Jaïpur Homme (Boucheron)

By Andrew

Jaïpur Homme has long been one of my favorite designer fragrances, though it’s not immediately obvious why. After all, it plays in a crowded field of sweet woody oriental scents for men, among which it’s neither the most complex nor conspicuous. It lacks the leather and animalic warmth of Habit Rouge, the complex development of New York, or the distinctive licorice fillip of Body Kouros. Of course, to its credit, it also sidesteps the bombast of A*Men, the saccharine simplemindedness of Pi, and the foody excesses of Le Mâle and Rochas Man. So do I enjoy Jaïpur Homme for what it isn’t? I don’t think so. For middle-of-the-road blandness there’s always Armani Code.

Years of wear have revealed that Jaïpur Homme does in fact have its distinguishing positive qualities. Prime among them is its use of heliotrope, a distinctive and very sweet accord that hovers between powdery vanilla and toasted almonds. To build a masculine fragrance around this accord was daring – even subversive – on perfumer Annick Menardo’s part. The danger wasn’t so much that the resulting composition would smell too sweet – after all, Joop! Homme, A*Men and Le Mâle were already selling well. More problematic was heliotrope’s near-exclusive association with feminine perfumery, most notably as the anchor for Guerlain classics like Après l’Ondée and L’Heure Bleue.

Menardo’s success lay in two gestures. The first was to follow Jacques Guerlain’s example in Après l’Ondée and L’Heure Bleue and offset the heliotrope with a contrasting cool astringent note. Where Guerlain used anise, Menardo chose the snappy licorice note that she employed to such superb effect in that same year’s Lolita Lempicka. The second was her use of cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon to put some hard edges on heliotrope’s inherently bland, pudding-like texture. Her strategy succeeds fully only in Jaïpur Homme’s eau de parfum concentration, where the spices are sharper and more conspicuous. The more commonly available eau de toilette lacks substance and definition, and winds up smelling flat, pale, and generically sweet by comparison.

Jaïpur Homme has one more ace up its sleeve: an unusually well-executed drydown. Whereas many woody oriental masculines of the 1990s (Menardo’s own Lolita Lempicka au Masculin included,) suffer from base notes that are at once abrasively loud and oppressively sweet, Jaïpur Homme dries down to an exquisitely balanced, genteel blend of tonka, amber, and a vey light dose of patchouli. It’s not unreasonable to dislike Jaïpur Homme’s sweetness, and there are plenty of men who can’t get comfortable with its heliotrope, but where its popular gourmand congeners can be crude and ponderous, I find Jaïpur Homme delightfully elegant, urbane, and sophisticated.

Year: 1997

Perfumer: Annick Menardo

Notes: Bergamot, lemon, cardamom, lime, carnation, cinnamon, rose, jasmine, cedar, patchouli, tonka, benzoin