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Aquarius65 – :
Fragrance Review For Alpona
Caron
Top Notes
Bergamot Orange Lemon Grapefruit Rose
Middle Notes
Orange Jasmine Orchid Thyme
Base Notes
Patchouli Oak Moss Cedar Sandalwood Myrrh Musk
Vintage Extract
The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Music!
This beautiful fragrance is meant to evoke the grandeur of the French Alps but it might just as well be the mountain slopes and summits of Switzerland or the Austrian hilltops as seen in The Sound of Music. Makes me want to put on a dirndl and twirl around a top a mountain and sing like Julie Andrews in the opening scene to the Sound of Music. This is for me the sequel to the fragrance En Avion by Caron; which was the airplane flight;
now you have arrived in Switzerland, St Moritz or Verbier or the French Alpine scenery of Megeve. All around you are beautiful Alpine flowers of thyme carnation and jasmine. A fragrance of fine feminine sweetness with a lingering greenery and natural freshness like actually being out on that mountain. Ultimately Alpona is a very complex and moving fragrance which is far and away from being anything made today.
The opening is pure orange oil with a deep and lemony little sour grapefruit or yuzu kind of aroma. Very invigorating with a bit of an aftershave effect. The top notes are citruses which then give way to the lovely white floral heart of which jasmine is the high note. The thyme and rose are there too but it’s that white flower that gives this scent a classic elegance and simplicity. It smells like an innocent and very endearing white mountain flower, like eidelweiss. A blossom of snow. This floral heart is the best part of the scent. It recreates the flowers and greenery of Alpine mountains.
The dry down is simple, too, with classic chypre ingredients. There’s loads of oak moss and patchouli, an aromatic herbal air, with a calming tea effect. This perfume is pure serenity. I need to wear this perfume right now as my life can be hectic and often not as tranquil as I’d like it to be. Perfume is therapy and this scent is pure heaven. It’s the mountain air, the green hills, the flowers. A tree note is even in here cedar which really smells woody enough to recreate a tree on a hill. There’s so much to love about this perfume.
Having enjoyed this and En Avion I have a newfound respect and admiration for the noses of Caron which is as praiseworthy and talented as the noses for Guerlain. This perfume and En Avion can still be found on eBay because it’s the vintage perfume warehouse of the world. Had it not been for Fragrantica I would never have discovered the indescribable spiritual beauty and completeness that is vintage perfume. I thank my lucky stars I still have a sense of smell so I can smell fragrances like this one.
crushml – :
At first, Alpona smells very sweet and edible but in a classical way, then moments later, it transforms into something more reminiscent of an early 20th century Chypre like Mitsouko. A brisk transformation! Its truly one of the most beautiful smells I’ve ever encountered, it really takes me back to another time, and is one of the most metamorphic perfumes I’ve ever encountered, seemingly combining all that is sweet and philosophical in one scent, the best of both worlds. If you can find it, please buy it, and save it as long as possible in memory of the height of perfumery. Thank you Ernest Daltroff.
111ww111 – :
I have an extrait version of this scent and it is extremely beautiful and stunning, nearly like all earlier creations of legendary house of Caron! It smells of raisins, roses, oranges and ALMONDS! Gorgeous and extremely high quality!
bylvtrrra – :
I tried the parfum at Dove Roja on the 5th Floor at Harrods (don’t miss a visit there when you are in London, UK). The scent is still noticeable on the cardboard tester after 5 days! The scent is now powdery like the scent of my mother’s powder puff in the 1950s, delightful! It will be hard not to buy this – I don’t know how long I can resist…
aretuentits – :
I found a 2.5 ml vintage vial sample of Alpona in a dusty antiques store. I sniffed it and thought “strange” and put it away for several months. Upon first sniff I was put off by the citrus-y blast that was accompanied by oakmoss right out of the gate. An unusual combination, as citrus usually appears at the top of a scent with oakmoss coming more at the bottom, or drydown. However, after wearing it for the past few days, I have become smitten with one of the strangest Carons I’ve encountered so far. This is not a sweet scent and it’s not a transparent cologne-type citrus. Alpona’s citrus is more crystalized and opaque, evoking the smell of creamy/doughy lemon cookies, lightly dusted with powdered confectioner’s sugar. As it dries down it brings on a wistfulness in me because of the fact that we will never see the likes of this already rare scent again. The scent that comes closest to it is Guerlain’s Eau de Guerlain. But E de G is much more transparent and doesn’t have that dark, mysterious, trademark Caron base like Alpona does. Each time I smell my wrist, I literally get a pang of melancholy and and almost wish I’d never found this little vial. After all, you can’t miss something you’ve never experienced. I lemented that I would be disappointed if I smelled the refromulation, but I went on and nabbed a 5 ml decant as I didn’t want to use up my few precious drops of the vintage. However, I have to say that even though the reformulation is light handed when it comes to the oakmoss note, Alpona is still strange an beautiful, although not as deep and sublime as the original.
Vorkuta – :
Alpona is a citrusy-thyme scent that is quite suited for late spring I’d say.
This is truly a chypre I *am* enjoying very much. NOT so much in your face as many oakmoss-monsters but way more subtle, yet quite noticeable.
The reason for enjoying it so much are probably the citrus notes that make Alpona a lot easier to wear!
mcf181Unlogrere – :
I sampled the parfum version of Alpona, so it’s not surprising that it opens strong and assertive with citrus, flowers, and an undercurrent of dry wood and aromatic resins and herbs. The citrus has been described by other reviewers as “orange marmelade”, and I would agree with that, but it’s a high-quality sugar and bitter orange marmelade, not one of the high-fructose corn syrup ones with only a couple of token recycled orange peel bits floating around in the jar.
It proceeds to develop into a gorgeous floral chypre scent, accented with thyme. Then an incredible sillage blossoms and wafts around the entire room. It’s simultaneously rich and fresh. There’s no way to describe it in terms of other things, it’s an emergent property of the parts that’s far greater and different than their sum. It’s like walking into a strange place redolent of an odor that is completely new to me – the ultimate perfume experience.
During the drydown, I detect a little bit of something that is probably citrus oils that are no longer in their prime, but it really doesn’t detract much from my overall enjoyment. Although this fragrance dates from 1939, it could just as easily be a modern niche scent, and an incredibly good one at that. It made me want to dance and brightened my day. Bottom line: I love it. Apparently it’s discontinued so I’ll probably send off for a decant, if I can find one, since this just might be one of my go-to scents for fall.
frofAxort – :
Extract review.
Alpona how I adore thee.
Starts with a blast of mouthwatering juicy fruits. Then Alpona decides to change and become more oriental than the chypre it is suppose to be. Lots of resinous warm oriental notes. I have this urge to roll in joy when I wear Alpona it bright and sunny.
Asterxenim2010 – :
Notes: lemon, grapefruit, bergamot, rose, orange, jasmine, orchid, thyme, patchouli, myrrh, cedar, sandalwood, musk, and oakmoss.
I”m writing a a new review of Alpona, because in the year since I first added it to my collection it’s trickled up to my top 5 favorites.
Fragrance lovers who like Ivoire de Balmain, or similar greens with a burnt grass feel, will want to try this. The ad copy above is misleading; it suggests Alpona is raisin sweet and lists it as a citrus aromatic.
No, no, and no. If I gave this to you blind you would think it belonged to the tobacco or incense family. There is a spring like crispness here, but nothing you could easily identify. Any citrus you might smell would be faint at best.
Alpona is extremely well blended. I think this is the only Caron I own that does not change over time. How is goes on is how it smells, 18 hours later.
If I could change the above, I’d call it a green woody chypre.
Drone – :
(Pure Parfum Review)
There is nothing soft or subtle about this perfume, It’s rather strong and sharp. I don’t like the combination of lemon notes and green notes. It’s very unisex too.
This one and Or et noir are the only two Caron fragrances that i don’t find attractive.