Remarkable People – aromatic and light and joyful

 ^{Josephine Baker, Paris, 1927 by Walery - wikimediacommons.org}

From: Lisa

Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2013 10:15 PM

To: gwen@perfumeniche.com

Subject: Finding josephine baker

Hello!

I was given your info from a friend when I asked her to look out for a fragrance for me. I have been nursing my sample of the discontinued etat libre d'orange Josephine Baker. I have no clue how to track down fragrances as I am very new to the hobby. Any information that would lead me to my beautiful lady would be so very appreciated. Have a great night!

Lisa (not her real name)

I must admit that when I received this email, I had never heard of the fragrance, so I was of little help to Lisa-not-her-real-name. But my curiosity was piqued, and so the hunt was on. Here’s what I found out: Joséphine Baker was a small batch fragrance made exclusively for European Sephora stores by French niche line Etat Libre d`Orange in 2010. It was extremely popular and sold out fast. The original fragrance was reworked and renamed 'Remarkable People' and launched in 2015.

But let’s back it up a bit to Josephine Baker, the St-Louis-born French dancer, singer, and actress who conquered Paris in the 1920s with her erotic dancing wearing nothing but a skirt made of a single string of artificial bananas.

Josephine Baker was a remarkable woman who succeeded by breaking the rules, just the perfect inspiration for a perfume house that thrives on provocation.

Remarkable People opens bright and lively with a note of tart, citrusy grapefruit along with a fizzy effervescence from a champagne accord. I close my eyes and hear a champagne cork pop and smile. This is fun. A note of cardamom adds a little spicy warmth that’s the perfect foil for the grapefruit and champagne. It also leads to the heart where I smell a light note of luscious, indolic jasmine - just enough to thread an exotic floral dimension throughout the fragrance. Then, I smell a gentle note of aromatic curry, its spicy warmth intensified with black pepper. It’s unexpected and exciting. The base is resinous from labdanum and woody from sandalwood. The notes list something called ‘lorenox’, which is an aromatic molecule developed by the Research and Development Department of MANE that has woodsy, ambery and leathery facets. In Remarkable People, it’s the woodsiness and leather aspects I smell the most on me.

The drydown is aromatic, light and joyful. It’s such a pleasure to wear, that it’s hard to resist spritzing it on every day, just to experience it, which, from what I read, seems to have been the essence of a Josephine Baker performance.

I have emailed Lisa-not-her-real-name to tell her about Remarkable People. Having never tried the Joséphine Baker, I can’t speak to the differences between it and Remarkable People. I will say this however, both fragrances have the same notes listed and both were created by nose Cécile Matton, so let’s hope they are similar enough to satisfy all the Joséphine Baker-ophiles out there. I know it satisfies me.

Check out Remarkable People in our Shop.