Rochas launched Tocade in 1994, an eau de toilette by Maurice Roucel that was hailed at launch as the fragrance of the year. The house now describes it as a fragrance that dares: citrus, freesia and geranium on top, a duo of magnolia and jasmine around a rose lifted with nutmeg, and a base of vanilla and amber, beneath the pointed hat designed by Serge Mansau.
The house presents Tocade as an indulgence bathed in vanilla, which it likens to a cookie dusted with powdered sugar, lit up by rose, magnolia and jasmine. It describes three stages, which it calls impertinent, enveloping and addictive.
Top, heart and base
On top, juicy citrus meets bright flashes of freesia and rose geranium, shot through with the green note of bergamot. The heart pairs magnolia and jasmine with a silky-petaled rose, lifted by a hint of nutmeg.
The base returns to vanilla, soft and spicy, which the house calls serene and sensual, and to amber, whose radiance it praises. No wood, no musk and no tonka bean appear in this current description.
The original descriptions
An older description from the house spoke of a powdery oriental cookie, blooming with jasmine, iris and geranium, and of an ambery trail of labdanum with almond-like touches of tonka bean and roasted almonds.
In 2011, Jessica of Now Smell This gave magnolia and bergamot as top notes, rose, iris and geranium as heart notes, and cedar and vanilla as base notes. According to Gaia of The Non-Blonde, the official list also included freesia, jasmine, lily of the valley, orchid, patchouli, amber and musk.
A reworked formula?
In 2013, Gaia assumed that the formula then on sale owed much to Jean-Michel Duriez, a perfumer employed by Procter & Gamble, the license holder, though she had not smelled that recent version. The house has confirmed no reformulation date.
What the label declares
The ingredient list names no essential oil: the flowers, the vanilla and the amber remain folded into the single word fragrance. It includes three UV filters, ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate, butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane and benzophenone-3, BHT, which protects the formula from oxidation, and two colorants, yellow and red.
It also declares allergens: linalool, limonene, citral, geraniol, citronellol and alpha-isomethyl ionone, often linked to floral and citrus notes, as well as hydroxycitronellal, benzyl benzoate and farnesol. The house warns that this list may change.
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