Byzance by Rochas

What a lovely scent! I came here for its sister, Byzance; the 2019 version was wonderful and I wanted to try the classic. It is a timeless fragrance; if you don’t like this style, stay away, but if you are a fan of the Coco Chanel No. 5 line, Byzance (1987) is a magnificent choice. It has very well-balanced notes; no single one stands out, but it is the scent of a discreet and elegant lady. Dry down smells like sophisticated soap. I am glad I found it; it came out almost when I was born. I remember the smell of my preschool teachers with Byzance.

Rochas Byzance is a work of art from the house, a hyper-intense and exquisite floral, perfectly harmonised. It has an admirable balance between the citrus top notes, the spice and the floral, with almost imperceptible anise glints. The musk note, treated with care, blends with the vanilla to create this great masterpiece. Here, content and container coincide perfectly; it is one of the most beautiful bottles.

The best fragrance created by the ages… Unfortunately, it was discontinued by the original house. In 2019 a version with the same name came out, but according to comments it is totally different in scent from the original, only resembling it in the bottle colour. Fortunately, I still have half a 100 ml bottle of this version. I will enjoy it for special occasions.

Rochas Byzance is the scent of a bygone era full of glamour, that girl who became a woman, possessing an extraordinary sensuality. A confident, bold and self-aware woman. Imagine that woman preparing in a midnight blue dress, shoes and jewels for the Opera, with tickets bought and thinking about it all week. There is time to apply makeup, sitting elegantly on the stool in front of the mirror, picking up the deep blue round bottle with gold cushion. She looks at it, knowing she will leave an indelible mark. She grabs and sprays on wrists, neck and hair… Tonight you will be hers. Fascinating like a modern Cleopatra, this creation bears the name of a lost city in time. Byzance is an explosion of powdery aldehydes, stunning flowers and exotic spices. Strong, sensual opening, no compromises. The carnation and spices give a dominant prelude, slightly powdery, then blend with the heart flowers. All the chords are balanced and the finish with amber and vanilla completes the feat with skill. A mosaic of sensations: sensuality, elegance and knowing it is something unique that no longer exists (despite the new edition), with satisfactory performance. A direct, complex and beautiful feminine fragrance, a captivating experience that makes you dream.

I had a bottle back in 1990; nowadays I would have loved to have kept it as it smelled wonderfully, but it never seemed like a good time to use it and I decided to give it away.

Oh, how delicious, absolutely divine! I spotted it at Fragancex today, but I’m hesitant to order it since the bottle design has changed. I used to wear it when I was twenty and loved it so much.

Byzance is that great opulent beauty that unites East and West with all the splendour of Rochas. What a brilliant composition this is: a precious aldehyde, very elegant, combined with a fresh, radiant pepper drawn from the treasures of Constantinople. Its flowers, which emerge after a few minutes, delight us with a refined carnation and the jasmine overlaps to create this vintage marvel. In the base, when we can no longer be awestruck (impossible), it offers oriental touches of vanilla and amber. These were accompanied from the start with great presence thanks to the ylang, sandalwood, and musks. A wonderful work, imposing yet soft, delicate yet powerful. I understand the grief of its addicts. I know I keep bringing up discontinued scents, but if I don’t mention the crime of withdrawing this piece, may I be struck by lightning. The beauty of the West with the beautiful flashes of the East, orthodox and charged, of Greek origin, with indisputable weight in art to delight anyone. This is Byzance: a sculptural work with well-defined fragments from both sides combined, creating this marvel where Morillas shone like never before. Created with exotic materials that gleam like stones, its aim was to transcend, and it did.

I remember the advertising for this perfume in the late 80s, the impact made by the model’s sapphire eyes (which deserved to be chosen as the best photo ad by readers of a Spanish magazine at the time), but I never found it in a perfumery, not here in Argentina nor in free shops. Over time I got confused and thought that campaign was for Jaipur, perhaps due to the oriental reference and the sapphire blue. Now I rediscover that it was Byzance by Rochas, and I truly regret that it has been discontinued, as it seemed to have a very well-worked concept. The packaging, as I can see, was a beauty, and I am left with total curiosity about the fragrance.

Theodora paced angrily through the gardens of the imperial palace. Rumours reached her ears about her past, whether founded or not, which she supposed were a humiliation for the most powerful woman in Byzantium. Probably from the sharp tongue of Procopius, though it mattered little; her husband protected her, and she preferred not to raise the issue. As always when she was in a bad mood, she found only one solace. She went to her chambers, opened a golden casket, and extracted a delicate cobalt blue glass vessel, her favourite colour. She removed the iris-shaped Horus stopper and soaked her left wrist with a few drops of the precious liquid. She inhaled deeply and her spirit was carried away by the dense, deep, and voluptuous aroma. On the vial, golden letters in a foreign language read: BYZANCE. And here, by a fortunate chance, a small sample of this precious liquid has come into my hands, perhaps sent by Theodora herself, knowing my eternal suffering from not being able to smell it. Similar things have happened to me with other longed-for perfumes, arriving by miracle at the cost of making offerings to the goddess Venus. I even claim that, on occasions, I have dreamed of them, and the next day a sample would appear on my pillow. This happened to me as a child, and fortunately, it still happens to me. That is why I do not want to stop being a child, and may every perfume that arrives awaken in me the greatest astonishment and the wonder that only a child feels. The opening of BYZANCE is strongly aldehydic, as only a perfume from the 80s could be. Almond-scented aldehydes appear with a certain animal touch, but not that fusty floral style I detest. It is a balanced carnality, the product of a dense cardamom and an unctuous amber that confer sexuality and elegance at the same time. Fragantica places it in the Oriental Spicy family. I lean more towards other websites that situate it in Floral Cyprus. BYZANCE has too many citrus, green notes, aldehydes, and flowers to be Oriental Spicy. Soon, a sea of diverse and intense flowers appears, highlighting neroli, lily of the valley, and ylang-ylang. These are sweet, pollinic, dense, honeyed, and deep aromas. They have nothing to do with current fruity choulis. The floral sweetness of BYZANCE is that of an intelligent, determined, sensual, and sensitive woman’s perfume. This floral phase is the most prolonged and detectable. In the dry-down, a vanilla base is perceived, enhanced by the blue-flowered heliotrope, which probably grants its blue colour. The conjunction of sandalwood and vanilla aroma produces a powdery, soapy dry-down, pleasant and discreet. BYZANCE begins as an explosion but evolves rapidly into a moderate projection with a long-lasting trail.

I was longing for it, especially because it is a very special fragrance for a discerning fragrantica, and I wanted to know what had enchanted it so. Its opening is strong and powerful, a worthy daughter of the 80s. It opens with an explosion of almondised aldehydes with spicy touches of a red spiced carnation and some hints of green basil. Its heart fills with a soft neroli, not sweet at all; I still perceive those spicy touches, which prevail over a bouquet of jasmines, roses, and ylang-ylang, becoming talcum-like thanks to the heliotrope. Its base is an almondised and amber vanilla, still floral, very clean and soapy, with woody touches of cedar and sandalwood, managing to create a very creamy base similar to Le Panthere de Cartier, but slightly more incense-like. A potent, elegant, mature Mediterranean Floriental, subtly seductive and very feminine. For afternoons and nights in autumn and winter, and given how difficult it is to get hold of, for special occasions. An intoxicating and exuberant fragrance; if you get used to the opening, you will end up falling in love with its rich and unctuous flowers and base. As it is a sample, I have not worn the bottle, but it seems to me one of the most beautiful I have seen. That cobalt blue is one of my favourite colours. Its liquid is dark, leaning towards violet; beware with light-coloured clothes. Although the opening is potent, in the medium term it becomes soft and creamy with very good trail and longevity, about 9 hours on my skin. I am testing a generous vintage sample that Rebecapvf kindly gifted me; many thanks, dear friend. This year, Rochas commercialised an EDT with the name Byzance. It is not the same bottle, and I fear it will not be the same scent, or at least not with the same intensity and presence. I have not tried it yet, and although I grant the benefit of the doubt, I think there are aromas that should not be touched, and this is one of them. Better to keep it in a little corner of our olfactory memory. This fragrance takes me to an open, wild temple where the colour of the sea blends with the intense blue of the sky, warming the skin golden from the sun. Only a few stones remain, remnants of a glorious past. For me, it would be the essence of a mythical place: The Library of Alexandria. There, immortal and legendary, Hypatia wanders. Dressed in a white tunic and golden jewels, she moves through its nooks, making her way among the ruins to explain the writings of Plato and Aristotle to her disciples. A woman full of ancestral wisdom, strong in mind and spirit, tolerant with all religions; her tragic, announced, and bloody death still echoes in our memories. Were her remains burned, her works destroyed, her name forgotten? Never. Her loss signalled the end of an era when women were still valued for their intelligence. Then came darker times… A piece of history or legend that I recall every time I enjoy a few drops of this fragrance. PS: I am not saying that all the magnificent librarians who use this fragrance will end up like her; in any case, they will end up enchanting their faithful readers with their subjugating aroma.

It was my paternal grandmother who one day gave me a gift: a beautiful blue box saying Byzance, with a small bottle and a soap inside. At that moment, upon trying it, I was beautifully impressed. One of the most lovely things, besides the fragrance, is when you can look at the bottle and have it tell a story of what you are about to try; everything is a precious concept, true art. If I had to name a book when speaking of Byzance, I would say ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino. For me, Byzance is a beautiful Goddess who embodies the spirit of a city conceived between sky and sea, destroyed, conquered, reconquered, burned, and burned again, but which has never lost its beauty; on the contrary, it has fed on all its ups and downs to continue shining under a golden sun. Byzance is complex in its construction, very soft and sumptuous at the same time. Exquisite! After finishing that little bottle, I had it once more in a larger version, and, as these incredible perfume stories always end, they were discontinued. There should be a law sanctioning the disappearance of these jewels of perfumery art.

I am happy in life; I have just acquired two bottles of this exquisite elixir that I once gifted to my mother, and it fell in love with me.

Wonderful! And watch out, the bottle is the most gorgeous one I’ve ever seen.

The perfume my mother used. It was the first adult fragrance I ever tried. I love it and wish I could buy it again.

What I remember most is the jasmine and neroli… I would adore having a bottle of this jewel! More for the liquid, for what the name signifies… a clash of cultures and history. It’s impossible to find here in Chile.