Perfume Review – Serge Lutens Tubéreuse Criminelle: Genius but not Felonious.

Posted on December 24, 2012 by Kafkaesque

Marlene Dietrich

“The Agony and the Ecstasy.” I had heard so much about Tubereuse Criminelle, but the Perfume Shrine’s reference to the Irving Stone classic in the context of sadomasochism and Marlene Dietrich made me sit up just a little bit higher and pay strict attention. Elena Vosnaki, the award-winning editor and expert behind The Perfume Shrine, wrote about “fire and ice” and described T/C as “felonious,” before concluding: “Like Marlen Dietrich’s name according to Jean Cocteau, but in reverse, Tubéreuse Criminelle starts with a whip stroke, ends with a caress. For sadomasochists and people appreciative of The Agony and The Ecstasy. A masterpiece!!” (Emphasis added.)

Good Lord! My jaw dropped. I had to try it, and I had to try it immediately. Like any self-respecting tuberose lover, I own (and love) Fracas, created in 1948 by Robert Piguet and now, the benchmark for all tuberose scents. But perfumistas of all stripes — regardless of how they feel about classique tuberose fragrances — are also aware that today’s modern masters have sought to take tuberose and flip it upside its head. To transform it from the powerhouse legend that so many adore and that a small portion tremble before in abject horror and fear. Serge Lutens was the very first to do that in 1999 with Tubereuse Criminelle, followed thereafter by Frederic Malle in 2005 with Carnal Flower.

The Perfume Shrine’s review, along with that of numerous others, made me determined to try both modern takes on my beloved Fracas right away. (Plus, the “ice” part sounded bloody good to one suffering the horrors of a Texas summer.)

Marlene Dietrich’s legendary legs, once insured by Lloyds of London.

I did my best to overlook the numerous references to “mouth wash,” “gasoline,” “Drano,” and metholated rubber. I focused instead on “sadomasochism” and “The Agony and the Ecstasy” (a book I’d loved and a movie that isn’t bad either). Or other comments like, “criminally genius,” “subversive” and “transformative” (the latter usually said by those who previously felt ill at the mere thought of tuberose.) But, really, it was the Perfume Shrine’s review. Would you pass up the chance to feel “felonious”or to be like Marlene Dietrich cracking a whip?

While waiting impatiently for my sample bottles to arrive, I read up on Tubereuse Criminelle. Uncle Serge (as he is often affectionately called) worked with his favorite perfumer, Christopher Sheldrake, and their final product was exclusive to their Palais Royal store in Paris.

The bell jar of Tubereuse Criminelle.

It was one of the famous “bell jar” fragrances — a reference to the shape of the bottle. As a Palais Royal exclusive, it was also not available for export and was considerably more expensive than the regular, export Lutens line. (In the US, the Lutens website currently offers the bell-jar form for $300 for 75 ml or 2.5 fl. oz in eau de parfum form. However, it also offers the regular 1.7 oz/50 ml rectangular bottle for $140.) SL TC small

Being one of Lutens’ “non-export” Paris exclusives just added to the mystique but, finally, in mid-2011, Lutens agreed to export the scent world-wide. Allegedly, Tubéreuse Criminelle was reformulated to comply with certain export regulations and was weakened in strength. There is no official confirmation of that; perfume houses rarely admit it. So, thus far, it is merely anecdotal references based on people’s experiences with the original Palais Royal salon perfume. But there have been a lot of those anecdotes with regard to several Lutens perfumes that are now available as exports.

I think a 2011 interview with Serge Lutens makes it pretty clear that some Lutens fragrances have definitely been reformulated for one reason or another. In an interview with Fragrantica, Lutens was asked explicitly about whether he had ever reformulated a scent to comply with those bloody IFRA regulations.

Serge Lutens

He answered as follows:

Laws are a force from which one cannot escape. They are even applied hypocritically, through the circumventing of them or, as with all the world of perfumery (if it wants to be in compliance with these laws), by replacing the forbidden with other elements… which will themselves be prohibited a few months later. However, I do not like to retrogress: what’s done is done, and it is not certain that a perfumery such as mine can continue in the future. (Emphasis added.)

The Tubereuse Criminelle entry on the Lutens website states simply:

“Les Fleurs du Mal,” Charles Baudelaire.

“Baudelaire was right. Let’s give the flowers back to evil.”

And I think he and Christopher Sheldrake achieved that to a large extent, via the ingredients. The notes for Tubéreuse Criminelle are:

jasmine, orange blossom, hyacinth, tuberose, nutmeg, clove, styrax (also known as benzoin), musk and vanilla.

But the transformative key to Tubéreuse Criminelle — the thing which made it so revolutionary as a tuberose perfume — is menthyl salicylate which is a natural organic compound found in tuberose. It creates a very medicinal, almost mentholated or camphorous eucalyptus smell that evokes “Vicks Vapor Rub” for some, but minty mouth wash for others. It can also create varying impressions of gasoline/petrol, rubbery or leather.

Tubéreuse Criminelle opens with a burst of sweet jasmine and, yes, eucalyptus and menthol. It is a much sweeter opening than I recall from when I first tried this scent this summer. Perhaps the heat amplified the menthol notes then but, today, all I smell is heady, narcotic, luxurious, sweet jasmine and, then, only in second place, the menthol. There is a muscle rub smell that is not, on me, Vick’s Vapor Rub but an almost sugared, sweetened version of Tiger’s Balm. The faintly medicinal edge is much softer than I had remembered but, at no time, has it ever been that burst of ice that I read about in the Perfume Shrine’s review. The narcotic-like headiness and warmth of the jasmine round out the notes far too much for them to be a blast of chilly ice. It is, as one person on Basenotes noted so aptly, ” “a lively cooling sharpness.”

A faintly rubbery note soon emerges. It’s not burnt rubber, but an almost thick, viscous, rubbery richness that is oddly sweet. Indolic flowers can often have a rubbery element to the narcotic richness at their heart; and this perfume contains two of the most indolic flowers around – jasmine and tuberose. (You can read more about Indoles and Indolic scents at the Glossary.) Yet, the cool freshness of menthol that cuts through the heady fumes of the flowers in a really clever way, reducing any potential cloying, over-ripeness. I am really enjoying the extremely unusual, novel, unique smell.

Perhaps that’s because I don’t smell many of the terrible notes that Tubéreuse Criminelle’s detractors repeat so frequently. Some of the comments from the negative reviews on Basenotes include the following:

A fur coat in mothballs, wrapped in plastic. Shag carpet recently steamed with an industrial strength cleaner and still wet. The open-casket funeral of a wealthy great-aunt. Wow.

Starts out with a strong note of iodine followed by the sharp rubber scent of brand new steel belted radial tires. […] Smells like I’m in the tire store one minute and then in a hospital testing lab the next.

I love tuberose…but not when it’s mixed with Denorex coal tar shampoo. [..] I don’t want someone to catch a whiff of my expensive perfume and assume that I have a severe dandruff problem!!

It smells like hot asphalt, antiseptic, rubbing alcohol, and tuberose.

first contact- menthol, toilet bowl cleaner, fake flowers- cannot get my nose far enough away from my wrists.

performance art more than perfume.

For the sake of balance, I should point out that Basenotes has 5 negative reviews, 7 neutral ones, and 23 very positive ones. I’m relieved that I smell few of those things that so plague the negative reviewers — or, at least, not to any comparable degree. (And I most definitely do not smell asphalt or grandma’s mothballs!) I do, however, completely understand the comparison to brand new tires. It’s extremely faint on me, but it is there. And I like the smell as a whole. I definitely consider it to be a work of genius, especially intellectual, and I enjoy certain aspects of it a lot. I’m just not sure I would reach for it, let alone frequently.

The genius of Tubéreuse Criminelle is that it has essentially deconstructed the tuberose flower down to its molecular essence, then separated those notes, and put them all together as individual prisms that — somehow — manage to make the whole even more intense than the original flower. Apparently, there is an organic compound called menthyl salicylate in tuberose (as well as some other plants) which is the basis for oil of wintergreen. So, in short, tuberose naturally produced a medicated wintergreen note, albeit a subtle one. Given that tuberose is also considered to have a very rubbery element to its heart, it’s clear that Lutens and Sheldrake have intentionally sought to emphasize the individual components of tuberose.

The perfume is, thus, like a shattered prism where each broken piece is then put back together to create an even richer, but slightly “off”, sum total. A good example of this is the opening where I smell jasmine and a few other notes, but no actual tuberose. None! At least, no tuberose the way it is in scents like Fracas, Michael Kors by Michael Kors, and most other white flower scents. I smell all the separate and individual components of tuberose, but not the flower itself. That comes later.

After the first 30 minutes, the menthol recedes, and the tuberose emerges along with a definite touch of orange blossom. After another hour, Tubéreuse Criminelle is all soft, creamy and (to my nose) heavenly tuberose. There are hints of hyacinth and lingering traces of the jasmine, but any alleged Marlene Dietrich-like black whip has now turned into the gentle caress of white flowers.

The duration of Tubéreuse Criminelle and the shortness of each developmental phase is much worse on me that it seems to be on others. On my skin, that revolutionary, hugely contradictory and very “off” opening of heady narcotic flowers and wintergreen soon fades. I think Uncle Serge simply does not design florals for my perfume-consuming skin chemistry. An hour and a half in, Tubéreuse Criminelle is white flowers with mere touch of what was once much, much more forceful “lively coolness.” I hear varying reports of just how long those opening notes last on people; those who despise the perfume obviously feels it lasts an eternity, while those who love it lament its short death. All I know is that the perfume’s truly metholated opening lasted only about 20-30 minutes on me. The first full 1 to 1.5 hours on me, it was a mix of faint wintery coolines and heady flowers. Then it became pure white flowers (with the hyacinth becoming much more dominant) and a faint touch of vanilla from the styrax/benzoin.

One type of Styrax tree which creates the resin used in Tubereuse Criminelle.

One type of the styrax tree which creates the resin used in Tubereuse Criminelle.

In terms of sillage or projection, it’s quite impressive at first. Tubéreuse Criminelle only started to fade about 2 hours in, which is a hell of a lot more than what I can say for Serge Lutens’ A La Nuit. I would place T/C closer to Serge Noire in terms of sillage and longevity on me, than to some of his other perfumes. Tubéreuse Criminelle became close to the skin about 3.5 hours in, which is again impressive for a Lutens, in my experience. And the whole thing lasted about 5.5 to 6 hours on me.

The best way I can really sum up my personal Tubéreuse Criminelle experience is in photos. I expected it to evoke this:

Claudia Schiffer for Vogue.

And I expected to respond like this:

Naomi Campbell by Steven Meisel.

Instead, it opened for just a short 20 minutes like this:

Vogue 2005 -AJ

before turning much more into this:

angelina-jolie-vogue-jan07-07

And, by the end, I felt like this:

There is nothing wrong with any of that. In fact, it makes Tubéreuse Criminelle a much more approachable tuberose scent for those who previously feared anything to do with the flower.

I think that I’m absolutely in awe of the genius behind Tubéreuse Criminelle’s almost avant-garde deconstruction of the underlying flower and of its prismatic construction. Intellectually, the theory behind this makes me adore it. In real life, and for actual wearing… not so much. Beyond the sheer brilliance of its creation, it’s intriguing, yes, and there is something about that opening which makes it stay in at the back of your mind. But, ultimately and in its final moments, it’s really not all that interesting. If I owned a bottle, I’d wear it — on occasion. I simply can’t see myself reaching for it like a drug addict in need of his one pure solace.

I see nothing about fire and ice, I see no dominatrixes (not even in those first 20 minutes), and I certainly don’t see Marlene Dietrich with a whip. (Oddly, however, I actually could see her wearing this on occasion, but it wouldn’t be the first scent that came to mind when thinking about that legendary icon.) In some ways, I feel almost offended by the comparison to Les Fleurs du Mal. Baudelaire is one of my favorite poets and he would scoff at the Lutens’ website line of “let’s give the flowers back to evil” after smelling Tubéreuse Criminelle. There is nothing evil about the perfume — not the way it is on my skin. Metholated white flowers don’t arise to the level of almost malevolently decaying inner rot; and there is too much sweetness, warmth and light with the jasmine, hyacinth and the other notes. But Tubéreuse Criminelle is revolutionary. And it is also complete genius.

This review is for my brave friend, Teri, who is always an explorer of the senses and who foolhardily buys $300 Bell Jars without even a review!

Details:

Perfume: Unisex. Men definitely do wear this.

Cost: $140 for 1.7 fl oz/50 ml or $300 for 2.5 fl oz/75 ml in the famous bell-jar shape. Both available on the Serge Lutens website. In general, Serge Lutens is also available at fine retailers like Barney’s, Lucky Scent and a few other places. I’ve even seen it sold on Amazon. Sample vials to test it out can be bought at Surrender to Chance, Lucky Scent, and The Perfumed Court.

Reviews En Bref: L’Artisan Parfumeur Passage d’Enfer & Serge Lutens A La Nuit

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Kafkaesque

As with last week’s rundown, this post will be a brief summary of my impressions of several perfumes that I didn’t think warranted one of my full, extensively detailed reviews.

Passage d’Enfer by L’Artisan Parfumeur needs another name. Badly. Alternatively Passage d'E translated as “the passage to Hell,” or the “gateway to Hell,” the name would lead you to think this is a scent that is fiery, smoky, and the gateway drug to all sorts of dark things. Instead, it is light, soapy, extremely short in duration, and a floral musk. Apparently, the name really refers to the street on which L’Artisan’s offices were located which is fine and dandy, but then give this name to another perfume! NST provides the following details: “Passage d’Enfer was launched in 1999; the perfumer was Olivia Giacobetti and the notes include white lily, aloe wood, frankincense, benzoin and white musk.”

Passage d’Enfer is a unisex fragrance whose opening is light, fresh, clean and soapy. There is lily and a faint musk. I love lily and its soft touch here, but it’s too soft. Too ethereal for me. It’s also of too short a duration. I also love frankincense in perfumes, but I smell none of it here. I do, however, smell pencil shavings?! I had read that that was a frequent impression of the dry down, but I hadn’t believed it. I do now. And it didn’t require the dry-down for it to appear it, either. I smelled it within the first five minutes! (Just how fast does my body burn through the pyramid notes anyway?!) If forced, I would call Passage d’Enfer an elegantly austere perfume. I suppose.

If I were to be frank, however, I’d call it linear, boring, and redolent of hotel soap. (Definite hotel soap — without question — and not the expensive kind either.) I should probably bite my tongue, but I cannot. The almost antiseptically clean, synthetically soapy scent conjures up the soap bars with their slightly brown, plastic paper wrappings that are so common in cheap, tacky and faintly seedy hotels. And the combination of floral musk with that soap is rendered me faintly nauseous. I know I have a bias against the clean, fresh soapy category of perfumes but, nonetheless, I find this one to be a particularly revolting version of it. So, I take back what I said about the perfume’s name being a misnomer. No, this really is the gateway to hell, and it calls to mind things that are probably better left unsaid.

A La Nuit by Serge Lutens is a lovely jasmine soliflore for women that evokes the bright green of spring. Created by Lutens’ favorite perfumer, Christopher Sheldrake, it was launched in 2007 and contains several different types of jasmine along with green notes and musk. Fragrantica describes it as follows:

Several variances of jasmine are combined in the composition: Indian, Egyptian and Moroccan. The jasmine blend is accompanied by green branches, honey, clove, benzoin, and musk. The composition starts with intensive jasmine notes, warmed and deepened by benzoin in the base. The base notes are surprising here because they are greener and lighter than the central notes, and thus they emphasize the spring-time floral character of this fragrance.

A La Nuit’s opening made me go “Mmmmm” out loud from the sheer pleasure of that lovely, gorgeous jasmine. It’s heady, but it’s not a ripe, overblown jasmine. The green notes give it a lightness and freshness. There is almost a milky element to the greenness that is hard to explain. It’s as if the fresh lightness of the green branches have combined with the honey and faintly musky feel to create a sweetly milky green note. The scent brings to mind a green bamboo candle I have and love it.

I love A La Nuit’s jasmine and I keep putting more on. Mostly, because the bloody scent doesn’t last on me! Within 10 minutes, it starts to fade and become close to the skin. That has to be a new record, both for me and for niche fragrances on me. If I remember correctly, A La Nuit was the third Lutens fragrance I ever tried; its incredibly brief shelf-life was what cemented the impression in my mind that Lutens perfumes were a dubious proposition for my skin chemistry.

I’m obviously a bit of an oddity when it comes to perfume duration and projection but, nonetheless, I was amazed to read the NST review in which the jasmine-loving writer Jasmine found it too strong and too sweet. In fact, her reviewing notes flatly state “your basic death by jasmine.” Her comments may prove useful to anyone considering the perfume:

the top notes […] are as close to being buried alive in flower petals as anything else I can think of. If you don’t like jasmine, it will seem like an awfully long wait for it to calm, assuming you bother to wait at all — I should think a true jasmine hater would find A La Nuit a scrubber. If you adore jasmine, you might find it heavenly. I do love jasmine, but the top notes are SWEET and STRONG, and I find it nearly unbearable sprayed. A little dab here and there is plenty enough heaven for me.

A La Nuit does calm — and doesn’t really take all that long — and then it is even more heavenly: a sumptuous jasmine, ripe but no longer heady. […] The longer it is on skin, the more the lushness fades, and eventually, it nearly qualifies as fresh, but there is fresh and then there is fresh. A La Nuit isn’t at all clean, in fact, it is more than a bit indolic (several reviews mention dirty diapers, or even cat urine).

It is the prettiest jasmine I know, although it isn’t girly-pretty in the least. It is jasmine with attitude, and while I don’t tend to classify my fragrances as for day or evening wear, in this case the name suits. I find that it just doesn’t feel right during the day.

I agree that it is definitely one of the prettiest jasmine fragrances. (I, for one, certainly do not smell cat urine or dirty diapers.) It’s an absolutely gorgeous fragrance that any jasmine lover should try. I don’t think this is a night-time only scent, either. The freshness and the greenness counter that, but I realise that it depends on a person’s individual style. For me, it wouldn’t be an issue for one single reason: A La Nuit wouldn’t last 30 minutes on me, day or night! If it lasted a good few hours, I would be very tempted to buy a full bottle.

Perfume Review – Serge Lutens Serge Noire: Janus & The Cloven Beast

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Kafkaesque

Serge Lutens describes Serge Noire as a phoenix rising from the ashes. Perhaps. I see it more as a cloven beast, with “cloven” referring not only to the cloves that make up such a large part of its character but also to the traditional definition of the word: split in two. To me, Serge Noire is Janus, that ancient Roman god with two faces and the god of beginnings and ends. In common, modern parlance, you might say that Serge Noire is slightly bi-polar.

A good starting point in discussing Serge Noire is the Lutens’ press release. As provided by BoisdeJasmin, it states:

The ether of ashes… A phoenix, the mythical bird of legend burns at the height of its splendour before emerging triumphant, reborn from the ashes in a choreography of flame, conjuring the shapes of yesterday in a dance of ashes. The swirls of oriental grey enrich the twilight with depth and intensity while windswept memories hint at the beauty of transformation. An ode to everlasting beauty under cover of night’s rich plumage.

The Lutens website omits the poetry, and simply says:

nothing can capture this scent’s spirit better than subtle “snapshots” from the past, like a forgotten glove lying on an antique chair.

Incense stirred by the smell of burnt wood.

The full, complete notes for Serge Noire are hard to pinpoint with any uniform, agreed-upon accuracy. The consensus on the basic elements seems to be: cloves, cinnamon, patchouli, incense and “dark woods.” However, Perfume Shrine also referenced “elemi,” a spicy, peppery and citrusy resin. Fragrantica gives the notes as: “patchouli, cinnamon, amber, woody notes, incense, clove, spices and ebony wood.” And, yet, most think that there must be some cumin in there too. I also see repeated references to grey ash, labdanum/cistus, benzoin and castoreum. (Castoreum essentially comes a beaver’s anal sacs and has been used in such famous fragrances as Shalimar, Jicky, Cuir de Russie, Antaeus, Amouage Epic and more. See, the Glossary for a full definition and more details.) I’ve even read a few comments that mention gunpowder too!

I was a bit terrified to try out Serge Noire because of the sheer forcefulness of the negative reviews. This is a fragrance that seems to engender extremely intense reviews, but the positive ones on places like Basenotes are nowhere as vehemently extreme as the negative ones. (If you’re ever bored, I suggest reading some of the comments. At the very least, they’re really amusing.) To give you an idea of some of the Basenotes comments:

“Sacré bleu, Serge! Why did you market this horror?”

“[W]hy did I buy this? just like chewing tin foil”

“It starts out like a punch in the face and a savage cauterizing of the ol’factory with several murderous spices. Then ATTACK OF THE CLOVES and suddenly your feet are raised high above your head as you are hoisted in the dental chair preparing for root canal treatment. This surely must be somebody’s idea of a practical joke.”

“Absolutely, incredibly and horribly foul. One of the most disgusting things I have ever smelled in my life.”

“Pure evil!”

An even more alarming review came from NST where the perfume was compared to a potpourri of ingredients whose recipe included, just in small part, the following:

50 pieces of charred cassia bark (the bark should be blackened and retain only the most rancid traces of oil and odor);

Ten 1/8-inch slices of Swiss cheese;

Chain-gang T-shirt bits (with scissors, cut out and save the stained, armpit areas (bits) of 25 sweaty T-shirts that have been worn at least 10 hours on a 90-100 degree day;

One large box of moth balls, roasted (roast on a grill in the open air while wearing a HEPA-filter mask); and

10 handfuls of singed hair (… for pre-singed locks, visit the worstsalon in your area and obtain fall-out from recently botched dye jobs, hair-straightening sessions, permanents, etc.).

Finally, pour the contents of three bottles of Angostura bitters and two bottles of grenadine into the bucket, top off with more salt, and let the mixture ‘rest’ in the (covered) bucket — in a dark and dank place — under lock and key — for at least two weeks.

To be fair, there are a lot of extremely passionate, gushing, postive reviews for Serge Noire, with its fans calling it the best Lutens fragance “in years” and with others applauding the genius of the “nose” behind its creation, the very famous Christopher Sheldrake. Some of those — like Perfume Shrine‘s review — wax so poetically, they are almost other-worldly. In fact, the latter review seemed much more like existentialist tract on philosophy and poetry than an assessment of mere perfume.

Nonetheless, I’ve found the horror outweights the poetry when it comes to reactions. There are also constant references to “BO” (body odor) and sweat which I found alarminng. But when Smelly Thoughts — a blogger who adores niche fragrances that are somewhat avant-garde or extreme — called it “hideous” just a few days ago, I really paled a little. So, it’s not surprising that I put it on with great trepidation. And I must say, I hardly find it to be “pure evil.”

I loved the opening spray of Serge Noire, but I wonder how much of my reaction stemmed from enormous relief rather than actual love. My initial notes actually read like this: “CLOVES! No sweat, thank god! Ooops… sweat.” As someone who cooks extensively, I have issues with cumin and, to me, it often evokes an impression of dirty, sweaty socks with the rancid, fetid body odor of someone who has never understood the joys of soap and water. Serge Noire definitely evoked “BO.” But, to my surprise, there was just a fleeting note of sweat in the opening salvo. Instead, I was strongly reminded of the smell of a leather saddle, slightly damp and with a touch of the horse or rider’s sweat. There was also a fascinating mix of camphor to counter the sweetness of the clove and what almost seemed like star anise. There is a faint touch of something medicinal that vaguely brings to mind Tiger’s Balm muscle rub, but it’s a sweet note as compared to the sharply metallic, cold, screechy medicinal accord in some oud fragrances. The camphor is not a surprise;Sheldrake has used it before in fragrances for Serge Lutens. Tubereuse Criminelle is perhaps the most well-known for that accord but there, the camphor mixes with a green floral scent, not with something as sweet as cloves and cinnamon.

I was so enchanted by the warmth of the cloves that I actually added another two sprays (though small in size) to my other arm. The cloves are a bit surprising in their expression on my skin; they’re not sharp but deeper, warmer and more well-rounded than I had expected. Some of the Lutens fragrances can be a bit cacophonous in their opening but Serge Lutens surprises me by being much tamer than the ferocious, hideous beast of the reviews.

I was really enjoying the fragrance thus far and it made me feel rather Christmas-y in some ways. Yet, the strongest and most constant memory that it evoked was Estée Lauder’s legendary Cinnabar, that famous 70s cousin to YSL’s Opium. The cloves in Serge Noire are, on my skin, much sharper than the more cinnamon-predominant Cinnabar, but they definitely share similarities to my mind and not solely because they are powerhouse scents centered around cinnamon and cloves. No, there is definitely a slightly retro feel to Serge Noire, though it’s a modern take on retro with the cinnamon.

On MakeupAlley, one commentator said they smelled “deadly hot pepper” but I don’t see it. Another said that she had a very strong impressed of ketchup mixed with a spicy BO scent. I definitely agree on the ketchup, but it’s a very vague, tenuous and fleeting impression, and it’s really due to the cloves and patchouli. Others reference the frankincense but to me, in the first two hours, it’s more patchouli. If it is frankincense that creates that peppery, smoky, dirty black scent, then it’s a very different type of frankincense than the one in Chanel’s Coromandel. (Reviewed here.) No, I think it’s more patchouli than frankincense, though Perfume Shrine (linked up above) seems to ascribe the peppery, spicy notes to a resin called “elemi.”

Either way, the linear nature of the fragrance in the early hours is a slight disappointment. The heart of cloves, cinnamon and camphor is just too strong of a constant thread. Yes, there is incense and patchouli, but it’s hard to separate them at times. Serge Noire is an extremely well-blended fragrance — so much so that the patchouli, cloves, cinnamon, and incense blend together in an extremely harmonious whole. I would have preferred something that morphed much more. And it does, later, change a little but not by much.

I thought Serge Noire was a very warm fragrance which is why reviews referencing its cold, “austere” nature were a little confusing at first glance. Austere? Is it the incense? Perfume Shrine’s review noted a definite and almost overwhelming impression of old, slightly dusky, byzantine Orthodox churches. That was my feeling for Chanel’s Coromandel, but not for Serge Noire. Others have said it’s the holiest of all holy incense fragrances, but I don’t agree with that either because it would seem to imply that Serge Noire is primarily an incense fragrance. I think it’s primarily a clove one. Which brings me to another point: cinnamon. There is definitely cinnamon here but it’s true presence comes later. To me, cinnamon is a much milder, softer, gentler and more feminine scent than cloves which is hot, not merely warm. It’s sharper, dirtier, sometimes slightly more acrid or astringent, but always more forceful.

Starting on the second hour, another note starts to rear its head. It’s the smell I had dreaded upon initially reading reviews for the perfume. It’s the smell of sweat and body odor. If this were a horse race, the clove chestnut that had led the pack, followed closely by the cinnamon sorrel, have now faded from the leader spot. They’re being edged out by a faint nose by the black patchouli stallion and its incense twin. However, coming up from the rear, is the sweaty horse whose saddle is slick with its earthy nature. And the dark woods all around the racetrack are starting to gently sway in the breeze, as if to participate in the events before it.

The award-winning, incredibly brilliant expert, Elena Vosnaki, at Perfume Shrine has a polar opposite impression:

Initially dry and spartan with the flinty, camphoreous aspect of gun powder comparable to Essence of John Galliano for Diptyque, ashes to ashes and snuffed out candles, Serge Noire by Lutens assaults the senses with the intense austerity of real frankincense and elemi. The impression is beautifully ascetic, hermetic, like an anchorite who has dwelled in a cave up in the rough mountains with only the stars as his companion in the darkest pitch of the night: the “noire” part is meditatively devoid of any ornamentation, eclipsing any pretence of frivolous prettification. The surprising transparency is evocative of the Japanese Kodo ritual rather than the denser cloud of Avignon. Those who are unitiated to the wonders of Lutens might coil away with trepidation and apprehension at this point, but much like the alarming mentholated overture of Tubéreuse Criminelle, this subsides eventually, although never quiting the scene completely.

And yet behind the caustic and mineral masculinity, a hopeful ascent of a feminine trail of lightly vanillic, ambery benzoin and sweet spice is slowly, imperceptibly rising after half an hour; like a subtly heaving bosom draped with Japanese garments or the curvaceous calligraphy of thick black ink on gaufre paper of ivory or creamy skin. It is then when cistus labdanum provides an erotic hint of sophisticated elegance in Serge Noire while the emergence of sweet spice, a touch of cinnamon, gives a burnished quality of black that is slowly bleeding into grey.

The ashen ballet in the flames, the swirls of oriental grey sing an ode to everlasting beauty, beauty under the cover of night’s rich plumage.

Perfume may be subjective, but there are few more respected experts in the perfume world than Elena Vosnaki, so her impressions of Serge Noire make me wonder why I’m getting such a different vibe. To my huge relief, Perfume Posse resolved my dilemma and made me realise that we’re BOTH right: “it just has a lot of facets that go in and out – dust, warmth, cool incense, woods.” It is coldly austere, but also red hot. (Actually, “red hots,” the cinnamon candies, are a big note in the perfume’s dry down.) It’s all incense (or, for Grain de musc, “a sizzling succession of resins”), or it’s dental chairs of camphor and stale body sweat.

In short, Serge Noire is a bit schizophrenic. It is simultaneously exactly like my review, and like that of the Perfume Shrine. Hot and dusty, or austere, cold and full of the grey Janus ashes of a dying fire — it is both things at once. Or, to go back to Janus, it wears two faces. Remember all that Lutens PR and the seemingly over-the-top, marketing flights of fancy? Well, I actually get it now. The phoenix rises from the dusty, cold ashes of death, reborn as a fiery, powerful, red-hot swirl of light and warmth, before flying off above the woods and into the cold night. It not only true, but it’s actually is pretty genius how the marketing so captured what seems to be a very intentional and deliberate ethos behind this perfume. So intentional that it reportedly took ten long years to create this scent’s contradictory nature, a scent that is Serge Lutens’ own personal favorite.

For all of Serge Noir’s vociferous opening, it definitely quietens down after about two hours. And four hours in, it’s very close to the skin and almost…. well, I wouldn’t say “subtle” but it’s definitely been tamed. It’s quiet amber and spice with the frankincense or patchouli just barely shimmering in the light. It’s cinnamon and resin. And sweat.

I did mention the rise of the sweat factor, didn’t I? Well, it becomes quite prominent in the dry-down, though I should emphasize again that the perfume is extremely close to the skin at this point. Still, after about five or six hours, I would catch a faint but definite smell of body odor. I’d been doing other things, forgotten about the perfume (yes, that actually is possible at this point) and, for a fleeting moment, thought to myself, “God, is that me?”

I like Serge Noire a lot more than I had expected to and, indeed, found the opening quite enchanting. But, after some reflection, that body odor element combines with a few other things to make this a bottle I wouldn’t buy. (If given to me, however, I’d certainly wear it on occasion. I think….) It’s a fascinating fragrance and, on me, certainly wasn’t as “hideous,” “evil,” “horrific” and venomous as the critical reviews had led me to expect. If you’re a perfume junkie with a curious streak, I would definitely recommend buying a small vial for $3.99 at Surrender to Chance just to see what all the fuss is about. If you’re a fan of cinnamon and clove, I’d advise the same. And, honestly, you may really like it; there are certainly plenty of people who do. For everyone else, however — particularly those of a less inquisitive, bold or fool-hardy nature, or those who like the “fresh, clean” scents — I would recommend staying far, far away.

Details:

Cost: The perfume comes only in one formula, Parfum Haute Concentration, and can be purchased on the Serge Lutens website for $140 for a 50 ml/1.7 oz bottle. It’s also available at other retailers, like Barney’s or Luckyscent.

Sillage: Enormous at first, before fading in the second hour and then becoming close to the skin around the fourth. But, as always, this is on me and my body consumes perfume.

Longevity: Very long lasting for a Serge Lutens fragrance, in my opinion. My prior experiences have been extremely short in duration. On me, all in all, this lasted about 5.5 hours. On others, the reports are for much longer.