Megara by Le Galion c1978

Megara by Le Galion: launched in 1978, in USA in 1979.

The story of Megara would not have began without mentioning Paul Vacher, the founder of the legendary French perfumery Le Galion. Paul Vacher, in his lifetime created 20 international perfumes both for his perfumery house and for select fashion houses. His first masterpiece was created for the quintessential Madame Lanvin in 1927, the classic aldehydic woody, floral perfume Arpege, with the help of his assistant, André Fraysse. The talented duo followed up with the aldehydic floral, L'Ame Perdue for Lanvin in 1928, which has long been discontinued.

Then came his 1937 floral triumph, Sortilege, still faithfully made by Le Galion today. Also in 1937, he created more scents for Le Galion: another floral aldehyde perfume, Snob; the soft floral Iris; the aromatic fougere fragrance Brumes; the sweet floral Tubereuse; and the fruity woody fougere fragrance, Bourrasque; all discontinued for many years, but lucky for us, Parfums Le Galion has reissued all of them.

Other Le Galion scents were created by Vacher: At some point during 1930-1935, he developed a formula, but forgot to give it a name. Dubbed 222, it was formulated in 2014 and issued by Le Galion. Also launched was a dry, spicy woodsy chypre fragrance for men, Vetyver, in 1940; a second men's fragrance, this time, the woodsy green named Special for Gentlemen in 1947; the elegant floral, La Rose in 1950; the snappy citric floral, Whip in 1953; the woody, spicy floral woman's fragrance Galion d'Or in 1968; an aromatic spicy unisex fragrance, Eau Noble in 1972.  

You can purchase Snob, Brumes, Iris, Vetyver, La Rose, 222, Whip, Tubereuse, Eau Noble, Special for Gentlemen, and Bourrasque directly from Le Galion through their website. You can even find the updated version of L'Ame Perdue!

In 1938, he created the first fragrance for French couturier, Jean Desses. This was the charming floral chypre, Celui, also discontinued.

In 1947, Vacher teamed up with Jean Carles and created the sensational chypre, Miss Dior, for the up and coming designer, Christian Dior. This was followed up with Diorling, in 1963, a light floral chypre fragrance for women. Unfortunately, Diorling is no longer being produced, but you can still buy an outstanding new formulation of Miss Dior directly from Christian Dior's website.

In between the Dior scents, he created another two gems for Jean Desses. The leathery chypre fragrance for men, Gymkana in 1960 and Kalispera, a sweet-floral woody fragrance for women in 1962. It took Vacher no less than 384 attempts to create Kalispera, which was made up of 68 individual components.

After he passed away in 1975, his daughter. Dominique De Urresti, was promoted the new 'nose' and head perfumer of the research laboratory for Le Galion. Dominique also took over as the managing director of Le Galion, her Spanish husband, Manuel, was the export and marketing director, while her mother, Mrs.Vacher, served as president of the company.

Dominique said that if she didn't end up working as a perfumer, she would have been a surgeon. For ten years she worked alongside her father as an apprentice in the lab, who originally persuaded her to join him for only a few months to see if she liked doing it. "I always heard about perfume at home. And I have the memory of smell. I have learnt to remember the way a red rose or any flower smells," said Dominique. She then spent another eight years working independently in the lab, formulating and blending various scents.

Dominique created a new perfume in her "top secret" laboratory, tucked away at an elegant Edwardian chateau at Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris, which also doubled as the firm's headquarters. The shelves surrounding her "perfume organ" were cluttered with bottles, jars, cartons and tubs of various liquids housing essences - materials derived from fixatives, flowers, herbs, spices, grasses, barks, roots, leaves and oils. She expressed her dislike for synthetics saying, "They are not alive, they have no evolution and always smell the same. A perfume must open and close."

Dominique was in charge of traveling around the world to check out the harvests and to pick out the most finest of ingredients. From England, she procured blackcurrants, nutmegs and cinnamon. She used her massive budget to procure £100,000 worth of jasmine on a trip to Egypt, enough to last a whole year. A single bottle of civet cost her £800, another bottle held £5,000 worth of jasmine from Grasse. 

When asked about her favorite flower, she said jasmine, probably because it formed the base of many of her father's lovely floral perfumes which formed a large part of her childhood. Sortilege, she said was a magnificently balanced "aria" of costly jasmine, wild lilies of the valley, Bulgarian roses, ambergris and sensual musk. She explained that jasmine is expensive because its blossoms can only be gathered at night when the blossoms are open and said that it took more than 2,000 pounds of rose petals to distill just one pound of rose essential oil.

She disclosed that in the 1930s, her father made a custom fragrance, purely of iris, another costly ingredient. The perfume was not for public consumption, but was made exclusively for one habitue of the French Riviera. However, the bespoke fragrance was not produced for very long as cost outstripped custom and he was forced to discontinue it. The indulgent lady for whom it was created apparently died within three months of the news. Today, you can purchase an updated iris fragrance directly from Le Galion's website.

A 'nose' needs to be able to discern various species of flowers, for instance, she could sniff dozens of different rose essences in one day and be able to differentiate which was which. She said, "In between each one I smoke a cigarette, to 'clear' my nose, in the same way as a professional wine taste cleans his palate with bread in between each sip."  Though industry professionals would strongly advise her to smoke, especially during blending perfume compositions. Nevertheless, she was a heavy smoker who felt like she knew what she was doing.

 She said she always thinks in smells. "There are no rules about creating a fragrance. You just follow your intuition. I carry 'smells' around in my head like a composer carries notes. And, in an instant, I can conjure one up in my mind that I haven't perhaps smelt for three years or more," she explained. "And really creating a fragrance is like composing a symphony. It is made up of hundreds of 'notes," she added.

In order to prevent industrial espionage, the perfumery lab was heavily guarded, protecting their trade secrets from their competitors. So secretive was the lab, that Dominique refused to allow any cleaning personell inside to tidy up and wipe the thirty-three years worth of dust off the bottles in the musty room. "No one is allowed to touch the bottles except for me. I know where they all are and they only get dusted when I handle them. It would be impractical to let a cleaner loose in here, If she were to move just one tiny bottle, I would be stumped. I have to know where everything is - devising a new perfume can involve using over 300 different ingredients," she said. 

However, the formulas are not kept in the secret lab, but three copies are kept in bank vaults, one in France, one in Switzerland and another in far off Canada. Should anything happen to one, at least there are two other copies to work from.

Dominique confessed that she wore other manufacturer's perfumes as well as those from her own company. This I feel is quite a testament to these other perfumer's talents.

She said that perfume was the first thing she put on in the morning. She applied it after a bath or shower when the skin is still quite damp and the pores are open. She enjoyed layering her fragrance, "Begin with scented soap, bath oil and powder. Splash on cologne and toilet water - all over," she said. She even wore perfume on her clothes, around the neck, the arms, the hair and "on the nightgown."

Dominique gave advice to users of her perfume: once the bottle is open, "Use it. Keep it in a cool, dark place, preferably in the bedroom, not the bathroom," where it is too hot and too damp, two natural enemies of your precious perfume.

Megara:

After three painstaking years of working with scents for Le Galion, she created the ultimate tribute to her father, the beautiful modern "green" floral chypre Megara. The fragrance has lovely green notes but is warm and sensuous too. It was her own pride and joy, a young, sophisticated and frankly, sexy scent containing over 200 ingredients including Bulgarian rose, vetiver, ylang ylang, and of course, her favorite, jasmine. She said that the name Megara was inspired by ancient Greece. Megara brought back an aura of elegance to the perfume world, and Dominique jokingly said that its  complicated composition "is a foot long" and revealed that its formula was kept locked away in a huge safe in the bowels of the chateau.

Dominique was one of the few female 'noses' in a male dominated profession. Her father inspired her passion for perfumery by bringing back aromatic essences and fragrant oils for her to experience all the while recounting the fascinating tales of their origin. 

Megara was created by a woman to please women. When Jean Paul Guerlain, the famous 'nose' from the iconic fragrance house of Guerlain, teased her that only men could create great scents for men, and that a woman could not possibly know how a man wants to smell. She responded with, "Only a woman can know what is good on a man. Non?," she said and told him that her next composition should be a great success. And to prove him wrong, she took to task creating a fragrance formula for a truly masculine men's fragrance. Jean Paul Guerlain reportedly admitted he liked her "Megara."

Unfortunately, Megara was to be the last scent launched by Le Galion before the company folded in the mid-1980s. There are those of us who hope that the newest incarnation of Le Galion would reissue the long lost fragrance.

Fragrance Composition:

It is classified as a floral fragrance for women. It starts with a fruity, green aldehydic top, followed by an elegant floral heart, resting on a sensual powdery base. It is described as fresh and green with unusual overtones and mixed floral back note.

• Top notes: bergamot, hyacinth, aldehydes, peach, raspberry
• Middle notes: gardenia, lily of the valley, honey, jasmine, orris, rose, orchid
• Base notes: oakmoss, sandalwood, musk, ambergris, cedar

Bottles:

The unique bottles for Megara were designed by sculptor Serge Mansau in 1978 and produced in France by Pochet et du Courval.

Megara was available in the following:

• 1/4 oz Parfum Deluxe Spray
• 1 oz Parfum Spray
• 1/4 oz Parfum Splash
• 1/2 oz Parfum Splash
• 1 oz Parfum Splash
• 1/3 oz Parfum de Toilette mini
• 1.75 oz Eau de Toilette Splash
• 3.5 oz Eau de Toilette Splash
• 7 oz Eau de Toilette Splash
• 1 oz Eau de Toilette Spray
• 1.75 oz Eau de Toilette Spray

Fate of the Fragrance:

Megara was discontinued when Le Galion went out of business in the 80s. Actual production of the scent may have possibly stopped around 1982, as I cannot find any ads for Megara after that date.

CLICK HERE TO FIND MEGARA PERFUME BY LE GALION