Opium (perfume)
Opium is an Oriental-spicy perfume for women, created for the French fashion house Yves Saint Laurent by perfumers Jean Amic and Jean-Louis Sieuzac. Introduced to the market in 1977, Opium quickly generated publicity with its controversial name and the ensuing press coverage helped to increase its sales. In late 2000, an advertising campaign for the product featured English model Sophie Dahl, whose nudity and bodily expressions in the advertisement were met with mixed reactions internationally.
The top notes of Opium are a mixture of fruits and spices, with mandarin orange, plum, clove, coriander and pepper, as well as bay leaf. Its floral middle notes consist predominantly jasmine, rose and lily of the valley, in addition to carnation, cinnamon, peach and orris root. It is underlined by the sweet woody base note containing sandalwood, cedarwood, myrrh, opopanax, labdanum, benzoin resin and castoreum, in addition to amber, musk, patchouli, tolu balsam and vetiver.
Naming and theme
Opium caused a stir with its controversial name and brought accusations that the brand designer Yves Saint Laurent was condoning drug use. In the United States, a group of Chinese Americans demanded a change of the name and a public apology from Saint Laurent for "his insensitivity to Chinese history and Chinese American concerns." They formed a committee called the American Coalition Against Opium and Drug Abuse, which expressed outrage at the choice of a name representing "a menace that destroyed many lives in China." However, the ensuing press coverage helped to increase the sales, with the perfume soon becoming a best-selling product.For its promotional U.S. launch party in 1978, the German ship Peking—named after the Chinese city of Beijing—was rented from the South Street Seaport Museum and draped with colorful banners, the well-known American novelist Truman Capote sitting at its helm at the event. Peking, along with a bronze statue of the Buddha that was decorated with white cattleya orchids, displayed the supposed Eastern theme of the perfume at the party. The brand conveyed the theme into the red plastic container holding the perfume's glass vial, which Pierre Dinand designed based on inro—the small Japanese lacquered cases that were worn hanging from the obi and held perfumes, herbs and medicines.
Opium, Lilac Perfume Oil and White Musk from The Body Shop, Juniper Breeze from Bath & Body Works and Royal Secret formerly Germaine Monteil were among the perfumes tested in 2003 in a study of the relationship of scents to memory.