France Subway Perfume Introduced
Stan Feldman
By NADEGE VANCAUWENBERGHE
PARIS-- French fragrance is about to go underground, into the Paris
metro -- in the form of a sweet, wood-smelling scent designed to cover up all
that tobacco, filth and bad fumes.
Quest International, the world's third-largest fragrance company, and the
Paris subway system introduced the new scent, known as ``Madeleine,'' at a
news conference Friday.
What the manufacturer says is the world's first subway fragrance will waft
through most of the metro and suburban fast-train stations by the end of
January.
Madeleine will be mixed with detergent and applied to floors and other
surfaces every time the soaping machine passes through.
``Smells of heated grease and rubber coming from escalators and trains are
especially sickening,'' said Jacques Rapoport, head of the metro department of
the Paris subway.
Subway officials decided five years ago to do something about the bad smells,
contacting Quest, which makes such famous scents as ``Angel'' by Thierry
Mugler, ``Le Male'' by Gauthier and ``Tocade'' by Rochas.
``The challenge was to create a fragrance liable to make the metro smell nice
and clean'' that could also be mixed into cleaning materials, Rapoport said.
Four fragrances were short-listed. Then this spring, after much testing,
passengers polled chose Madeleine: a fragrance made of a woody musk base with
a touch of vanilla and enhanced with a blend of citrus, lavender, jasmine,
rose and lily.
Eleven poems on perfume and posters asking ``Do you smell the difference?''
are to cover metro walls to point out the fragrance campaign.
Still, passengers at Invalides station were not all convinced.
``It is stinking anyway. It is really no use to try anything. It's hopeless,''
said Alham Chidouh, a 15-year old high school student.
``I didn't smell anything,'' said Anne Huynh, a personnel department manager.
``Well, it is not really efficient, it just smells vaguely detergent.''
Some passengers welcomed the change.
``It's very nice,'' said Nathalie Rousseau, a 32-year-old housekeeper. ``It
just makes you want to take the metro more often. That's a really good idea!''
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