Le Fruit Defendu by Rosine c1913

Le Fruit Defendu by Rosine: created by Henri Alméras and launched in 1913, probably in USA by 1916. The name means "The Forbidden Fruit" in French and referred to the "forbidden fruit" of Adam and Eve's demise. The perfume was a favorite of American actress Gloria Swanson.

Things I Remember by Erte, 1975:

"Poiret's third business, which manufactured perfume, was named “Rosine”, after another of his daughters. He was the first couturier to enter this field. The scents were most unusual: I particularly loved 'Toute la Forêt' and 'Le Fruit Défendu,', but especially the latter which smelled deliciously of peaches."

Le Fruit Defendu was available in parfum and toilet water.

Fragrance Composition:

So what does it smell like? It is classified as a sweet fruity floral woody fragrance for women with a spicy, amber and woodsy base. It was advertised as the "fresh smell of fallen apples in the hay on a summer afternoon." Henri Almeras made use of the chemical Persicol by Firmenich which gave the perfume its distinctive peach scent. The fragrance is a forerunner of modern gourmand fragrances. It was also said to be the first to incorporate an aldehyde, a 0.3% dosage of C-12 Lauric. This gave the perfume a soapy, waxy, aldehydic floral nuance combined with the pungent citrus note of a fresh orange rind.

• Top notes: orange rind, aldehydes, apple, peach, banana, plum, coconut
• Middle notes: heliotrope, cinnamon, ylang ylang, tuberose, honey, gardenia
• Base notes: tonka bean, spices, almond, patchouli, vanilla, sandalwood, ambergris

Pan, 1920:

"Still feeling in need of comfort, I went to buy some scent, for a really good perfume, as you know, acts like a balm to the soul, a pick me up to jaded nerves, and is truly worth a guinea a drop, and if you are anything like me, you will not be content to run one special perfume for any length of time, but demand a different scent for every day, for every mood, for every frock, and in Poiret's Rosine creations you can satisfy every need. The bottles are quaintly devised - the scents adorably named. 

I tried to decide between "Forbidden Fruit" (the bottle shaped to resemble a golden apple) and smelling like all the orchards in Kent, and slender, gold-flecked exquisitely hand-painted with birds and fishes, containing a spray like the scented mist that clothes that newly awakened dawn; but I eventually carried off "Pierrot," a dainty conceit of frosted glass, with a black stopper, and an impudent-looking Toby-frill round its neck, and a perfume that suggested dimity and apple blossom and a pure and blameless life) so appropriate, you know). 

I loved " Borgia," a dreamy, languorous scent and, best of all, the bright little Rosine powder- boxes in their gay coats of flowered chintz." 

Bottles:

Collaboration between Paul Poiret and his friend Raoul Dufy resulted creating in one of the most precious perfume bottles designed for the Rosine line. The deluxe glass bottle for the parfum was shaped like an apple, squat in shape and lobed like a melon, the clear crystal bottle was intentionally filled with tiny trapped air bubbles which gave it an unusual, almost crudely fashioned, appearance, like antique blown glass. The bottle was fitted with an interesting metal overcap cast with some abstract motifs and topped by a small piece of twisted metal bent to look like an apple stem. Under the metal overcap was a small ground glass crystal flat disk stopper molded with notches in the side to make it easier to twist off. The paper label has a shape reminiscent of a wax seal, it is silver foiled paper with black serigraphy surrounded by red, which I believe denotes the "wax seal" motif.  

The bottle measures 2.75" tall with it's metal over-cap in place by 2 inches wide diameter, and the box is just a touch over 3" tall.

It lay in a luxurious silk lined silver paper covered box embossed with jungle foliage meant to represent the artist's version of what may have been inside the Garden of Eden, complete with a snake winding around the sides of the box and various eyes around the snake watching your every move (beware! if you take that forbidden fruit, someone is always watching you). The interior of the box was a jungle green shade.

The perfume retailed for $50 in 1923.

 

Other, less expensive flacons were made by Verreries Tissier and were clear glass bottles with green glass button stoppers, shown below. Each bottle holds 20 grams. The bottle design is shown in an original vintage 1920s Verreries Tissier perfume bottle catalog that I have, this is model number 14250.

Fate of the Fragrance:

Discontinued, date unknown.

It was still being sold in 1929 as seen in a volume of the Official Journal: Body of the Provisional Government of Mexico along with other Rosine perfumes:

Ambre de Venise, Aladin, Arlequinade, Avenue du Bois, Borgia, Chez Poiret, Chypre des Isles, Coeur en Folie, Connais Tu le Pays?, Hahna, Jasmin de la Riviera, Le Balcon, Le Bosquet d'Apollon, Le Coup d'Or, Le Fruit Defendu, La Rose de Rosine, Maharadjah, 1935, Nuit de Chine, Pierrot, Qui Es-Tu?, Sa Chambre, Sakya Mouni, Toute la Foret.."

The fragrance was recreated from the original 1916 formula for the Osmotheque in Versailles, the perfume industry's library of scents).