In electric December twilight beneath thousands of Paris’s lamps the lovers’ locks on the Pont des Arts shimmer and gleam.
A hardware hoard of brass and steel is transformed by romance and the season’s illuminations into a sea of gold and silver: a jewelled arc across the river.
A block or two removed from the Seine, just far enough for peace from the avid advent bustle of tourists on the Pont Neuf, upstream of the dock for the bateaux mouches carrying their endless tide of visitors through the City of Lights, the petite maison du the on Rue du Pont de Lodi, nestles in its quiet street.
Behind the imperial purple door, bearing a fresh wreath for Christmas, new owners are fashioning what they fancy is a fragment of the Far East on the fringes of the fifth arrondisment.
They have added orange blossom oolong tea to the carte of regular tisanes.
Its sweet, floral citrus reaches up a welcome upon your entry.
You settle into newly lowered-chairs. Their dusty, musky, furniture polished faux second empire frames strewn with raw silk cushions and lit by reproduction Tiffany lamps and chintz-shaded 40 watt bulbs.
You look up at the once-low counter and peering beyond spot an unknown object: alongside the old steaming urns and a bedsit stove topped with milk pans, there is an oil burner.
A porcelain contraption that gives no heat, and exists solely for scent.
You imagine, for you cannot see, a small slurp of viscous liquid hanging in a china crater above the solitary night light that seeks to slowly diminish it and diffuse the aroma into the air.
A pool of ever-reducing resinous residue.
A slick of fragrance added after fragrance until no note is left distinguishable from the whole warm and comforting confusion.
There is vanilla certainly, and amber, some sandalwood and something, well, distinctly animal.
Though on reflection, that might be the ancient cat adopted by the ancien regime that has outstayed the old owners and sits perched atop the out of tune upright piano.
A bunch of haphazard flowers are squeezed onto the instrument too, and seem to shade our feline friend like a tiny floral palm tree – a few roses amongst carnations and the very odd orchid – on his Parisian indoor desert island.
You come to order and think to try the oolong tea, then, discovering that deserts have similarly gone East, resist and instead hold onto the past with a generous boule of hot chocolate, which serves to warm your hands and heart.
The chocolat chaud goes down easily, especially when the waitress offers to add a Cointreau as a token of their affection for returning customers and to mark the time of year.
With satisfaction you find the only tampering inflicted on the peach flan to make it oriental has been a heavy pinch of cinnamon added to the custard supporting the fruit.
Who can argue with such an addition so close to the Noel?
The cat, Albert, jumps onto the stained piano keys, his paws yielding a major chord as he pauses before making his way over to you and placing himself aloofly in your lap.
His manner says ‘I’m doing you a favour’ a moment later his rough tongue licks the excess spiced crème anglaise from your fingers as his powder puff body quivers with a purr.
The maison du the on the Rue du Pont de Lodi is not quite what it was.
Christmas even here these days comes a little bit made in China.
Even so, dimly lit and quiet, with its slightly narcotic smell it is a haven this hallowed season from which to watch the festive world go by.
The quietest and in some ways most reserved of the balmy orientals of the 1970s and 80s, Must de Cartier is unlikely ever to offend.
It is an exercise in good manners.
Where others scream and seek to shock or pass themselves off as the real Far Eastern deal, Must seems happy with itself, comfortable with the notion that it is an allusion to the orient and not the actual thing.
After a surprisingly bright opening orange and bergamot flourish, aided by aldehydes, the perfume settles down into familiar territory of amber, sandalwood and vanilla, with a distinctly resinous quality to the heart, though the galbanum here is decidedly not green.
Equally, though there is musk, those fearing powder should be calm as it is kept at bay with some fine handbag leather and civet.
Finally, floral notes are distinctly muted in a drydown that sees this become as much a next to the skin scent as something so spicy can become.
Some will undoubtedly find the fragrance too sweet and muddled, but the drydown is so subtle that any over sugaring and note mixing mellow gently into a pleasant ambient perfume.
Must de Cartier is every inch a comfortable, if eccentric, teashop sort of scent.
A subtle choice for a special occasion or spoiling yourself because you can.
As I alluded to yesterday, I find both Musts de Cartier interchangeable and their designations as homme and non-homme quite superfluous.
Who doesn’t like hanging out in slightly off the wall tea houses?
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy.
The Perfumed Dandy. 
I think this may have been re-formulated (sadly) to include a lot less civet? I haven’t checked it recently, but the 80s version was wonderfully rich, although I agree not as aggressive or showy as many of its contemporaries.
Dearest Alice
Yes, Must has been subject to the same treatment as so many others and, sadly, yeas again it was the animalic accord that got it in the neck.
It seems as though leather is enjoying something of a revival currently in perfumery, and wonder whether it would be too much to ask that civet and castoreum (or at least effective analogues) could start to be seen again.
The vintage is deliciously rich, like the modest second cousin of Bal a Versailles or the embarrassed aunt on Calvin Klein’s Obsession.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I love this scent. I have it in the vintage and it is gorgeous with that little civet note to balance out the sweetness. In fact, I think I will wear it tomorrow. Thanks for the reminder!
Dearest Ricky
Oh I’m so pleased I planted the seed in your mind to try Must again.
That animalic accord, I get a little leather too, is what sets the perfume apart from the mere spiciness of others to which it is often compared.
Have fun!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Loving your posts as always. RR
Dearest Ricky
And it’s a joy to have you commenting and corresponding here too!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
You really capture it! Some say Dune was a vague copy but I think Must is much nicer. Love the description of Albert the cat with his quivering powder puff body, wonderful stuff.
Talking of Christmas gourmet style perfumes, have I mentioned Cimabue by DSH Perfumes to you yet Sir Dandy? I think you’d find it interesting – lovely citrus, cinnamon and what smells to me like uncooked Christmas cake batter
Dearest Rose
Now isn’t that interesting about Dune… the big orange opening with a chemical lift, the acres of sweet sandalwood. Yes, I can see how they might be related, nut Must I think has… oooops, I best not say too much as Dune’s review’s to come in the New Year!.
Yes, Cimabue, a sample is in the process of being procured and expect it to be appearing on The Hit Parade sometime soon….
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I’m sticking with Arthur, but, a tea shop time of year sounds so inviting…
Dearest V
Perhaps Arthur could take you out for tea?
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I’ll take that tea with you, sir. I just have to get over to London!
Dearest V
Oh yes.
We shall go to the Hungarian Tea Rooms in Hampstead and eat pastries over-flowing with confectioner’s cream.
Now, all you have to do is book a stateroom on the Queen Mary!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
A young friend of mine recently had a bridal shower tea on the Queen Mary. Permanently docked in Long Beach! I’ll have to take version 2… and pray I don’t get seasick 😉
Longing now for an exotic Tea Room with an old cat and an out of tune piano……is it real? You make it sound wonderfully real. If it’s not thank you anyway for another lovely daydream
Dearest Bee
There is a purple-doored tea room on that street in Paris (or was) but the interior is a patchwork of a few others around town. And Albert? His home was really a tumble down hotel in the old town of Marrakesh. Who knows, he may reappear there sometime…
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
What a lovely, cozy review. An off the wall tea house is exactly my kind of thing.
Dearest Lily
Mine too! Let’s meet one day at one that’s convenient for the both of us!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Somewhere mid-Atlantic, I suppose, on an island. It’s a date. 🙂
Can I pop in as well for a quick Earl Grey?
Dearest Ginza
Absolutely.
I can’t help feel that Ascension Island would be the suitable location for such a convocation of angels.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
A rendezvous has been set.
You do review this one perfectly. Though the parfum, surely, was certainly not polite. I loved it. I really loved it.
Dearest Ginza
Oh yes. When the civet was more to the fore, Albert the cat was transformed to a beast of tooth and claw that’s for sure.
There are so many versions of this still around today (though the male edition’s all but gone) that it is a little mercurial, just like any of our feline friends.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I daren’t smell the current edt. Still hoping I will come across a nice old parfum at the flea market, just for old memories’ sake. I had an Italian friend who had a lover in Cologne, and she wore this on those endless train journeys they both had to do. I used to sit in her room, clutching her Must, and inhaling and inhaling very deeply. It is utterly entrenched in my brain as a result. I will brook no Rich Tea reformulations!
Dearest Ginza
What a perfect term ‘Rich Tea reformulations’! The blandest biscuity simulacrum of the original scent.
How those cheap confectioneries torture us.
That term, I’m sure, will now be added to my mental lexicon.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
babe thy lexicon is already filled to bursting. just one more wafer thin + thy shalt explode, a la creosote
Dearest Ginza
Oh dear… the image thou hast conjured!
And ho appropriate too for last night I was confronted with a buffet of such proportions that they had whole roast chickens…. purely as decorations.
Yours ever
Creosote le Dandy
laughing all the way to the bank