VINTAGE - Guerlain Fleur de Feu Parfum Oil

Guerlain Fleur de Feu Pure Parfum is another extremely rare and discontinued Guerlain fragrance launched in 1949 and created by jacques guerlain. . Fleur de Feu, which means fiery flower, is a rich hot floral, extremely warm and spicy, almost gourmand like. Extremely well done scent!  

Top Notes: Aldehyde, Honey, Jasmine, and Bergamot.
Heart Notes: Jasmine, Lily of the valley, Rose, Ylang ylang, Musk, Violet, Sandalwood, and Sweet Acacia.
Base notes: Orris, Heliotrope, Vanilla, and Tonka bean.

From Perfume Shrine -  "Fleur de feu was the first Guerlain perfume to celebrate the optimism felt after the end of WWII. Guerlain had only produced the legendary Dawamesk during those difficult years (in 1942 actually), so they were eager to turn a new leaf. Much like Christian Dior had written in his autobiography referring to Miss Dior ("Europe was tired of letting off bombs, all it wanted now was to let off firewords!"), the festivity and joie de vivre inherent in that primal force of nature, fire, has inspired perfumers with connotations of radiance, warmth and passion and Fleur de Feu was masterminded as Jacques Guerlain's generous gift to women. Fleur de Feu is quite rare since it's been discontinued for decades and it's even rarer in extrait de parfum (pure parfum) which I am now going to review...The scent of Fleur de Feu is warm and inviting, a floral almost quasi-gourmand with the plush carnation heart that will be reprised in Atuana in 1952. It shares the rich note that appears in the scorching peppery whiplash of the admirable vintage Poivre by Caron at a time when the perfumer's base Dianthine (first devised in 1902 by Chuit & Naef -its formula now owned by Firmenich, same as with Cyclosia and Iralia) was supremely popular. After all, the original L'Origan by Coty also featured it. Although Fleur de Feu bears the epithet of "fiery" however, the composition here smothers it with decadent flowers of which a rich jasmine and ylang ylang can be very clearly detected, as well as powdery tonalities of iris and vanilla, so characteristic of the Guerlinade accord (supposedly the base that appears like a signature in every vintage and several modern Guerlain fragrances). There seems to be a little benzoin wamth that paired with the butterscotch-like vanilla and a hint of tobacco flower (I might be hallucinating however as to the latter note) might allude to the delights of leisure at home, at a time when women were expected to be efficient homemakers with a roast in the oven and a bavaroise in the fridge, while simultaneously bursting out of their hourglass curvaceous attire. The slight shift in focus from the optimism of l'apres guerre to the bombshell ideal of the 1950s can be witnessed in the retro print advertisements for Fleur de Feu: from the romanticism of the young woman holding a bouquet of flowers to the excited bust of a red-faced Maenad. The parfum concentration is seamless with little progression, a very feminine purring composition that radiates with warmth and stays poised on my skin melding with its intimate effluvium for hours on end."