version) of Guerlain’s masterpiece. The effect on me was profound, but easy to describe with just a few words: I was home. But why – and how – had this particular fragrance made such a dent in my psyche? 

Much as I’d adored it, I’d always thought that my response to it was quite intellectual. I admired the brightness, the radiance of the citrus top note. I was impressed with the papery dryness – you can almost run your fingers across it – of the leather, incense and herbs in the mid-section. I was in awe of the panache with which the vanilla is dosed in the base: so sweet, so dandified, so ‘feminine’. And yet, in contrast with the heart, so very, very right.

I always liked the scent’s place in olfactory history: the first ambery composition designed specifically for men. I enjoyed the many complex ideas it puts forward about masculinity: virility, dynamism, softness, soulfulness, sensuousness all rolled into one heart-breakingly poetic whole. I never ceased to be amazed by how it seemed to play with light. Indeed, it had always struck me as having a very distinct luminosity, like certain spots on the planet that are memorable for the way the sun makes its presence felt in their skies. I’m thinking here of locations like the Côte d’Azur or Marrakesh or Rajasthan. Habit Rouge has its own light too: a broad beam of whiteness, piercing through a gap in some ancient wooden shutters, picking out a few particles of dust floating in the air. 

Clearly, this was a scent I liked very much indeed. After all, in the years preceding our Turkish adventure, I’d thought highly enough of it to make it the fragrance of key family gatherings. But why was it the smell of home? Why did I feel that strong rush to pick it up and bury my nose in it as soon as I stepped across the threshold? 

The truth is: I don’t know. For some reason, it has chimed with a deeply-buried territory in my internal landscape, but I haven’t yet found out what that reason is. And I mostly don’t want to. There have been moments when I’ve tried to ‘work it out’: to break up the jigsaw puzzle into its components and examine each piece on its own. But I try to resist that particular urge as much as possible. I’d rather remain ignorant. I’d rather stay under the spell of the magic. I’d rather just close my eyes, breathe in and be filled with the heart-calming certainty that I know where I am. Home. 

Persolaise

To read a special post which marked the 50th anniversary of the release of the scent, please click on this link: Guerlain Habit Rouge 50th anniversary review.

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