Nicole Altair, Inc. of Paris appears to have been a small postwar perfume house associated with Charles Leo Philippe Altair, Nicole Altair’s husband, who had worked in perfume manufacture for some thirteen years. Around 1948, the firm issued a poetic quartet based on the seasons—an especially appealing idea in the years just after the war, when perfume advertising often promised renewal, elegance, and an escape into nature. Surviving reference listings confirm the four seasonal titles as 1948 releases, while the available databases do not preserve their formulas or contemporary scent descriptions. The following impressions are therefore informed reconstructions from their names and their period, rather than documented note lists.
The perfumes of Altair:
- 1948 L'Ete
- 1948 L'Hiver
- 1948 L'Automne
- 1948 Printemps
- 1956 Brise de Carmel
- Gigolette
L’Été translates as “Summer.” It was likely conceived as the brightest and most radiant member of the set: perhaps an opening of bergamot, lemon, petitgrain, or orange blossom leading into a sunny floral heart of jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang, and possibly tuberose. A soft base of musk, sandalwood, benzoin, or warm amber would have given it the languid, sun-warmed character associated with a French summer garden—flowers at their fullest bloom, warm skin, and the faint green bitterness of crushed leaves.
L’Hiver means “Winter.” Rather than a literal icy freshness, a French perfume of this era bearing that name may well have been a warm, enveloping fragrance for cold weather: powdery iris and violet, perhaps softened with rose or jasmine, resting on vanilla, tonka bean, amber, benzoin, sandalwood, and musk. One can imagine it as a pale, elegant floral-amber, with the hushed softness of fur, face powder, dried petals, and a glowing fireside warmth beneath its cool, silvery floral surface.
L’Automne, or “Autumn,” suggests the richest and most shadowed seasonal perfume. Its likely character would be mossy, woody, spicy, and softly balsamic: bergamot or bitter orange above rose, carnation, jasmine, and perhaps plum-like or heliotrope nuances, deepening into oakmoss, patchouli, vetiver, labdanum, benzoin, and amber. It may have evoked fallen leaves after rain, polished woods, dried flowers, and the mellow sweetness of the first cool evenings—a classic chypre or floral oriental in spirit.
Printemps translates simply as “Spring.” This was probably the freshest and most youthful of the four, imagining tender green growth and newly opened flowers. Lily of the valley, lilac, narcissus, hyacinth, violet, rose, and jasmine would all have suited the title, perhaps lifted by bergamot and leafy galbanum. The effect may have been dewy rather than heavy: green stems, cool air, damp earth, and a fragile pastel floral bouquet, finished with a discreet veil of powder, musk, and light woods.
Brise de Carmel means “Breeze of Carmel,” most likely referring to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, rather than the religious Carmelite association. Released in 1956, it may have drawn upon the coastal-romantic image of California: salt-tinged air, sunlit trees, flowers, and dry aromatic foliage. A plausible interpretation would be a breezy floral chypre, beginning with citrus and herbaceous notes, passing through rose, jasmine, narcissus, or orange blossom, and settling into moss, cedar, sandalwood, amber, and musk. The title implies something less dense than the seasonal perfumes—a graceful, outdoorsy composition with a marine or windswept suggestion rather than an overtly aquatic scent in the modern sense.
Gigolette is a French word for a little gigolette: a flirtatious, coquettish young woman, often with an old Parisian, music-hall flavor. The name suggests a playful, feminine, perhaps rather glamorous perfume—possibly a sparkling floral bouquet with aldehydes or citrus, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, and powdery violet or heliotrope over soft musk, vanilla, sandalwood, and amber. It likely aimed less at a landscape than at a personality: a bright, charming, slightly mischievous fragrance with lipstick-powder softness and an intimate, warm drydown. Its release year is not presently established in the standard perfume databases.
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