Loulou – The Fragrance of Pandora`s Box

One of the top selling perfumes of the 1980-es, one of those bold, powerful, distinguishing, and timeless fragrances. Loulou is a controversial perfume that people either like, or dislike, the one that provoke different emotions, and indifference for sure is not one of them. Loulou is a fragrance dangerous like Pandora's Box. Loulou is like intoxicating dark red flower which allures you to the depth of dangerous and dark forest. Yet, it is not possible to resist. It is irresistible and once you are engrossed by its warm scent, you simply have to let go and follow it, you have to pick the forbidden fruit.

The exceptional charm of this perfume lies in its simultaneous tenderness and seductiveness, sensual like a skin of a young woman. It has power to make a girl feel like a woman, and a woman to feel like a young girl again. This perfume is inspired by a German silent movie 'Pandora's box' (Die Büchse der Pandora), directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in 1929. The film is a loosely adaptation of two Frank Wedekind's playwrights, Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1985.) and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's box, 1903.), which encompass elements of Lulu's tragedy, and which were also a base for Albana Berg's opera Lulu.

The title of the movie refers to Pandora. In the Greek mythology Pandora was the first woman created by Hephaestus. In order to punish Prometheus for revealing the secret of fire to humanity, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create Pandora, whose name is compounded of two words and means 'all gifted', as she was given a box containing all evils. Womanly curious, Pandora opened the box thus releasing all the evils into the world, and when she was able to close it only hope remained captured in the box. Pandora's Box became a metaphor for unanticipated and irreversible consequences of decisions we make.

Lulu, in the movie featured by the silent film star Louise Brooks, is beautiful and immoral vaudeville performer, whose raw sexuality and unhampered, naive nature of a half-girl, half-woman, brings downfall to almost everyone she meets. She marries a respectable newsletter publisher, brings him to insanity and accidentally shots him during a squabble. As she was found guilty of a murder, she escapes from justice together with her pimp and the son of her dead husband who is also in love with her. For several months they were hiding in a gambling den, where she was almost sold to slavery. They return to London and live there in poverty in a squalid attic. At the end, Lulu becomes a Soho prostitute and a victim of her own doom, when at the Christmas Eve she becomes a prey of Jack the Ripper.

The perfume is built around the beautiful and sensual scent of Tiare flower, the Tahitian symbol of welcoming and generous offer. The top notes are composed of violet, plum black currant, marigold and anis; the heart of sweet Tiare flower is accentuated with the notes of tuberose, ylang-ylang and orange blossom; all that is followed by powdery trace of orris and Tonka bean, and sensual mix of vanilla and balsam. This sensual, wild and mysterious perfume is captured in an opaque blue and red flacon of a simple octagonal straight-lines shape that narrows towards the top. Earlier version of the bottle was designed like Alladin’s lamp with blue octagonal base and red spiky top. It comes in a cardboard outer box, painted in red flowers and colorful vegetation, against very dark forest decor.

All details of this perfume are reminiscent of Lulu and Pandora's Box – the outer box painted in wild flowers draws attention. Open it and you will discover an opaque bottle the content of which is a secret. In order to reveal it, you have to open the top, and then...what comes out of Pandora's Box enchants and seduces you with its wild sensuality and innocence. You can not resist it...but, for safe exploring and enjoying of Loulou's charms we have a recipe – press the atomizer with a light hand.

Author: noor_jehan
Fragrantica Member