I am years too late for a successful carnation quest. Decades. Fallen to the combined vicissitudes of fashion and regulation, carnations have been almost edited out of perfumery. That peppery spice is too old fashioned, too heavy, too old lady in faded velvet. And (Iso)eugenol is just too awkwardly allergenic.

Tiny scruffy garden dianthus –clove pinks– pack a huge fragrance, a heady, spiced sweetness that can take on the most redolent of roses. Spilling out of flower beds, woven into tapestries, painted into altarpieces, embroidered onto gowns, they were everywhere. And now? Downgraded from Wilde’s buttonhole to buckets outside petrol stations. Denuded, and bred scentless for florists. The flowers became chilly, waxy things bundled in cellophane, or wired tight to spell out names on funerary displays. And as the scent has been stripped from the flowers, so the note has faded from modern perfume. Œlliet Bengale? It’s rose. Œlliet Sauvage? As wild as a sleeping duckling. Vitriol d’œillet? Chilled face cream in a dusty pot.

Carnation’s still there, of course, hanging on and sustaining the mood swings of cantankerous grande dames like L’Heure Bleue like old money. But mostly it’s been pushed into the background like an ageing ingenue. When Caron recast their productions of Bellodgia and Tabac Blonde, carnation was cast aside for the more generically soft and pretty, for more bosom and less bite.

Without going broke tracking down pristine vintage wonders, I’ll have to continue to spray CDG Series 2 Red: Carnation on the red carnation inked into the crook of my elbow, And yes, it has a whiff of a 1930s velvet coat unfolded from a wooden chest, but the windows have been opened in the last century, and this room was never overheated or laden with aspidistras. It balances the clove and carnation and red pepper for a good bite without making your mouth pucker, but it’s that bit too warm, a touch too sweet, and a bit too rosy-laden to be perfect.

Please, show me a good carnation that’s not discontinued, edited down to a whisper, or hidden behind a wall of white flowers.

Originally posted 24 January 2020. Edited December 2025 to add: DSH Oeillets Rouges (Red Carnations) is pretty good, and Dawn uses carnation in interesting ways in other scents too.