“Did you hear about a student from the Philosophy department got full marks in his final exam?”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, there’s only one question in the whole paper, and it was ‘Why?’ ”
“And what did he answer?”
“Why not.”
My college classmate was very excited by this rumour, because all he cared so far in his life was getting full marks in his exams with minimal effort. That was, I think, 25 years ago.
In Turin/Sanchez’s Perfumes book, Sanchez pulled the same stunt by writing something similar for Lanvin Rumeur’s review. She wrote, “Baseless”, and gave it one star.
(Note: Rumeur 2006 is a complete redesign of Rumeur 1934 and they have nothing in common.)
Sorry, if I were the professor, she failed the exam. Nevertheless, I was intrigued. They gave Molecules a three star review, but Molecules was well known for having just one ingredient in the formula – ISO E Super. It’s more baseless than baseless, it’s negative baseless, so I guess that makes it positive.
But Rumeur is something special. It was designed by Francis Kurkdjian in 2006. Yes, that dude. He’s famous, a super star in the industry. His “Oud” perfume from his own line, costs f*king $450 a bottle. Rumour, cost me $29 for 100ml. What’s going on? Is a perfume without a base considered a failure? (and does he over-price his perfumes? *evil-eye*) There’s actually a “Rumeur 2 Rose” perfume, implying that Rumeur 1 was a commercial success to Lanvin. I own a few perfumes that I think smell great, but in my opinion, baseless or almost baseless.
To me Rumeur is a faux light skin floral, (there’s a market for that) but it’s so light, all you get in the first 5 seconds is alcohol, then something crazy synthetic like nail varnish. To justify I have spent good money on a perfume made by MJK, I sticked my nose to my skin like a vacuum cleaner, and yes, it’s all there (pear, rose, jasmine, aldehyde, etc.), but they were not leaving my skin. I didn’t get any joy smelling it on myself, but I want to smell it on someone else, particularly a young woman with long hair, who also thinks this perfume is light, and she over-applies it, making herself a beast. May be that’s Mr. Kurkjian’s intention.
Life with Perfumes 
Hi Victor..love this post. I actually crave that nail varnish/hairspray note from time to time and Rumeur gives it to me. It then turns very pretty on me, something like Narciso Rodriguez. I am happy I have both the edp and the extrait!
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Remuer is really not bad at all. It needs a few sprays to “see” its effect. I get a lot of pear from this perfume and it’s quite delicious.
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Well I probably won’t be purchasing this after this review, but at least the bottle is quite nice.
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