Samsara: An oriental fragrance of eternity …
Revolutionary in both its fragrance and its communication campaign, it pays tribute to the scents of Asia. Samsara the mysterious oriental has seduced a number of women now adepts of Zen and its scents from elsewhere.
Samsara a perfume as much as a magnificent story …
In 1989, the illustrious members of the Guerlain family began to lose their powers over the house because it was mainly by happy coincidence that the perfumed composition of Jean-Paul Guerlain was chosen for Samsara. It was the first time that a designer named Guerlain was put in competition with other talents in his house offering, a sign of changing times …
Be that as it may, the pretty Samsara will benefit from an advertising halo beyond compare with the launch of previous perfumes. If it is not yet a question of muse, the advertising film will be filmed by a very famous advertising medium, Jacques Séguéla, who will make Samsara wear the mysterious perfume a shocking slogan “At the dawn of the third millennium, the woman is reincarnated in Guerlain ”.
The universe and the tone of the perfume was given, moreover even before the juice existed. and make us dream in these mystical and almost supernatural spaces, filmed to be even more aesthetic and dreamlike.
“Samsara is a sensual version of seduction, for a woman who has found harmony and balance, in particular thanks to the essential materials of her composition “. Of course, the harmony and balance evoked refer to Zen and Buddhist values which spread more and more in the late 1980s.
When the East balances perfectly with the West for a perfume: Samsara
The red and powerful bottle of Samsara was designed by Robert Granai inspired by the Khmer dancers represented in statues at the Guimet museum. As for the flamboyant red color of the glass, it of course refers to the sacred color of the East which will of course also appear as a watermark in the various visuals for Samsara. Finally, the golden cap is imagined as if to represent the eye of Buddha, synonymous with awakening of consciousness and a great spirituality oriented towards meditation.
Regarding the fragrance of Samsara, imagined by Jean-Paul Guerlain for his companion fond of sandalwood and jasmine, it offers for the first time a rare blend of oriental notes and woody notes, rather rare for women with a era.
However, the citrus top notes, thanks to lemon and bergamot , and aromatic by tarragon, hide well the play of so captivating oriental by opening on green and fresh notes. It is at the heart that the magic of the flower will invade us with the sweetness and exoticism of ylang-ylang, jasmine but also the sweet rose, so dear to the Guerlain family, or even the very Western carnation. It is in the base notes that we will discover the sensual and intoxicating depths of sandalwood, tonka bean, benzoin and vanilla. It should be noted here that sandalwood, chosen and even harvested with care by the perfumer, for the first time in perfumery takes a central place in the scent composition.
If for some, Samsara was, before being a perfume, a commercial concept aimed at boosting Guerlain sales which had been somewhat pending since Chamade in 1969, this is not the case. As a worthy successor to such a beautiful Shalimar, Samsara and its deep and harmonious balances seduce as much as its imaginative and very creative spiritual concept. Like a rebirth, as its name suggests, Guerlain and Samsara will conquer the hearts of women in search of a fragrance with mysterious and powerful charms with a rare trail.
For the first time in its rich history of cult perfumes, the venerable Guerlain house tells us about a perfume even before having composed it. Because Samsara is above all a legend, a gift of love made by a man for his wife, a gift that becomes cult when the loving husband in question is called Jean-Paul Guerlain and he is the official perfumer of the house that bears his name for three generations. Samsara is therefore worn like a perfumed gift that exudes the sweetness of the Orient, a land that makes women of the 80s dream.
Samsara, when the Guerlain house no longer just wants to compose
The Guerlain house remains an absolute benchmark in terms of perfumes, however the 1980s and their flood of opulent, chic and shocking fragrances steal the show from Chamade, L’Heure Bleue and Shalimar. It is time to modernize the image of the old house and Jean-Paul Guerlain has understood it. The perfumer, Jacques Guerlain’s grandson, will therefore go and break the traditions of the house to create the story, the “brief”, of his perfume, before immersing himself in his perfume organ. Samsara will offer the delicate and refined world of Southeast Asia, from Thailand to Tibet. Like a new part of the history of the legendary Shalimar, Samsara will take us on a journey between spicy European scents and opulent Asian flowers.
Moreover, Jean-Paul Guerlain has never hidden his inspiration for Samsara from the work of his grandfather Jacques on the composition of Shalimar. This time, however, the oriental scents are more nuanced, less powerful, more refined in order to adapt to the more sober desires of the women of the early 90s. It should also be noted that the major change in the creative functioning of the Guerlain house will go through a competition of the composition of Jean-Paul Guerlain with other perfumers. One more motivation to compose the most brilliant Samsara there is, although this way of doing things seems far removed from the traditions of the venerable house.
Samsara or the first woody fragrance for women in perfumery
Let’s be clear, if Samsara is a very beautiful oriental, it is above all built on the innovative and majestic accord of sandalwood married to jasmine. A jasmine, which, until the use of Jean-Paul Guerlain for Samsara in 1989, was exclusively reserved for Buddhist religious ceremonies, which gives the flower not only the taste of discovery but also that of a sacred scent . Jean-Paul Guerlain will also be one of the very first perfumers to build a jasmine distillation company on site.
As for sandalwood, it was already used in perfumery before Samsara, but its concentration and its beauty quality are for this oriental, unpublished.
Samsara is therefore one of the first perfumes for women to offer floral-woody accords of intense depth where opulent ylang-ylang and jasmine flower blend with a new Guerlinade composed of tonka beans, sandalwood and vanilla. Faced with these numerous novelties, some will no longer find the Guerlain “spirit” there or others will come to acclaim the very innovative work of Jean-Paul Guerlain. In any case, the innovation and the consequent changes represented by the release of Samsara in 1989 left no one indifferent.
Woody Floral