Trésor, Paris, Eternity, Sophia Grojsman made some of the most famous perfumes of the eighties. They were huge hits and made vast amounts for her company IFF – who gave her the title of Vice President, and no doubt a fat salary.
What’s unusual about her oeuvre is the fact that it’s so uniform. Her perfumes are nearly all soft pink rosy bouquets, with satellites of cream, powder, violet, spices, woods and musk, which move in-and-out of orbit as you smell down through the list.
Grojsman never strayed from her chosen path, and in this she is like one of the more influential artists of the 19th century – Paul Cézanne, who painted Mont Sainte-Victoire between thirty and eighty one times, depending on who you believe. Grojsman wasn't that prolific, but during her golden hour she authored twenty two perfumes, all of which were based on the same theme. She was so attached to it she even gave it a name, the Hug Me accord.
Vanderbilt -which set the ball rolling- is the prototype; it’s bitter-sweet pink and rosy, a powdery-creamy bouquet. Each perfume after that takes the basic outline and decorates it in different ways; Paris has a huge dose of violets, Champagne is a litchee cocktail doused in bubbly, Jaïpur has an accent of spicy tea. Spellbound is woody-spicy, Eternity is woody-musky and Kashâya has a slight watery air; each one has it’s own twist to the tale. Trésor -which is probably the most famous of them all- is actually the most bland, having none of the foibles of its sisters.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Grojsman’s heyday was in the eighties and the early nineties, so these days most of her works have been forgotten by the buying public. They may have gone, but they haven’t been forgotten by the perfume industry…
The inspiration for this article came when I was walking down the road the other day, and smelled the same kind of odour three times in two hours. It wasn't my sillage, but a soft creamy pink-fruity accord – with a slight backing of florals. It isn't the type of fruity floral that whops you on the nose with synthetic berries, and it isn't a fruchouli with red neon fruits over sour patchouli. It's less insistent – and more demure than that; it’s soft and creamy-pink. In short, it smells a bit like the Hug Me accord in a new dress; it's like Champagne watered down for easy consumption – a sort of Hug Me Prosecco.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
But the fact that echoes of the Hug Me accord can still be heard today isn’t the only thing to say about Grojsman’s work.
As well as being an obsessive stylist -who worked the same theme over and over again- she was a technician of the highest order. Trésor isn’t notable for its odour but its structure is revolutionary.
Where classical perfumery is based around head, heart and base accords that develop and fade in sequence, Trésor is quite different. It's a monolithic structure based on four materials: Hedione, Methyl Ionone, Iso E Super and Galaxolide. Mixed in roughly equal proportions, they make up around 80% of the formula. This structural core is then decorated with conventional accords to give it accent and flavour.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Trésor is based on the technique of overdosing materials, but the idea was not new in 1990, it had been around since 1966 when Edmond Roudnitska put -what was for the time- a large dose of Hedione into Eau Sauvage. The idea slowly caught on, and in 1971, N°19 was released which contained 15% of a rose accord, 20% of a muguet accord, 12% Vertofix -as well as vetiver and woody notes- and more than 20% Hedione.
Grojsman then upped the ante with 40% of White Linen being just Vertofix and Galaxolide, a percentage that was then doubled in Trésor – and Spellbound after it. The idea was soon copied of course, with works like Cašmir and Dune also using large doses of synthetic molecules.
According to Calkin & Jellinek ‘this new generation of perfumes … amounts to a revolution in the world of creative perfumery' – and it was Sophia Grojsman who was leading the charge.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Just like Cézanne, whose flat planes of colour revolutionised painting and took Impressionism into the age of Cubism, Grojsman took the floral bouquet of classical perfumery and set it a new style of linear perfume, which -forty years on- is still around today, in one guise or another.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Cézanne with his blocks of colour
influenced Picasso with his blocks of tone.
Grojsman, with her odor blocks wrapped in pink cashmere
influenced a new style of perfumery.
Thanks for reading.
Please make a pledge to help me continue with this sort of work.
Certainly not a one trick pony, not all of her portfolio (not all of which is public) is based on this 'hug me' accord. But even if it was, anyone who formulates appreciates the difficulty in rendering such beautiful fragrances even with a tried and tested structure. It's not a guarantee for the tenacity and diffusivity of individual notes you want, nor their beauty.