Comfort on Call by Clinique: A Perfumista's Dream Cream

You have to hand it to Clinique. Not only does the brand make terrific products, they seem to have a knack for evoking all of the right emotions when it comes to a simple name. Comfort on Call conjures up images of physicians in white coats and cure-alls that are available any time, day or night (a close second to Philosophy’s Hope in a Jar when it comes to "ethos capture" in a product name). So what’s in this name? Comfort on Call is a moisturizing cream that is designed to treat skin that’s on the reactive side. For some this is a constant condition, but for others it is a niggling annoyance that comes on as soon as winter begins. You know the feeling; dry here, oily there, dry patches out of nowhere that seem to be magnified after you've applied foundation.

The texture of Comfort on Call is thick yet smooth. It isn't laden with impenetrable moisturizers that closely resemble spackling paste or diaper rash cream, (my biggest issue with Crème de la Mer as I only like the “Crème” when it is applied over The Concentrate, which supports its application by emulsifying the product and boosting its effects, an extra $350 on top of the $130 for the “Crème”). Comfort on Call feels like cross between a cream and a balm on the fingertips and is nearly impossible to over-dispense. In addition it is unscented, which makes it appealing to men as well as women. In my household it’s become a “his and her” beauty cream. My husband uses it overnight and claims it not only smoothes skin, it also makes shaving in the morning a little more pleasant. I share Comfort on Call because it is the least I can do for a man that never says no when I hold a perfume blotter under his nose (the perils of being married to a flavor and fragrance writer).

Every beauty cream touts a unique combination of key ingredients and Comfort on Call is no different. Enviro-Soothe™ Complex contains a trio of anti-irritants that includes; Mangosteen, Glycyrrhetinic Acid, and the mother of all newcomers to the beauty scene—Jabara fruit extract. If you try and google information on Jabara fruit there is little to be found, unless you count the product reviews that quote the Clinique press release verbatim. This makes me a little suspicious of a fruit that resembles Yuzu, only grows in Kitayama Japan, is nicknamed “the magic fruit”, and is purported to alleviate hay fever symptoms. As a perfumista there is a part of me that can’t help thinking, “If I can’t smell it, how do I know it's working?” Well, I got over it. Comfort on Call moisturizes skin, is great alone or under makeup and doesn’t go to war with my perfume, which is a great thing.

Notes:

Comfort on Call retails for $37.50 for a 1.7 oz./ 50 ml jar and is available in department stores and online from Clinique.com.

Jabara fruit is touted on this small Japanese site. There is no Wiki for the fruit—yet.

There is a great book called Hope in a Jar by Kathy Peiss. It was published in 1999 and is a worthwhile read if you are curious about the business of beauty.

Christophe Laudamiel Leaves IFF

Christophe Laudamiel has quietly left IFF to work for a fragrance media company called Aeosphere. His official title is co-CEO and Senior Perfumer. Anyone familiar with his olfactive work and independent forays knows that he has been marked by the fates for quite some time. Visionaire 47 Taste, lecturing to architects at Harvard, scenting rooms at the 2008 World Economic Forum in Davos; the list goes on and on. Laudamiel possesses an energy that resembles the ethereal medium he works with and like a bottle of fine perfume, his essence cannot be contained.




There seems to be an earthquake in the fragrance world with aftershocks that will be reverberating for quite some time. On December 11th Cosmetic News reported that perfumer Francis Kurkdjian would be opening his own fragrance house while maintaining ties with Takasago, his current employer. In October, Symrise perfumer Mark Buxton, another stellar creative, launched his own line of perfumes. The buzz among industry insiders centers on the question of whether or not these moves will become more common. Could perfumers be striking out on their own in a quest to break out of the culture of mediocrity that currently haunts the industry? With all of the channels of distribution that are currently available today and the rise in demand for authentic artisan fragrances, it is a question many talented perfumers may be asking themselves.

Holiday Note

Heston Blumenthal, renown chef at The Fat Duck, created a remarkable sensory Christmas dinner replete with "...edible Christmas tree baubles filled with smoked salmon mousse, a dish inspired by gold, frankincense and myrrh, mulled wine that is both hot and cold in the same glass and goose fed on a mixture of ingredients - including apples and grain ..." The dinner was featured as part of the chef's In Search of Perfection television series, which is no longer in production. I experienced some of the flavor and scent effects from the dinner at the 2008 International Chefs Congress in September and they were nothing short of magical. "Perfect Christmas", will be rebroadcast in the UK on Dec 19th at 8pm, on the BBC.

The Scoop on Miss Dior's Current Formulation

In March of this year some very intelligent fragrance lovers were wondering whether or not oakmoss had been removed from the composition of Miss Dior as the raw material was no longer listed on the packaging. Oakmoss is a defining ingredient in perfumery's chypre category and is on IFRA's list of ingredients that may cause skin irritation. IFRA's position on oakmoss is clearly stated in the sentence that introduces their assessment regarding safe levels of use, "Oak moss extracts (e.g. absolute, resinoid, concrete, etc.) obtained from Evernia prunastri should not be used such that the level in consumer products exceeds 0.1%."

When Dior's Paris office provided an ambiguous answer to Glass Petal Smoke's initial inquiry regarding the current formulation of Miss Dior, Diane Vavra (Vice-President of Public Relations at Dior Beauty) made sure that a clear answer was provided. The official response from Dior, which took three weeks to arrive, is as follows:

Oakmoss is well included in the formula of Miss Dior but does not appear on the full labeling because its concentration in the product is less than 10 ppm (the IFRA rule is that ingredients that could generate allergies must appear on the list of ingredients only if their concentration [in] the product (leave-on products) is more than 10 ppm).

Dior's original response inferred that the absence of oakmoss on fragrance packaging indicated its presence:

[There has been] no reformulation of Miss Dior but there has been a change in April 2007 in the listing, following some new information given by the supplier of a specific raw material, and also internal data on the concentrate. So, the formula is the same but the full labeling has indeed slightly changed.

Kudos to Ms. Vavra, who despite the implications of the question, valued a clear answer. Things do get lost in translation between France and the U.S.

An industry insider for a multi-million dollar beauty company that manufactures some of the world's finest fragrances made the following comment about reformulations and oakmoss, on the condition that they would not be identified; "Many companies chose to comply with IFRA rather than retaining their [original] formulas. Adding a sensitizing warning on the packaging, which is required for amounts of oakmoss over 10 parts per million, can potentially scare away the consumer."

I know many fragrance connoisseurs who would be happy to have a traditional dilution of oakmoss at hand that could be layered with chypre fragrances that have been reformulated to the point of amnesia. There is nothing like the scent of oakmoss, which author Steffan Arctander beautifully describes as "reminiscent of seashore, forest, bark, wood and tannery." If there is a company daring enough to create a single-note oakmoss fragrance, they could call it Eau de Lazarus and promote its resurrecting powers. The "self-governing body" of IFRA would prefer to call it Poison, but then, as Dior knows, the name Poison is already taken.

Notes:

I write copy professionally by trade. At one non-Dior assignment I worked with a decision maker in fragrance marketing. I smelled a mod that would be released abroad and went into a tailspin; I smelled elements from the old Miss Dior (Miss Dior was reformulated by Edmond Roudnitska in 1992). I shared my enthusiasm with this person and their response was, "I couldn't stand the old formula. As a matter of fact I was consulting at Dior and worked on the reformulation. We took out that dirty, "old lady" smell."

From that moment on, as much as I loved working with this person, my opinion of them had taken a 180-degree turn. The irony grew as the essential oil house that made the mod I had smelled was the same essential oil house that worked on the original Miss Dior formula. Interesting indeed.

Quince: The Flavor and Fragrance of Autumn

In November the colors of fall saturate the landscape with hues of red, orange, and yellow. The season’s scent is crisp, dusty and honeyed, a generous perfume offered before the last parched leaves drop in a finale of confetti. As trees grow bare and breezes turn into winds, harvest fruits find their way to the hearth. Raw or cooked, the aroma of quince embodies the flavor and fragrance of autumn, offering surprising insights into the molecular world of color and scent.

Quince is a primitive looking fruit that resembles a pear morphed with a fuzzy yellow apple. When permitted to rest in a bowl, quince will fill a room with a flowery perfume reminiscent of pear, apple, guava, musk, coconut and violet. Milky lactones and violet-like ionones derived from carotenoid molecules are responsible for the floral scent that exudes from the skin of fresh quince. Not only are carotenoids the same molecules responsible for the yellow, orange, and amber colors in fruits and vegetables, they’re also accountable for the yellow, orange and amber colors in autumn leaves. When chlorophyll production in a tree’s leaves dwindles, existing carotenoid molecules become visible. Thus fall foliage and the perfume of quince are intimately linked.

Quince is firm and astringent when raw, but the fruit grows soft and yielding when cooked with honey and a touch of lemon juice. The cooking process coaxes vast stores of pectin from the fruit; a gel-like substance that gives jams and preserves their thick texture. Prolonged simmering causes the pale flesh of quince to turn pink in poetic homage to the rose family of which quince is a relative. Cooking transforms colorless phenolic compounds into anthocyanin pigments, which is why the quince turns pink. These pigments are powerful antioxidants commonly found in red and purple fruits and vegetables. Coincidentally, anthocyanins in tree leaves evolve as chlorophyll production fades and are responsible for a variety of brilliant red and purples hues in autumn leaves. Evidence of this scientific fact is hard to miss in the northeast as the turning of the leaves has proved exceedingly rich and colorful this year.

The evolving blush of cooked quince and its sensual “jelly” may have led Queen Mary Tudor of England to use the fruit in an aphrodisiac recipe that included quinces, orange peel, sugar, almonds, rosewater, musk, ambergris, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and mace. The inclusion of aromatics and raw materials associated with perfumery were likely of Arabic origin as these ingredients commonly appear in the repertoire of Arabian cooks and physicians. The wrapping of quince paste in edible gold foil was a common practice of the Tudor and Stuart courts of England as was the use of the confection in affairs of love. If one reads “The Sixty-First Night” in The Arabian Nights, one wonders if Sharazhad’s recitation may have influenced the Tudor Queen's passion for quince:

“…And I saw pears sweeter than sugar and rosewater and more aromatic than musk and ambergris, and saw quinces of which the poet said:
The quince has gathered every pleasing taste,
Thereby the queen of fruits she has been crowned.
Her taste is wine, a waft of musk her scent.
Her hue is gold, her shape, like the moon, round.”
—From The Arabian Nights, W.W. Norton and Company, 1995, p 130.

In the 15th century the Portuguese imported solid quince marmalade (marmelada); this was sliced and flavored with rosewater, musk or ambergris. Today quince paste, known as membrillo in Spanish, is served neat alongside anise-scented fig cakes and Marcona almonds; foods that complement the Spanish cheese plate.

The quince season begins in August and lasts thru early February. Stewing the fruit is less labor-intensive than making membrillo and affords the home cook an opportunity to add exotic ingredients that would not work as well in the sweetened quince reduction. The recipe for Quince and Rose Compote harkens back to a time when fragrant materials like rose were part of the courtly table. Quince and Rose Compote may be eaten plain or added to oatmeal, yogurt or ice vanilla cream. The recipe was created for the readers of Glass Petal Smoke by the editor.

Quince & Rose Compote
(Serves 6-8)
Recipe by Michelle Krell Kydd

Ingredients:
4 cups of water
3 large quinces
Juice of half a lemon
½ - ¾ cup light honey (orange blossom, clover or acacia)
2 tsp China cassia cinnamon
2 vanilla beans (Madagascar variety, split)
¼ cup dried organic rosebuds
1 tbsp rosewater (Cortas brand or “Maward” from Lebanon)
7 oz. dried unsweetened black cherries

Instructions:
· Peel quince using a vegetable peeler.
· Using a sharp knife cut the quince into quarters and remove the seeds and core.
· Chop the quince into one-inch pieces. Place in a large, non-reactive, salad bowl.
· Squeeze the juice of a half lemon over the fruit and mix by hand.
· Fill a 2-quart pot with 4 cups of water and add chopped quinces.
· Set the flame under the pot to medium-low.
· When the water begins to boil add honey, cinnamon, dried cherries, vanilla beans and rosebuds, reducing the flame to a low setting.
· Mix ingredients together and simmer for an hour and a half, stirring every 15 minutes.
· Remove from heat and add rosewater.
· Allow to cool, with the lid on, for 30 minutes.
· Spoon into glass jars and refrigerate.

Notes:

Painting of “Autumn Leaves - Lake George N.Y. 1924” by Georgia O’Keefe.

Photo of Quince by CG Mora from A Cooking Life.

Photo of cooked quince with ice cream from In Praise of Sardines.