The great short­age of almost every­thing required for nor­mal well being was one of the most dis­tin­guished fea­tures of the Soviet econ­omy. Surely, there was food, clothes and some cos­metic goods in the Soviet shops in 1950s-1970s but the vari­ety was incred­i­bly poor.

How­ever, the phi­los­o­phy was that the Soviet peo­ple were used to com­par­ing their life stan­dards with the ones of the Sec­ond World War – so any small-time lux­ury was very warmly wel­comed. Being a nation of plain tastes, the Soviet peo­ple were happy to be buy­ing things made in the USSR – they under­stood that even not so long before, it was impossible.

Many peo­ple still asso­ciate the fra­grance “Red Moscow” with their child­hood. All women, espe­cially those who wanted to be ele­gant, were in love with this per­fume.  “Red Moscow”, cre­ated exclu­sively for the Russ­ian Empress Maria Feodor­ovna, in 1913, had quickly become a tremen­dous suc­cess both in Rus­sia and abroad. Henri Bro­card, the owner of the largest Russ­ian fac­tory of pomades, per­fumes and soaps before the Rev­o­lu­tion; had cre­ated the per­fume “The Empress’s Favourite Bou­quet”. When in 1917 his fac­tory was nation­alised and renamed into the “Zamoskvoret­skiy Soap Fac­tory No 5”, the per­fume was also renamed as “Red Moscow”.

Per­fume street ven­dor, circa 1920s

“Red Moscow” was just what you could expect from a Russ­ian per­fume: com­plex, full-bodied, rich smelling; yet much warmer that one would want in a cold cli­mate.  Tech­no­log­i­cally, it was a com­pletely syn­thetic per­fume: the gist was that there was no need for costly French per­fumes with their nat­ural essen­tial oils when syn­thet­ics smelled equally Along with this one, the range had such fra­grances as “White Aca­cia”, “Red Poppy”, “Lilac” and oth­ers. In 1970s, a new scent was intro­duced – Sil­ver Lily of the Val­ley – which, unsur­pris­ingly, had become a huge suc­cess just as rapidly.

As for the famous “Chanel  No 5”, the Soviet women did not get to know it for a long time – apart from brief pieces in Pol­ish fash­ion mag­a­zines, there was very lit­tle knowl­edge of the for­eign per­fumes. In 1980s, how­ever, the sit­u­a­tion began to change to the bet­ter. “Cli­mat” and “Magie Noir” by Lan­come and “Opium” by Yves Saint Lau­rent had become extremely sought after in early 1980s.

Really rare and expen­sive per­fume ‘Climat’

White Aca­cia

Red Poppy perfume

Famous Red Moscow

The male mar­ket seg­ment had divided the men into two large groups: those who pre­ferred the per­fume “Shipr” (slightly more up-market) and those who liked “Three In One” (a cheaper brand). Fun­nily enough, the lat­ter one had become a pop­u­lar one for con­sump­tion with the alco­hol addicts. “Shipr”, how­ever, was meant to be an exotic, warm smell of flow­ers and san­dal­wood (hence the name, which is French for the island of Cyprus. Just like the “Three In One” per­fume, “Shipr” con­tained no less than 70% of ethyl alcohol.

Three In One Perfume

To a mod­ern man, spoilt with choice for per­fumes and fra­grances, these two would have a fairly strong smell of fir tree and exces­sive musk and might even remind of a insect repel­lent. But back in the days, how­ever, a rare man would not get this year after year for his birthday!

“Shipr” (Cyprus)

The leg­end goes that the “Three In One” per­fume was cre­ated in France in the early 18^th cen­tury specif­i­cally by the order of Napoleon Bona­parte as a dis­in­fec­tant – it was meant to have a refresh­ing, hygienic and ther­a­peu­tic effect – and in 1913 it won the Gran Prix at the World Cos­met­ics Exhi­bi­tion in Paris. A few decades later, it arrived in Rus­sia under the brand name of “Three In One”. Orig­i­nally, though, the bot­tle was sold with the anno­ta­tion enclosed: “Young peo­ple should con­sume 20 – 30 drops, elder peo­ple – 50 – 60 drops daily diluted with water or wine. It helps to pro­tect against rapid heart and head aches”.  So the habit to use the cheap toi­let water as a sub­sti­tute for vodka has a his­toric background!

Three In One Per­fume, 1917

It does not seem like much but these brands listed above would com­pose the whole range of per­fumes avail­able in the Soviet Rus­sia until, maybe, very late 1980s. The only other alter­na­tive was to be lucky enough to have a per­fume imported, as a gift. The rea­sons behind such lim­its were purely ide­o­log­i­cal as spend­ing time and money on beauty prod­ucts was labelled as absolutely unnecessary.

To be continued…

Show your sup­port com­rade! Click the ban­ner below

Related posts:

1. Soviet Brands: The Scent Of Com­mu­nism. Part 2 of 2
2. Best of Win­ter 2009  –  2010
3. More pic­tures of Soviet Moscow 1960s by Mark Riboud
4. Best of Fall 2009
5. Cat­walk Mod­els With No Under­wear On. Haute Cou­ture Soviet Style.