For the next installment of my perfume review series, I am sampling Petite Cherie by Annick Goutal. Goutal, who passed away in 1999 at the tender age of 53, was an extraordinary woman who came to perfumery from the most unlikely of routes. She began her adult life as a musician, but after a time she made the break from her expected career path and began modeling. Some years into her successful modeling career, she began an association with a classically-trained perfumer in Grasse, France. Through her friend she discovered a talent for fragrance crafting and she began training her nose and learning the craft.
At the time of her death, Annick Goutal had created a line of 25 original fragrances. Goutal’s focus was on recreating a particular emotion with each scent. Every bottle of perfume, for her, was a snapshot of a place, a time, a feeling she wished to share and convey to the world. With Petite Cherie, she seems to be attempting to convey the feeling of a woman who has finally come into herself, joyfully discovering love and discovering her own beauty even as she is begin discovered. A classic French film, also called Petite Cherie, tells the story of a middle aged woman experiencing love for the first time as she finds the man of her dreams. The inference seems clear, and Petite Cherie the fragrance is all about joy and ripeness.
A description from the Annick Goutal website:
“The sweet, fruity, and gourmet notes of peach and pear mixed with the flowery touches of rose musk on a vanilla base. All the na�ve and determined “Child Woman” will be seduced by this Eau de Parfum, with intense feminine chords of fresh roses.”
Petite Cherie Notes, from the Annick Goutal Website:
“Pear, peach, rose musk, cut grass, vanilla”
At first whiff, it is a sweet-tart candied rose, almost a rose masquerading as mimosa. The peach accord is endlessly tart and warm, and it’s effect on the rose is to give it a rosehip preserves quality; sticky and delectable. The cut grass is subtle but just present enough to evoke the feelings of walking barefoot over fresh-cut lawns in bare feet, again keeping with the joyous feeling of the fragrance. The vanilla base does not make an appearance until many, many hours later, and even then the tart peach-inflected rose carries on, a lingering smile after a perfect day of indulgence.
To be sure, this is a huge perfume. One spray will be plenty, and it will be with you from morning till night and possibly into the next morning. But the intensity of the fragrance seems appropriate to the emotions it attempts to convey: is new love not huge? Does it not fully encompass you, flavoring every cell of your being, every interaction with the world? A woman newly in love fairly vibrates with the pleasure of the feelings coursing through her, with the good feelings toward herself and the rest of the world. How fitting, then, for her skin to vibrate as well, with a scent as juicy and delectable, as tingly and bright as the feelings emanating from within. Petite Cherie is first love in a bottle, the springtime of romance. Wear it and feel your heart shiver deliciously in anticipation.
