Category Archives: perfumes in movies

Jeune & jolie (2013)

jeuneetjolie_bornunicornThere are many products on Isabelle’s bathroom shelf: all of them are French.

sanoflore-essence-merveilleuse_bornunicornThe blue bottle on the left is Sanoflore Essence Merveilleuse, a regenerating anti-age night concentrate.

larocheposay_unifiancefoundation_bornunicornThere’s La Roche-Posay Unifiance shine-free foundation.

nuxe_huileprodigieuseseche_bornunicornOne of the most popular French beauty products is Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse. Isabelle uses the sèche version, suitable on face, body and hair.
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There’s a bottle of Nominoë body oil.

chloeperfume_bornunicornThe perfume of choice is Chloé, a floral fragrance created by Amandine Marie and Michel Almairac and launched in 2008. Behind the perfume bottle there’s another Nuxe product in a small tube, but I haven’t been able to identify it. Judging from its content, it could be a travel-size tube or a sample of a product from the Rêve de Miel line.
nominoe_facecleanser_bornunicornLast but not least, another Nominoë product – a gentle foam face cleanser.

Thanks to Mari for the Sanoflore id.

La caduta degli dei (1969)

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There’s a Guerlain flacon montre on the top shelf on the left in Elisabeth Thallmann‘s (Charlotte Rampling) bathroom. I can see no central disc on the bottle, so it’s impossible to tell what cologne it contained. In the same film, Sophie Von Essenbeck used Shalimar and Mitsouko colognes.

The Runaways (2010)

therunaways_bornunicorn (1)David Bowie in his Aladdin Sane persona is Cherie’s idol. Lots of pictures of the British artist can be seen on the walls of her bedroom; among them, the famous picture where he’s sitting at his dressing table and applying his scene make-up. You may remember a Dior perfume in a houndstooth bottle appears in that picture.

 

Across the Universe (2007)

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The dressing table in Lucy Carrigan’s bedroom is pretty busy, but one bottle has caught my attention – the third from the left.

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il_fullxfull.722925921_7au2The label and the golden bow mean one thing only: Annick Goutal. It’s not the trademark fluted bottle, but the squared one, which I believe can be dated back to the late 1980s. It’s impossible to read the paper label, so we can only assume it could be Gardenia Passion (created by Goutal herself after a trip to Japan and launched in 1989), Eau d’Hadrien (the first fragrance of the French maison, created by Goutal and Francis Camail and launched in 1981) or Eau de Charlotte (created by Goutal for her step-daughter and launched in 1982). I’m not sure if other scents were released in squared bottles, though.

Phaedra (1962)

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voldenuit_vintage_guerlain_bornunicornThere’s a bottle of Guerlain Vol de Nuit on the protagonist’s bathroom shelf. Phaedra (Melina Mercouri), who falls in love with her stepson (Anthony Perkins), is a rich and bored woman, so it’s no wonder she uses this perfume. Vol de Nuit, created by Jacques Guerlain in 1933, is not the ubiquitous Shalimar or Mitsouko, but has a special charm, also related to its source of inspiration – Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s novel with the same name, published in 1931. The aviation theme of the name can be found in the flacon rayonnant, resembling a moving aircraft propeller.

Image source.

Electric Slide (2014)

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pantheredecartier_bornunicornCharlotte (Chloë Sevigny) has a very busy dressing table. There are several make-up items and perfume bottles, among which Christian Dior Eau Savage and Cartier Panthère de Cartier.

Eau Savage is a classic perfume by Christian Dior, first launched in 1966 and created by Edmond Roudnitska; it’s still a best seller, despite the reformulation process it’s gone through. It’s an enjoyable perfume with a fantastic citrusy opening, aromatic middle notes and woody notes in the base. The Cartier perfume, on the other hand, is a symbol of the decade it was launched in – the 1980s. I’ve always loved the showy luxury of its perfume bottle, with the two panthers made of frosted glass.

 

Alibi na vodě (1965)

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alibinavode_bornunicorn (1)While the Director (Otomar Krejča) is filming a new documentary, he meets up with the model Zuzana (Ivana Striničová) in a boathouse and gives her Guerlain Chant d’Arômes as a gift. This is one of those rare cases in which the name of the perfume is actually mentioned (Zuzana tries to read its name on the bottle, but the Director corrects her with a good French pronunciation).

guerlain_chantdaromes_bornunicorn(2)This is the Flacon Chant d’Arômes, produced by Pochet du Courval. The chypre perfume contains notes of white flowers (gardenia, jasmine, honeysuckle, ylang-ylang) and is the first solo creation of Jean-Paul Guerlain; launched in 1962, it was addressed to a young audience, in an attempt to bring new energy and a youthful spirit into the brand. According to Monsieur Guerlain, the bottle “was inspired by the design of a Florentine vase. It came with a green velvet ribbon, like the ones young girls used to wear around their necks — a romantic nod to youth and purity.” It seems appropriate that the Director gives Zuzana such a youthful, yet classy, perfume.

The credit of this id goes to the lovely Monika, the mind behind the perfume blog Guerlinadewho posted a screencap of the film on her Instagram account, thus sparking my obsession with it.