03/29/2021
FvSpee
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Pearl findings and mirages
Romania in the interwar period was a multi-ethnic country in constant ferment, with huge Hungarian, German and Jewish minorities, plus Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Tatars, Armenians; and Bucharest was a lively, bustling metropolis with ambitions to rival Paris. While, it seems to me, the history of Romanian perfumery has not yet been written (and perhaps never will be), it seems that one thing did not exist in the Bucharest of that time, to which nothing was foreign and in which everything was for sale: a perfume industry of its own worth mentioning. Domestic production was probably limited to small runs of colognes in local drugstores and pharmacies.
In the years from 1938 onwards, the country tried out the most diverse alternating varieties of right-wing dictatorships, and also dabbled a little in warlike and genocidal undertakings; undertakings all of which, as was to be expected, held few blessings and at least as little enchantingly fragrant lightness. After the fronts had swiftly changed in 1944, one hoped for a discreet resumption of the grandeur, glamour and party mood of the two good decades. Surprisingly, the armed guests from the Soviet Union present in the country had plans that differed in nuance.
When King Michael abdicated in 1948, the decisive argument for which may have been a loaded Tokarev TT-33 aimed at him, large-scale industry, that is, anything exceeding the dimensions of a workshop with more inventory than a Schumacher's hammer, was taken over by planning bureaucrats who decided after only four years that Romania needed world-class perfume production. Where the necessary apparatus, formulas, and raw materials came from has not been researched; possibly the young workers' firm belief in the bright (and fragrant) future was enough for a miraculous virgin production ex nihilo.
Thus was born in Bucharest in 1952 the state enterprise Macul Roșu (Red Poppy), which - probably in the early 70-ies - was renamed Miraj. The new name is pronounced exactly like the French Mirage and also means the same thing: mirage, mirage. In the years up to 1990, the company is said to have launched a total of 170 fragrances, of which about 10 are catalogued here on Parfumo (where Macul Roșu and Miraj are recorded as two separate brands).
Among these is Perla, the pearl. A 20 ml bottle filled to the brim with this fragrance flew under my nose in a gift box that was opulent by communist standards, but poorly glued together from a Western or contemporary point of view; it was let fly by the highly esteemed Sniffsniff, whom I would like to formally thank with a deep bow for this lovely gesture. It is exactly the bottle that is pictured here, recognizable by the fingerprint-like peculiar crack in the cap.
In the neck of the flacon is, since apparently already the proletarian producers distrusted the tightness of the screw cap, an extra plastic stopper, so that despite the fissure in the lid of the fragrance since its production (it is the batch, at the time one would have spoken in Romania probably rather of the "Lot", so production lot, N.I. 78/66, so that a production in 1978 can be assumed) was not exposed to any oxidation.
Suffered the Qualitält, however, obviously, because already visually cloudy flocculation is visible in the liquid. The stopper boldly solved and poured a few drops on the skin, it is a few clammy, oppressive minutes to get through. For a short while there is a countertenor-like, metallic sound in the air, like swirling iron dust from a sintered goods factory of a metallurgical combine in Pitești or Galați. This, however, then happily dissipates as quickly as one has blown away cobwebs in the vaults of a Transcarpathian haunted castle.
Underneath, the scent unfolds quite obviously olfactorily intact, and it is not objectionable. Its olfactory pyramid is probably lost until doomsday, and I doubt whether any reader of this forum will ever be able to test whether my description is accurate or freely fantasized, but I would want to speak of a lush ground-honest, stock of Ukrainian curd soap (which is meant as a compliment!) saturated with a moderately heavy, compact, but by no means sweetly aparent, somewhat old-fashioned floral bouquet (along the lines of lilac or hyacinth). As another thoroughly appealing, not at all lumpenproletarian bumbling along, spicy counterpoint we encounter something that I would guess (without any pre-comments, scent pyramids and phone jokers) to be something like Cuban allspice.
All in all, the gift box, which opens like an oyster and is decorated with touching floral patterns, actually reveals a small olfactory 'Perla', an adult, distinctive, but not particularly erotic, soapy spice floriental of Balkan-Socialist character.
The fragrance - along with the packaging reflecting like a mirage past times and faraway places onto my Berlin desk of the year 2021 - I will, as soon as travel is possible again, donate to the wonderful, ironic little Timisoara cellar museum 'Muzeul Consumatorului Comunist' (Museum of the Communist Consumer). And what I learned about Romanian perfumery while researching for this commentary, without being able to bring it in here - this might turn into a nicely illustrated blog - another time.
In the years from 1938 onwards, the country tried out the most diverse alternating varieties of right-wing dictatorships, and also dabbled a little in warlike and genocidal undertakings; undertakings all of which, as was to be expected, held few blessings and at least as little enchantingly fragrant lightness. After the fronts had swiftly changed in 1944, one hoped for a discreet resumption of the grandeur, glamour and party mood of the two good decades. Surprisingly, the armed guests from the Soviet Union present in the country had plans that differed in nuance.
When King Michael abdicated in 1948, the decisive argument for which may have been a loaded Tokarev TT-33 aimed at him, large-scale industry, that is, anything exceeding the dimensions of a workshop with more inventory than a Schumacher's hammer, was taken over by planning bureaucrats who decided after only four years that Romania needed world-class perfume production. Where the necessary apparatus, formulas, and raw materials came from has not been researched; possibly the young workers' firm belief in the bright (and fragrant) future was enough for a miraculous virgin production ex nihilo.
Thus was born in Bucharest in 1952 the state enterprise Macul Roșu (Red Poppy), which - probably in the early 70-ies - was renamed Miraj. The new name is pronounced exactly like the French Mirage and also means the same thing: mirage, mirage. In the years up to 1990, the company is said to have launched a total of 170 fragrances, of which about 10 are catalogued here on Parfumo (where Macul Roșu and Miraj are recorded as two separate brands).
Among these is Perla, the pearl. A 20 ml bottle filled to the brim with this fragrance flew under my nose in a gift box that was opulent by communist standards, but poorly glued together from a Western or contemporary point of view; it was let fly by the highly esteemed Sniffsniff, whom I would like to formally thank with a deep bow for this lovely gesture. It is exactly the bottle that is pictured here, recognizable by the fingerprint-like peculiar crack in the cap.
In the neck of the flacon is, since apparently already the proletarian producers distrusted the tightness of the screw cap, an extra plastic stopper, so that despite the fissure in the lid of the fragrance since its production (it is the batch, at the time one would have spoken in Romania probably rather of the "Lot", so production lot, N.I. 78/66, so that a production in 1978 can be assumed) was not exposed to any oxidation.
Suffered the Qualitält, however, obviously, because already visually cloudy flocculation is visible in the liquid. The stopper boldly solved and poured a few drops on the skin, it is a few clammy, oppressive minutes to get through. For a short while there is a countertenor-like, metallic sound in the air, like swirling iron dust from a sintered goods factory of a metallurgical combine in Pitești or Galați. This, however, then happily dissipates as quickly as one has blown away cobwebs in the vaults of a Transcarpathian haunted castle.
Underneath, the scent unfolds quite obviously olfactorily intact, and it is not objectionable. Its olfactory pyramid is probably lost until doomsday, and I doubt whether any reader of this forum will ever be able to test whether my description is accurate or freely fantasized, but I would want to speak of a lush ground-honest, stock of Ukrainian curd soap (which is meant as a compliment!) saturated with a moderately heavy, compact, but by no means sweetly aparent, somewhat old-fashioned floral bouquet (along the lines of lilac or hyacinth). As another thoroughly appealing, not at all lumpenproletarian bumbling along, spicy counterpoint we encounter something that I would guess (without any pre-comments, scent pyramids and phone jokers) to be something like Cuban allspice.
All in all, the gift box, which opens like an oyster and is decorated with touching floral patterns, actually reveals a small olfactory 'Perla', an adult, distinctive, but not particularly erotic, soapy spice floriental of Balkan-Socialist character.
The fragrance - along with the packaging reflecting like a mirage past times and faraway places onto my Berlin desk of the year 2021 - I will, as soon as travel is possible again, donate to the wonderful, ironic little Timisoara cellar museum 'Muzeul Consumatorului Comunist' (Museum of the Communist Consumer). And what I learned about Romanian perfumery while researching for this commentary, without being able to bring it in here - this might turn into a nicely illustrated blog - another time.
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