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Post by Azar

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Hello APJ,

In early December one of my young piano students wanted to try playing the Christmas classic “Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson. I rummaged through my semi-organized music library for an easy version but all I came up with was an old collection of Anderson’s own piano arrangements. The student took one look at “Sleigh Ride” and immediately decided it wasn’t for her. (She obviously was not yet convinced by my mantra “Fear No Musical Score”.) We looked at the other pieces in the collection and when I played a little bit of “Forgotten Dreams” (1954) we both knew we had found a good match.

Later that evening I looked at the music again. Every piece seemed to be a distillation of a memory. As I played “Forgotten Dreams” I found myself as a child in the 1950s, sitting in front of an old radio, listening to Leroy Anderson’s music. A sudden “fast forward” brought me to the mid 1990s when several of my piano students were learning to play the same music. With these ’90s musical memories came a recollection of fragrances I’d worn at the time. I recalled not only the scents but also the bottles, the boxes and where I had purchased them. While playing “Forgotten Dreams” one fragrance in particular came to mind:

L`Eau De Monteil by Germaine Monteil 1995

Forgotten Dreams

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Spices, orange blossom, sea notes, jasmine, powdery notes

Most perfume related sites and blogs list the creation of L’Eau de Monteil as either 1995 or 1996. I could swear I’d purchased a bottle a couple of years earlier than that. I couldn’t find any information on the perfumer who actually created the scent. The designer Germaine Monteil died in 1987. (I’ll be telling her story and reviewing more of her fragrances in an up-coming post).

Once again I went rummaging around, but this time in my even less organized perfume storage. I discovered my stash of L’Eau de Monteil, including three full 15 ml pure perfumes, one partially used 50 ml EDP and one full 100 ml spray still sealed in the box. It seems that L’Eau de Monteil had been a favorite!I picked up the used EDP and gave myself a generous blast and then dabbed on some pure perfume for good measure.

Again I found myself time traveling, but not to the 1990s, as I would have expected, but to my childhood in Florida and to a dark and eerily quiet, semi-tropical garden. I found myself crossing a bridge over a pond (or was it a stream?) the banks crowded with plants that I called “elephant ears” (.). The air was thick with the odors of moving water, jasmine, wet earth and sweet rotting leaves. The smell was at once fresh and spicy, earthy and very aquatic. This combination of scents was unique to this particular garden in 1957. I did not encounter the same fragrance again until I discovered L’Eau de Monteil sometime in the mid 90s and rediscovered it in late 2013, thanks to the music of Leroy Anderson.

Thousands of fragrances and pieces of music are created every year. It is inevitable that most of these and the dreams that inspired them will be lost or forgotten. That being said, it is wonderful and strange how one memory leads to another and yet another. I am forever amazed how music and fragrance can “fold” time and space (a memory from the sci-fi classic “Dune”) and return us to events and places of long ago to remember and relive our “Forgotten Dreams”.

Ebay and Amazon seem to be the only places left to find L`Eau De Monteil, you can still grab a BNIC 100ml for under $100

L`Eau De Monteil GIVEAWAY

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week we will have TWO winners:

Who will each receive:
1 x 2ml decant of Germaine Monteil L’Eau de Monteil
1 x 2ml decant of a “mystery” fragrance
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOW DO YOU WIN?

Open to everyone worldwide who follows AustralianPerfumeJunkies via eMail, WordPress, Bloglovin or RSS. Please leave how you follow in the comments to be eligible. I must be able to check that you follow so if you have an email address on your gravatar that’s different to your follow address then please email me so I know. Yes, you can start following to enter, in fact it’s encouraged.

You must tell me how you follow APJ

AND

Do you have a perfume memory that you would like to share or a forgotten moment that came to life because of music or scent? Please leave comment to be eligible for today’s give-away

Extra Chance?
Tweet: @OzPerfumeJunkie L’Eau de Montiel GIVEAWAY http://wp.me/p3PURw-2ou #Perfume #Giveaway

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Thursday 16th January 2014 10pm Australian EST and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winners will be chosen by random.org or some other more fun way at the discretion of Azar, our host for this giveaway
The winners will have till Sunday 19th January 2014 to get in touch (portia underscore turbo at yahoo dot com dot au) with their address or the prize will go to someone else.
No responsibility taken for lost or damaged goods in transit.

Photos Taken by Azar unless otherwise stated.