Serge Lutens

The Phoenix and the Dragon





 – a time-travel tale – and a review – of Serge Lutens Mandarine Mandarin

Chang’An, 682 CE

It was the day before Zhang Hou New Year, which meant that Aristaios should be packing up his belongings at the inn to join the caravans bound for the long journey to Samarkand and beyond. With a little luck, he could be in Kashgar by spring, more luck, and he would be home in his native Constantinople by next winter, to sell his wares, to finally marry, to carry on his storied line of Byzantine traders, and to remain until the next time he came to fabled Chang’An, if he ever did. 

But Aristaios found himself reluctant to return. Why go back to Constantinople, when everything and anything he could possibly desire could be found here at the edge of the world, in a city of splendor and plenty not even the pearl of the Bosporus could ever hope to equal?

The rod-straight boulevards that stretched to the horizon, the palaces of the emperor Gaozong, the pagodas of worship, the parks with their canals, their lakes and fountains, their pavilions and tea houses, the Persian bazaars that sold anything and everything his own world had to offer, and many things not even his own emperor Constantine had ever seen. Silks worthy of any pagan God or Christian emperor, silks in glorious, embroidered colors seen only in fever dreams, medicines to cure all and any aches and pains, perfumes to set both man and beast alight, infinitely finer by far than anything upstart Damascus could hope to make. 

Not even in Byzantium could a man travel in safety from brigands and thieves, or sleep in spotless, comfortable inns, knowing his camels were fed, and his wallet and his wares secure. 

In Chang’An, all these things were possible, and endless more beside. Why should he ever leave? 
He knew the answer. His father would haunt his dreams all his life if he remained. Bad enough, but far worse was to know the beautiful Helena, whose image in his mind had haunted him all along the long, long road to Chang’An. Through the desiccated roads of Persia, the scorching sun of Samarkand, and all through the endless, deadly, shimmering sands of the Taklimakan that stretched from Kashgar to Duahuang, he had been haunted by Helena’s laughing face. Indeed, she was the reason he was present in Zhang Hou, here in the beating heart of Chang’An.

“Go to Chang’An, my son, since you are by far the best Persian speaker among us, and when you return, you shall marry Helena.” 

Marry Helena! All doors would be open when he married Helena, the trading company could grow, the family fortune swell. He cared for none of it, cared for nothing but to see that laughing face under the olive trees in the garden by the Bosporus. If not for Helena, he would stay here in Chang’An, the center of a world far more refined than Constantinople. But Helena.

The drums heralding the opening of the Persian bazaar at noon startled him out of his reverie. He would be late for his meeting with the customs official in a teahouse in the bazaar if he did not hurry, his goods might even be fined!

Well enough, he could add the fine to the premium and the taxes when he sold them back home. 

In the crush of humanity in the Western bazaar, he was late all the same. Persians and natives, Samarkand Sogdians and Indians, Greeks and Arabs all came to Chang’An, and since it was New Year’s tomorrow, most of them were here, it seemed, eager to stock up before the holiday, eager to share news of the roads, the taxes, the gossip of the court. 

“Aristaios? Son of the trader Chrysippos of Constantinople?” Flawless Persian, with no trace of accent. A tall figure dressed in the distinctive headdress and orange silks of the court officials rose and bowed before him. Orange. An official of the fourth rank, well-used to dealing with foreigners and traders.

The courtesy surprised him when he finally arrived at the teahouse out of breath. He bowed low in return. Protocol was everything in Zhang Hou. “I am.”

“I am Wu Liu, of the Office of Trade, to see that your export papers are in order and your fees have been paid in full.” Wu Liu was young, close to his own age. This meant that he had only recently passed his exams. 

Aristaios dug in his tunic for his papers. “I do believe they are in order, lord.”

Wu Liu twitched a corner of his mouth. “Chrysippos is known in Chang’An as an honest man.” He quickly perused the sheaf of papers bearing Imperial stamps and signatures.

“Thank you. The Emperor Gaozong is known to be fair to merchants.”

“Or his officials are. If you’re lucky! You might be.” Wu Liu laughed. “Tea?” 

Yes, the addictive drink that was everywhere along the Great Roads. Tea.

“So, do you have everything you need for your return?” asked Wu Liu, once the tea steamed in the cups.

“Most of it,” he replied. The bales of silk and spices in the warehouse by the Western Gate, the ceramics wrapped in wool and straw in their crates, a necklace, a jeweled comb for Helena stashed away in his saddle bag. “But do you know where I might find a perfume for my betrothed? Not the ones sold here in the bazaar. I can buy those cheaper in Merv or Rhagae. Something finer, something unique to Chang’An.”

The silks rustled as Wu Liu shifted in his seat. He smiled wider. “Something only a customs official would know to find, perhaps?”

Aristaios sipped his tea. “If it’s not an impertinent question.”

At that, Wu Liu laughed. “It is always an impertinent question. For your betrothed, you say? Ah. I know the one. You are searching for a perfume of marriage, something unique. Have you ever heard of the Fenghuang? Or the dragons of Zhang Hou?”

“The dragons of Zhang Hou?” he bleated. “The monsters of myth?”

“Just so, in Byzantium. But in Zhang Hou, dragons are portents only of good. They bring good fortune and prosperity to those who honor them. And the Fenghuang…” Wu Liu paused and considered. “A phoenix, I believe you call it. A symbol of virtue and grace. The dragon and the phoenix together are symbols of a happy union, man and woman, light and dark. There is a Frank with a perfume shop close by the Serpentine River park. Are you familiar with the park?”

“A Frank? In Chang’An?” This surprised Aristaios. The Franks were, for all he knew and practical purposes at the opposite end of the world. 

“The world comes to Chang’An, Aristaios. Even a Frank.” Wu Liu rose to his feet. “I must return to the office. Go to the Frank, and ask for The Phoenix and the Dragon. Tell him I sent you. He speaks Greek. He will know.” Another bow, and Wu Liu was instantly swallowed by the crowds in a glimmer of orange.

The winter sun slanted westward by the time Aristaios found the shop near the Serpentine River park, exactly where Wu Liu had said it would be. The shop was plain and unassuming, nothing more exciting than apothecary jars in their cases, mortars and pestles, a long counter for the customers and two orange trees by the door. Yet the Frank himself, a spare, unassuming old man with a guarded manner, was the biggest surprise of all. For the first time in over a year, Aristaios spoke his native Greek. In Chang’An! At the end of the world!

“Wu Liu, you say? Ah – a good man. They say he has great things in store in his future. But you are busy, I can tell …” and he shuffled off to the back of the store. “It is very expensive, you know, the Dragon and the Phoenix. But very auspicious! Best for marriages! Yes, now where did I …”

Another moment, and Aristaios stared at a black, lacquered tiny box of wax, embossed with what he supposed was a phoenix and a dragon in red lacquer.

“Here,” the Frank found him a stool. “Sit. My perfumes are better experienced so.” He opened the box, touched the wax, and transferred it to Aristaios’ wrist. “Breathe it in.”

So he did. The next instant, he was glad to be sitting down, for this! 

This! This was the scent of happiness and sunshine, of wintery joys and cosy nights by a fire, of the orange so loved in Chang’An at New Year’s. Spice and the lacquered box it came in, celestial flowers perfumed with blinding divine light, of tea in a teahouse and glimmers of silk, of all the wonders of Chang’An and all the happiness he hoped would come, this was not a perfume, this was an epiphany! 

Take that, you piddling, mediocre perfumers of Damascus! 

“You like it?” asked the Frank. 

Aristaios moved his mouth, but no words would come out. “Um, I …” he faltered. “Can I steal it? All of it you have?”

“No. The Phoenix and the Dragon can be bought. Or given. That is all.”

He fumbled for his pouch of gold coins and dumped them all on the counter. “Will this be enough?”

The Frank didn’t blink. “No.” He removed one coin. “Keep the rest.” He wrapped the tiny box in a square of embroidered orange silk and tied it with an elaborate gold cord..

As Aristaios rose and turned to leave, the Frank called after him. “I hope she’s worth it. Or you are!”

Many months later in Antioch, Aristaios dug in his saddlebags for a clean tunic at the inn. Home was mere days away, home, and Father and Helena of the laughing face. Near the bottom, he found a large, square package wrapped in orange silk he certainly didn’t recall stashing away. He untied the silk. A large, lacquered box he also didn’t remember, embossed with a red, lacquered phoenix and dragon and on top of it, a scrap of Zhang Hou paper. 

In careful letters, it said in Greek:

The phoenix and the dragon can only be bought, or given. Choose wisely.

Notes: Chinese orange, nutmeg, orange peel, mandarin orange, tea, amber, labdanum, tonka bean, rose hip. 

Mandarine Mandarin is a Palais Royal bell jar exclusive, available directly from the Serge Lutens website. 

With thanks to Molly, who reminded me. 

Photo: Embroidered silk from the Mawangdui tomb of the Lady of Dai, Hunan Province, Western Han dynasty, ca. 182 BCE. Digital restoration and enhancement, yours truly. 

Confessions of a Sergeoholic

– an armchair guide to Parfums Serge Lutens

It should come as no surprise to most readers of this blog that I am a Major Sergeoholic. Of all the perfume houses I know and adore, I own more Serge Lutens than any other perfume house by a mile – twenty-two at last count, and I can easily rattle off a long wish list on the ones I don’t have – yet.

There’s a reason for this. 

Bottled emotions

Eighteen years ago, I lived in a sad state of affairs for a perfume lover. I owned precisely none at all.  How or even why I came to land on Makeupalley during that sad state of affairs, I can’t tell you, so imagine my surprise when I discovered actual perfume reviews. Perfume reviews! Makeup I could understand – but perfume? Reviews? Whattheeverloving?

You have to remember – this was a time before blogs, before Basenotes and Fragrantica, Facebook, Instagram … before everything. 

And then – a moment that really made me wonder. It was a review of a brand I had never, ever heard of, and claimed that the creative director bottled emotion. Moments in time, sure. Seduction, definitely. All-round fragrant badassery, I could understand that, too. But how in the name of damask rose did you bottle emotion? To say I was intrigued is to understate the issue. 

I was positively floored.

Some time later, I came across NYC retailer Aedes de Venustas, who sold the Serge Lutens export line at the time, and their 2003 Christmas catalog was pored over for years until it fell apart as I dreamt of bottled emotions. I couldn’t afford so much as a fragrant tree ornament, but I could at least dream of the day when I did. 

Epiphany En Masse

By 2009, my curiosity was killing me not at all softly. Perfume blogs had arrived, and I read them religiously. I can still recall sweating anxious bullets in front of my laptop in those days, trying to resurrect my oxidized schoolgirl French from the dead to request a booklet of wax samples by email from this hyper-chic perfume house, until I finally caved and requested one in English. 

Lo and behold, it arrived two days later. With a note, even. As I opened those little booklets with shaking hands, eyed askance by the rest of the household who thought I was nuts, the world tilted on its axis, the stars shifted above, and everything changed. The first one I tried was Chêne. ‘Oak’ is the mundane translation, but oak was the least of it. This was an oak experience, a magic carpet ride into the very soul of a tree, and such a one. 

All these many years later, it seems strange that I began with Chêne. Why not the Grand Revolution – Feminité du Bois? I can’t tell you, any more than I can tell you why I have yet to review another forever love, except to say that all the decants I’ve ever received of FdB have been drained to the very last droplets prontissimo before I could plant myself at the keyboard. 

Since then, I have, as I’ve said, more bottles and decants of Serge Lutens than any other perfume house on Earth. I certainly don’t like or even love them all, but there’s something for everyone. 

Liquid literature

These perfumes have since permeated my consciousness to such an extent, that when the time came to prepare my first novel for publication, I contacted the Palais Royal again. My protagonist was a definite perfumista, and without the writer even noticing, slyly inserted Lutens perfumes into the storyline. Since it had gone from a story with three readers – bless them all – on an unknown blog to the verge of publication as a novel, I needed to get the legalities straight. I asked for permission to “quote” – which is to say, describe perfumes – from M. Lutens’ olfactory output. “What a strange request!”, they wrote me back. Not an hour later, my request was granted. 

I had a complete out of body experience. Of all the moments that have defined my perfume life, I think that was one of two I’m proudest of, second only to the perfume project the book itself inspired. 

As of late 2021, I’m in the early stages of another novel, and this protagonist, too, loves Serge Lutens perfumes with a flaming heart. Which leads me to … 

Free advertising

Since childhood, I’ve believed in sharing my enthusiasms/shouting my loves to the world. One winter day in 2011, I spent an afternoon with a woman who went on to become both a mentor, a massive inspiration and a very dear friend. I explained my burgeoning perfume writing, and had brought samples of many different things, Serge Lutens perfumes included. She lamented that perfume for her had become boring, sameish, insipid. So I introduced her to Boxeuses. It received the all-important husband seal of approval. She bought it posthaste. 

From that day forward, she has worn only Serge Lutens. When – being a restless Gemini – she moves on to other Lutens/Sheldrake creations, she passes them on to the impecunious perfume writer who introduced her, bless her forever. These days, she’s a wildly successful painter of wildly exuberant paintings, and somewhere in those explosions of color, motive, life and wit, there’s a distinct, subversive whiff of perfume. 

I’m never paid to write reviews. If I dig deep for superlatives in my reviews, you can bet your Nombre Noir (should you be lucky enough to own it, because that, too, is a Lutens creation) it’s because I’m sharing my enthusiasm with all the verve of an over-excited five-year-old. Love is love. Your mileage may vary, but I love what I love. Read all about it. 

Hazards before coffee

One bleary-eyed morning not so long ago, an email ticked in. It was an invitation to a virtual masterclass in all things Serge Lutens – the man himself and his astonishing career, the inspirations, and a short introduction to some groundbreaking perfumes from what is now known as Collection Noir – what used to be known as ‘the export line’. I hadn’t even had my coffee yet, but I signed up, posthaste. 

The making of a master

The masterclass itself was held this past Thursday, and it was an illumination. One hundred diehard Sergeoholics from all over the world were treated to an absolutely edifying journey; his humble, heartstopping beginnings in Lille, how he began his career, the origins of his unique – and uniquely personal – aesthetic, and on and on. His makeup collection landed in the Guggenheim museum. Diana Vreeland was a fan. 

But also how, in 1967, at the ripe old age of twenty-five and in need of a vacation, he came by divine accident to Morocco and became suddenly and acutely aware of the olfactory dimension to life. Having been to Morocco, I can relate – Morocco is an all-out assault to the senses in all the best – and a few of the worst! – ways. 

The perfumes in the master class were, in order, Feminité du bois, originally created for Shiseido, Fleurs d’Oranger, Nuit de Cellophane, La Fille de Berlin, Ambre Sultan and Chergui, all part of the Collection Noir. 

A few inspirations

Did you know, for instance, that all of his perfumes were conceptualized as unisex from the beginning? In 1992, this was audacious in the extreme. That Feminité du bois set the trend for woody perfumes for women – for decades to come? It was conceived as “the masculine side of femininity and vice versa, inspired by the many wood shops in Marrakesh” (and that breathtaking Atlas cedar.)  Or that the Palais Royal boutique, surely THE most drop-dead chic/intimidating/breathtaking of all drop-dead perfume stores, was originally created expressly to sell Feminité du bois? (I’ve never been there, but I do have a personal invitation.) 

Fleurs d’Oranger, my first ever Lutens obsession, was inspired by passing a courtyard in the medina of Marrakesh as women were beating an orange tree with sticks to collect the blossoms. All the women were overjoyed to be doing precisely that, and that was the emotion he sought to capture – and did. I bought my last bottle of Fleurs d’Oranger just so I could spray it on my pillows whenever I feel low. Now, it’s the bottle that’s low. 

La Fille de Berlin is every rose – and every woman. 

Ambre Sultan, his tribute to all things Arabic and Marrakesh, and not incidentally my personal gateway amber, a perfume category I used to loathe, is, in his own words, “not an Oriental, but an Arab – and a Lutens. Don’t expect to fit in.” This explains in a nutshell why I love it so much – it’s not at all a “usual” amber. Inspired by an amber wax stored for years in a thuja wood box, I call this one La Grande Khadine. If you really want to see Salome drop all seven veils, wear La Grande Khadine on a hot summer’s day. If you really want to experience what an amber perfume can do, wear La Grande Khadine. Full stop.

Nuit de Cellophane, which I have yet to try, was inspired by his beginnings in Paris in the early 1960s, by haute couture dresses delivered wrapped in cellophane and is the scent of anticipation. Chergui, named for an easterly desert wind that is less wind and more vacuum, he described as “a desert in flames”, but such flames!

The masterclass was the first of its kind, but it may not be the last. It was a thoroughly bewitching Zoom session, and many of us had all sorts of questions and comments on all things Lutens. What I can tell you is this – no Lutens perfumes will ever be discontinued. Should it come to pass that you are a Lutens neophyte, any – or all! – of these five perfumes would be an excellent introduction.

Perfume, after all, is the most uniquely personal of all art forms. Why wear it? For that matter, why wear perfumes by Serge Lutens? As the man himself asked the question:

“What facet of ourselves will make us shine?”

This facet of myself, this writing which comes from the <3. And last but never least, these perfumes. 

With thanks to Emily Veness Budin. 

Photo: Yours truly. All bottles from my personal collection.

Three Odes to Osmanthus

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– three osmanthus-based perfumes for Spring

This morning, as I trudged to one of the few open grocery stores for milk for my coffee, something very obvious hit me on the way.

It is (still) a glorious, calm, bright blue, perfect Spring day. The sun is blazing away, there’s a hint of actual warmth in the air, and after being blasted by a wicked Easter nor’easter for over a week that kept the garret nearly arctic, the contrast is intoxicating. Somewhere in that shriveled black, cynical heart I call my own, all that daylight through my opened windows is wreaking havoc with wintery pessimism and however-shall-I-survive-exam-season-with-my-integrity-intact speculations. I might actually survive exam season, after all. (Especially if I read up!)

There might even … dare I write it … be possibilities for a perfume writer of dubious repute?

Because it’s Spring! And what better way to celebrate Spring than by wearing a flower that blooms in August and September? Anyone?

The flower is osmanthus fragrans, or as it’s known in English, sweet tea olive. Osmanthus the flower (last sniffed at the CPH Botanical Gardens in September) is a whole, opulent perfume in itself. It somehow manages to exude floralcy, fruity-apricots-with-a-tinge-of-marzipan and animalic leather/suede all at once.

So once I returned this morning, I hauled out three odes to osmanthus. They all contain differing interpretations of this humble little flower with the big odor profile I so adore, and few florals exemplify Spring quite so nicely.

The fruity flower

Parfum d’Empire Osmanthus Interdite (2007)

Perfumer: Marc-Antoine Corticchiato

A very long time ago, I blind-bought 10 ml of an Osmanthus Interdite split on the theory that a) I loved osmanthus and b) Marc-Antoine Corticciato has never, to my knowledge, made a bad perfume.

I’m not familiar with all of Parfum d’Empire’s perfumes, but of the ones I have tried, they are rather spectacular and highly unusual. I could write volumes on Azemours Les Orangers‘ orange grove perfection (and wail that my decant is practically empty), but Osmanthus Interdite  – another fast-diminishing decant – did not prove me wrong with either a) or b).

Inspired by the Forbidden City of Beijing, Osmanthus Interdite puts the flower front and center with an epic green tea note – a sibling of that other green tea note I once loved allthe way to discontinuation in Bvlgari’s ground-breaking Eau du Thé Verte. It begins with airy, lemony osmanthus, who introduces herself and slyly retreats as the green tea steps forward. Half an hour later, she makes another, grander entrance, bolstered by a hint of rose and jasmine, and now, we can sense her for what she truly is: a stunning, fruity floral for sophisticated grownups, blowing juicy apricot kisses to the adoring crowds, bridging the gap between smell and taste, which is smaller than you think.

The rose and jasmine hold her in place for the duration (6+ hours on me), and accentuates a hint of the soap she also conceals in her orange-yellow depths, before she finally drifts off on an exquisitely tanned suede accord to gild her edges.

I say ‘her’, since osmanthus in general strikes me as very much a feminine note, and Osmanthus Interdite  – ‘forbidden Osmanthus’ is very feminine to my nose. But don’t let that stop you – this would be fantastic on a man with the fortitude to thumb his nose at perfume conventions. Feminine, yes, but not frilly and with no perfume-y flou in sight, just a beautifully rendered osmanthus perfume that is always – again, a hallmark of Parfum d’Empire – always sophisticated, flawlessly delineated, and perfectly rendered.

Notes for Osmanthus Interdite:

Osmanthus, green tea, apricot, jasmine, rose, musk, suede

The Sultry Blooms

Perris Monte CarloAbsolue d’Osmanthe(2016)

Perris Monte Carlo came to my attention about two years ago when a perfume writer friend of mine reviewed their Ylang Ylang Nosy Be so beautifully, I wanted to forfeit a rent check and just buy it already. So I ordered a few samples from First in Fragrance, but for whatever reason, my order for a sample of Ylang Ylang Nosy Be didn’t go through, nor did my comment requesting it on my order. Absolue d’Osmanthe, however, arrived instead. If it’s any indication of the quality of the rest of the line as I suspect, then I’m done for.

Creative Director Gian Luca Perris took a very different tack with this osmanthus. This osmanthus is sourced from Guinan in China, famous for the quality of its osmanthus absolute.

Quality is the operative word here. Absolue d’Osmanthe exists in two incarnations – as do the other members of the Perris Monte Carlo Black Line – as an eau de parfum, and as a hyper-luxe extrait. Although I only have a sample of the eau de parfum, you’ll hear no complaints. As it is, Absolue d’Osmanthe has heft and sultriness to spare.

Sultry, I hear you ask? Sultry! Is my emphatic reply, for M. Perris avoided all the obvious traps of airy-fairy, girly osmanthus and decided to accentuate the, ahem, sexier side of osmanthus, by pairing it with the animale hidden within sandalwood, tolu balsam, vanilla (a dry and very woody vanilla without sweetness) and tied it all up with a pretty jasmine sambac bow. Voilà! Sultry osmanthus. I would never have guessed that sandalwood and osmanthus could sing such a duet, but sing, they do. The osmanthus is apparent right from the start, apricot and marzipan tones all accounted for, but the sandalwood makes the heart beat faster – in both the wearer and the perfume, before the tolu, labdanum and vanilla sashay in on orange-tinted sunbeams to show you just what osmanthus can also do. It is easily unisex and would be spectacular on the right guy. It lasted a full day through all its many twists and turns, and that, too was a surprise. Now, I have to hunt down samples of the rest of the Perris Monte Carlo Black Line (to start). Damn it.

Notes for Perris Monte Carlo Absolue d’Osmanthe: Osmanthus, jasmine sambac, sandalwood, vanilla, tolu balsam, labdanum.

The Silken Suede

Parfums Serge Lutens Daim Blond(2004)

Perfumer: Christopher Sheldrake

My gateway osmanthus is remarkable for not listing any osmanthus at all, but a not-at-all abstract representation of its listed notes that somehow, some way, all add up to an elegantly restrained, decidedly chic flower I shall henceforth refer to as ‘osmanthus-with-extras’.

Daim Blond came under my nose by way of a sample courtesy of the superlative perfume writer Lucy of Indieperfume, and it was – and eight years on, still is – love at first and four-hundred-and-fortieth sniff. I’ve worn it a lot this past winter when I needed to be reminded of alternatives to blustery, frigid days, or simply something besides my January disillusioned self.

It gets stranger still. One of my most loathed perfume notes in nature – the smell of flowering hawthorn, which induces instant, all-encompassing nausea – is listed as a top note, and although I can detect faint traces of hawthorn, I don’t care nearly enough to make a fuss about it, since the rest of it is simply glorious.

Apparently, Daim Blond is quite divisive, if the reviews on Basenotes and Fragrantica are anything to go by. Some smell a derivative Feminité du Bois, some a reworking of the great Iris Silver Mist, some a truckload of ‘tamed’ Arabie (a criminal thought!), and some just complain that M. Lutens was simply repeating himself and his famous Orientalist aesthetic. YMMV.

Yet I named Daim Blond my gateway osmanthus, because it was the first osmanthus-tinged perfume I encountered that I actually loved, enough to remember it when a friend asked about a birthday present and I suggested Daim Blond off the top of my head. Since it arrived, it has remained in constant rotation for the past three years, appropriate whether April or August or January, whether a school day of linguistics for ADHD students, or a night out in Copenhagen.

Like most masterpieces of perfumery and a few humans too, it exists between the spaces of its contradictions. Just as the odor profile of osmanthus itself, it is simultaneously fruity, floral and suede-leathery all at once, and this suede has the texture of melted Isigny butter. Wherever that suede came from, I’ll wager that was one exceedingly pampered goat/pig/cow.

But I would be hard pressed to name notes as such, for no other reason than on my skin, I get osmanthus in all its orange-gold glory, a smidge of a very discreet musk, and that flawlessly prepared suede. That’s all, and that’s already more than I deserve.

Notes for Daim Blond: Hawthorn, cardamom, iris, apricot stone, (iris?) pallida, musk, heliotrope, leather.

The osmanthus may bloom in August in Guinan, but few flowers put quite so much Spring in my steps as osmanthus. If you like yours bold with a side of opulence, I recommend Amouage Journey Woman. There is another fragrant traveler in my test drawer, but that one gets its own review. Stay tuned!

The Very Best of 2013 – Worn and Adorned

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–  Being the True Confessions of an Alembicated Genie

Oh, to be a perfume writer, you readers might think and sigh with envy, to sit at your leisure and wax poetic on the wafting wonders of the world. Imagine such a thing – to be able to translate concepts and PR releases, to read eaux and extraits as well and as easily as any bestselling novel.

Well, I hate to burst any soapy aldehyde-scented bubbles here, but the simple fact is… being a perfume writer/blogger is about on a par with being a writer of erotica – both are equally hard to do and for very nearly the same reasons. You are trying to translate the untranslatable into prose.

As a perfume writer, you are trying to capture the Muse as she flies from your skin to your nasal receptors and on to your pathetically limited (and verbally challenged) brain, trying to find a metaphor you haven’t already flogged to death five reviews ago.

When I left for Pitti Fragranze, I thought I would fly home on wings of incandescent inspirational sillage, fired up on all my jets with all the Things I Sniffed At Last and all the stories I would tell my readers. Wow, was I surprised when I came home and the very idea of wearing any perfume at all made me turn green, and as for writing about it… fuggeddaboutit! I had no other choice but to simply live out a few weeks scent-free to recalibrate my nose and my mind.

Sometimes, by Golly, you just want to enjoy a perfume without any attempts at analysis, storyline or opinion and for no other reason than it smells good to you. It enhances your mood, it floats your boat, it turns you on to other headspaces and mind places. What follows below is a collection of perfumes and adornments that did just that. Many have yet to be reviewed and to be honest only some of them will be, not for lack of will or interest, but simply because it’s just been that kind of year and this one could be worse…

Perfectly Simple and Simply Perfect

Serge Lutens – Encens et Lavande (Serge Lutens/Christopher Sheldrake)

The word ‘linear’ in perfumese is often used in a derogatory way, meaning a scent that doesn’t develop much from the initial spray all the way to the far drydown. But any artist will tell you that  ‘linear’ or ‘perfectly simple’ can be hardest of all to pull off successfully, and ‘simple’ nowhere implies a lack of complexity, meaning or context. When life ground me to a fine powder, when I was about ready to call it a day and a half, Serge Lutens’ haunting interpretation of incense – a thick, delicious fog of it – wrapped around a searing purple heart of lavender always, always made me breathe deeper and easier. It is exactly what it says on the bottle – incense and lavender. No more and no less and that’s already more than I deserve.

April Aromatics – Rose L’Orange (Tanja Bochnig)

April Aromatics’ owner and perfumer Tanja Bochnig took a very bright idea and made it even brighter and better than the sum of its parts. I love rose. I love orange blossom. Put the two together as effortlessly and as artlessly as Tanja did, and this is sunshine, love and laughter in a bottle, the happy, uninhibited belly laugh of a very happy baby, the thrilled giggle of the girl I never outgrew (and never will). It has made me smile more than I can tell this past year and still does today.

The Thinking Woman’s Incense

L’Artisan Parfumeur – Dzongkha (Bertrand Duchaufour)

A very dear friend gifted me a bottle of Dzongkha for my birthday last year – a great whopping 100 ml of it no less – and not exactly being short on perfume, I had the inspired idea to use it as a decadent (decidedly non-Buddhist) room spray, simply for the way it made me slow down and think. Dzongkha was sprayed onto the Tibetan prayer flag, the carpet, the bedding, the lightbulbs, and in an instant, I could just be… and think, contemplate and ponder without dashing madly around the racetracks in my mind. A wanton, wild extravagance, you might think, but oh, so worth it!

Liquid Courage

Neela Vermeire Creations – Trayee (Neela Vermeire/Bertrand Duchaufour)

In my younger days, whenever I needed a little fragrant fortification, I wore chypres to add a little titanium to my backbone. Unless I just gave in and poured Chanel no. 19 all over myself. Not any longer, since I came to discover that Trayee – a transcendent wonder of sandalwood, incense, oud, spice, bhang and fire is all I need to straighten my spine, face the world and take it on.

The Sweetest of Sins

Guerlain – Shalemur (Shalimar Ode à la Vanille Sur La Route de Madagascar/Thierry Wasser)

This is arguably the world’s sexiest lemur. Or the most utterly debauched yet fluffiest of vanilla/iris/lemon/tonka bean cupcakes, I’m not sure which. Whatever else it is, Shalemur has adorned my person quite often this past fall, because all sins should smell as sweet or should that be – all sweets should waft such sins? Sometimes, girls just want to get in trouble…

And speaking of trouble…

From the Swipe ‘Em Sideways Department

I have a separate section in my cabinet for Scents of Seduction. These are the ones that have definite ulterior motives, and they succeeded quite a bit more than I ever expected this past year.

Amouage – Jubilation 25 (Lucas Sieuzac)

My scent twin sent me a sample of Jubilation 25 (now known as Jubilation Woman) some (long) time ago with the ominous words: “If this isn’t you, then I’m a …” (Never, Suzanne!) It was an Amouage, so I set it aside for fear of the consequences, only to rediscover it this past summer and be blown to smithereens by its fruity-chypre glories. I wore it on a day when I sorely needed to feel as fabulous as possible, and succeeded beyond all imagining when a dashing rock-star poet commented on it. I can’t repeat what he said, but let’s just say there were… consequences. Always the best kind!

vero profumo – Rubj extrait (Vero Kern)

Another very dear friend gifted me with a treasure, this a small bottle of Rubj extrait, and somewhere in a peerless paradise, the white floral angels sang as down below a different kind of devil danced a tune or two of hot summer nights on velvet moonlit lawns. That devil was Rubj. I wear her – not wisely, but I suspect that’s the whole idea. I’m certain Vero Kern would approve.

And speaking of seduction…

Wafting Down The Rabbit Hole

The Devilscents

I’m not sure what to tell people when I say I rewrote an entire novel in just over a month. They give me strange looks and step slightly sideways as if they expect me to breathe fire and speak in tongues any second. What I can say is without a certain arsenal of perfumes, I rather doubt I could have. Just as I write everything to a set playlist, when I fell down the rabbit hole of my own story and its strange and eerie places as writers are wont to do, I needed all the help I could get to stay there, and what better help than the perfumes my story inspired? The ouroboros of inspiration goes around and around… I wrote a story, created the Devilscent Project, perfumes were made, sent and reviewed, and when the time came to knock a sorry mess into something fit for publication, I donned Olympic Orchids’ Lil, Dev #2 & 4, Neil Morris’ Dev #3 & Lilith, and House of Cherry Bomb’s Dev and Lil during the course of that month and waded into the verbal fray, metaphorical sword in hand. I’m proud to say I did it, proud to state it is now the book I wanted to write (but was unable to at the time, for which I thank the readers of TAG – you’ve taught me so much!), and ecstatic to know that the perfumes and the dear perfumers who rose so beautifully to that infernal occasion made the book that much better! True story. Ask Dev.

Done In By Splendor

It inevitably happens I have what I call Wayne’s World moments – moments I want to kowtow to the floor in front of the perfumer and yell at the top of my lungs: ‘I’m not worthy!’ Many friends have unwittingly sent me a few of these, and others – one I call Evil Incarnate, and I’m not entirely joking – sent these marvels knowing full well I’d freak. These count among my biggest freak-out instances.

Amouage – Epic Woman Extrait (Christopher Chong/Daniel Maurel)

Ah, Epic… how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Twelve sprays on a freezing cold night nearly asphyxiated a rock star (plus everyone else in Scandinavia and most of Northern Europe that night) but did I care? No, and he hugged me goodbye anyway. If I thought the eau de parfum was perdition, I wasn’t at all prepared for the extrait. Swoon.

Krigler – Topaze Imperiale 13

The marvelous thing about Krigler’s Topaze Imperiale 13  – a flawless amber – is that it seems by some strange sleight-of-hand to be constructed upside down, beginning with a decadent sandalwood/patchouli/labdanum and then glowing in the dark with rose, oud, vanilla and orange blossom. In other words, it’s many things I love wrapped up in something that smells like a few handy million after taxes and expenses. I really don’t understand why it doesn’t get more love because by Golly, I’d love it to death and beyond.

Oriza L. Legrand – Chypre Mousse

Once a year these past two years, a perfume will alight out of the blue aether into a world that I suspect is not entirely prepared for it. Last year, MDCI’s Chypre Palatin blew all our socks off, and shortly before New Year’s, this apparition really blew my mind. You see, I cut my perfume teeth on chypres, and I never apply the term lightly – chypres oblige. As Chypre Mousse did by being improbably lush, velvety plush, loaded with thickly applied, musty oakmoss to the max (or whatever accords were used to approximate it) and a definite vintage heritage that ensures there is nothing at all like it, and nothing at all you can compare it to. I know my chypres. Trust me on this one.

Best Comeback Moment

Aftelier  – Cuir de Gardenia (Mandy Aftel)

Dear darling Mandy, you have been very much missed. Rumor has it there is a book underway (I don’t know if it’s true, but wouldn’t that be grand?), but then, you gifted the world with this outrageously sensual out-of-body bombshell of a perfume, and my poor heart has fluttered ever since. I will have much more to say about it, but for now, I can certainly say this much: I’m not worthy!

Score for The Memories

A great tip, a finished manuscript and money in my PayPal account is a dangerous combination. Especially when it involves two of my all-time favorite perfumes in a perfectly preserved vintage incarnation. With a few exceptions, I tend to stay away from vintage perfumes, unless I really, truly, absolutely adored them to death back in the day. For no better reason than this – not only do I live in the niche-free Empty Quarter of Northern Europe, it’s also vintage free, at least where I live. Surely kismet played its fragrant hand on the day I encountered two absolute (vintage) loves. And bought them.

Grès – Cabochard (Bernard Chant)

My mother had a thing for pulpy 70s paperbacks, which was how I first learned about Cabochard in an Irving Stone novel called ‘The Fan Club’ at an impressionable age. Not that many years later, I came across Cabochard in a Copenhagen department store, remembered the book, and bought it. It took me a while to come around to this sexy, slinky leathery green chypre, but come around I did – I was never without a bottle of it again for almost twenty years. When it was gone, I missed it sorely– for the memories, for its slinky-sexy Kim Novak-in-Vertigo vibe, for everything I felt I was when I wore it. So the day I found a vintage version, I bought it pronto and found it to be everything I remembered and loved. In other words, perfect for all the Hitchcock moments I anticipate.

Dior – Dioressence (Guy Robert)

My first Dior was the original Miss Dior, but no Dior quite grabbed me as the louche, bohemian and more than a little risqué Dioressence. Part green, part dirty, part dark and all feline, it wafted behind a short, busty punk in a blue Mohawk through several years of thrills and spills and can now work its green, feline magic on a short, busty blonde all over again. One can never be too louche past a certain age…

The Devil In The Details

I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity. (Diana Vreeland)

Sequestered behind my screen, I can pretend all I like I am everything I ever was, but as events no doubt will prove in the year to come, I can’t hide there any longer. This past year, the Genie ventured into beauty products, and although my main focus here will always be perfume, beauty is as beauty does and leopard print pjs will never do for public appearances. I was never more grateful for upgrading my image than when two spectacularly talented perfumers also ventured into skin and haircare…

 aroma M Camellia Oils

Perfumer Maria McElroy of aroma M ventured into haircare and skincare this past year with her Camellia oils (for hair, for the face and a delicious bath and body oil). I have this to say about them all – they are heavenly fragrant, highly effective and utter bliss to use. I’ll take ten of each to go, please.

Aftelier Ancient Resins Body Oil & Jasmine Facial Oil

With Aftelier, you know it will be good. Actually, it will be so good, you’ll be doomed – or spoiled for life – to revel in these wonders and know your face, your skin, your nose and your very soul will thank you for them forever.

Underrated Gratitude

Everything, so claimed James Burke once upon a time, is connected. Nowhere was this truer than when I encountered an issue  – vanity or narcissism, take your pick – and asked one of my Beauty Swamis about concealer. If I have a day I look better than usual, I can thank Gaia the Non Blonde, because she has never steered me wrong, starting with…

Ellis Faas – Concealer & Hot Lips

There are few things cooler than finding a perfect product that does exactly what it says it will, performs impeccably, and makes you feel well, perfect. Thanks to the Non Blonde, I bought a concealer to start, followed by two shades of Hot Lips – a lip stain of a different kind – and wow, what a difference! I’ll never need an excuse not to act my shoe size ever again.

Nars – Pressed Light Reflecting Setting Powder

It was a Nightmare Scenario. My first professional photo shoot at a time in my life I looked (and felt) about thirty years older than my already advanced age. I was mid-deadline (and nearly dead on my feet) and terrified I’d look like microwaved death soup on my dust jacket. A bit of research and a long Skype conversation with my awesome publisher (who knows these things matter!) landed this indispensible item in my mailbox the day before the shoot. It impressed the makeup artist and the photographer impressed me (and quite a few other people) no end with the results.

Dear Non Blonde. Thank you. Signed, a Blonde.

And as I look through my notes for these Best Of posts, somewhere in the borderlands between beauty and vanity, between fragrance and fragrant, connections and people, I think that in my own evolution as a perfume writer, as a writer and perhaps most of all as a woman these past three-plus years, maybe this is the greatest of all year-end wrap-ups and the greatest of all gifts – to know that somewhere out there on the other side of your screen, is a frothing, seething lot of truly inspiring people who believe as you do in the importance of capturing beauty – or the Muse – as she flies. And above all else,  in passing its wisdom on.

Here’s to the thrills and spills that lie ahead in 2014!

With profound thanks to Ida, Lucy, Ruth, Gaia, Tami, Tamsin, Claudia, Maria, Ellen, Neil, Alexis, Mandy and all those friends I feel so blessed to have in my life. 

Spelling Eternity

laviergedefer

–  a review of Parfums Serge Lutens’ La Vierge de Fer

When rumors began to circulate some months back about a new Serge Lutens perfume named after a medieval torture device (I’ll be getting back to that one), you can imagine that a discussion ensued on a perfume forum I frequent as to what that name might imply in olfactory terms – or not. Never mind we legions of Serge Lutens acolytes will always be insatiably curious about the next launch, certainly curious enough to feed the rumor mills and grease the wheels of our own olfactory imaginations.

But a medieval torture device?

Some stated flat out they would rather drop dead than wear anything so euphoniously named simply for the associations that came with it, while others among us have many fond memories of a rock band bearing that name’s English translation and were already flashing the horns in anticipation, all allegories of the Inquisition or indeed our mortal souls be damned.

So let me start there. The Iron Maiden as it exists in the public imagination today was a hoax. No historical evidence suggests it even existed until 1793 when the German philosopher Johann Phillipp Siebenkees became inspired by a reference in St. Augustine’s ‘The City of God’ to invent a particularly chilling example of manifest human cruelty. The most famous, known as the Iron Maiden of Nuremburg, can be dated no earlier than 1802 and would have been patently counterproductive as a torture device.

Meanwhile, the diabolical duo of M. Lutens and Mr. Sheldrake pulled out the rug under all our fragrant and/or morbid phantasms with La Vierge de Fer and in the process confounded us all. Again.

Knowing something of Serge Lutens’ propensity for audacious and inventive florals, I could have half-expected something at least as outré as its name, but also – experience is a witch – I know enough by now to expect the unexpected, which was precisely what I got.

La Vierge de Fer is indeed a floral, indeed a novel interpretation of a lily, but this lily bears no resemblance to Un Lys. Forget all you know about lilies and take a walk on a wintry path where gothic flowers bloom, as it begins to bloom in a huge, frilly, feminine pouf of aldehydes as blinding white and frigid as snow.

The lily grabs those aldehydes in moments and keeps them close by as a demure lily of the valley sidles in between them, but both the lily and the lily of the valley are immaculately scrubbed clean of all their earthier memories, suspended in an endless aldehydic mid-air somersault like flying floral trapeze artistes, and the safety net of arctic incense, a touch of chilly vanilla and white musk waits an infinite space below as they swing back and forth between the perpetual lily, lily of the valley in a morally ambiguous aldehydic love triangle. Where aldehydes are usually used as top notes, here they’re present front, center and nearly all the way to the basenotes some long hours later, as cold and nearly as bleak as a frosty December night before they give way to the no less chilly, steely incense, vanilla and metallic white musk at the base.

After multiple wearings this past fall, I’m still not sure whether this is a perfume, a benediction of light or a curse along the lines of that Chinese proverb: ‘may you live in interesting times.’ I suspect it may be all three at once, but bear with me…

According to the enigmatic press release, La Vierge de Fer was partly inspired by Joan of Arc, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and even memories of M. Lutens’ mother. Yet I sense an artistic theme in many of Serge Lutens’ latest releases that not only runs counter to our usual expectations of former fragrant and etiolated Oriental bombast, but also makes sense in terms of further explicating a personal aesthetic. I was reminded of M. Lutens’ own photographed demoiselles, those pale, sublime, elegantly articulated creatures of perfection which seem to exist in an alternate, timeless universe that keeps the rest of us mere mortals at a distinct, chilly and intimidating distance even as we are helpless to surrender to their bewitching spell. Even as we wonder whether their peerless complexions and enchanting eyes are masks concealing another kind of prison.

So I wonder at La Vierge de Fer and the other recent releases that have also highlighted florals in new and compelling ways: La Fille de Berlin, which was the tale of a thorny rose, Vitriol d’Œillet, the fiery carnation with teeth, Bas de Soie with its cool, restrained hyacinth or De Profundis with its intimations of impending mortality and chill frissons of chrysanthemum, violet and incense. All are far removed from the usual olfactory tropes of ‘floral’, and all are usually recreated in plush, dense fashions, except somehow, M. Lutens and Mr, Sheldrake have lately created florals as diaphanous as chiffon even as they are no less plush than before.

Make no mistake – La Vierge de Fer is a stunning, beautiful perfume. I find it not at all boring or linear. Although I do suspect those blinding, vivid aldehydes are not entirely benign…

And I’m reminded of a favorite fairy tale, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen in the depths of La Vierge de Fer. Where a little boy named Kai is afflicted with a splint of a goblin mirror only to see the ugly in the world, and is abducted by the beautiful Snow Queen to the far, far North, where he sits at a frozen lake trying to assemble a puzzle to spell the word ‘eternity’ to achieve his freedom.

In the fairy tale, he only succeeded when his childhood friend Gerda after endless tribulations found him by the lake and melted the splinter in his heart with her tears, and the puzzle spelled eternity as they left the realm of the Snow Queen and returned to the world, and it was no longer winter, but glorious summer.

And at long last, the lilies are in bloom beneath an infinite blue sky, spelling out that chilling, endless word…

Eternity.

Notes: (my own impressions) Aldehydes, lily, lily of the valley, incense, vanilla, white musk.

La Vierge de Fer is an exclusive eau de parfum available as a 75 ml bell jar from the Palais Royal in Paris, from the Serge Lutens website for EU customers and from Barneys NY.

With profound thanks to Jack for the opportunity.

Photo: Detail from Alexander McQueen’s Haute Couture presentation, Autumn-Winter 2008.