Requiescat: L'orpheline by Serge Lutens (2014)

✞

L'orpheline ("the little orphan") starts with a blast of concentrated Iso E Super providing its smell halfway industrial vapors, synthetic incense, balsamic cedar. Which reminds me, again, of dozens of other scents which already elaborated this in every possible way, from Comme des Garçons to Escentric Molecules. The only additions here seem to be a peppery note and something sour-greenish, but basically it's a gigantic cloud of grey fog, purely synthetic, cold and kind of discomforting like waiting in a parking lot outside a refinery in the middle of nowhere. And that's it. The house which provided us with masterpieces like Ambre Sultan, Borneo 1834, Muscs Koublai Khan, seems now happy with this kind of stuff (this, L'eau froide, Laine de verre and so on). A brand which is starting to look like a sad little orphan indeed – let's get this Orpheline as a testament.

4/10

Datura Noir by Serge Lutens Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido

Year: 2001
Nose: Christopher Sheldrake

The opening is classic and promising, although to me (on me) it smells a bit different as regards from how it should, reading the composition: it should contain tuberose and osmanthus, I smell a microscopic bit of tuberose and no osmanthus at all. While instead I get a beautiful, breezy-mentholated carnation note, and since I like it I'll pretend I am right. Jokes aside it is much elegant and sensual, the floral notes are dense and rich, and there is an enjoyable green/floral balsamic breeze all over, on a powdery/vanilla base comprising white musks and perhaps resins too. I also feel some spices like maybe cumin, and a fresh hint of citrus, or better bergamot. Basically a good classic structure with a contemporary twist, as it is all quite linear, simple and aerial – almost geometrical, like some other recent scents by Lutens. After a while it emerges a little bit of gingerbread heart. So far so good: silky, soft and velvety but fresh, aerial and multi-faceted, feminine and refined but also luring and shady, intriguing and sensual, in a really peculiar minimal way. I thought of Tokyo Decadence for a while. As I said at the beginning, however, this is all just "promising", because in fact, the drydown is far less interesting than the part before. It basically, entropically becomes all more generically sweet and powdery, still elegant and dry but dull – basically the same drydown you'd have after taking a bath or a shower. It "loses" all that interesting personality as minutes pass, like waking up in the middle of a dream. Quite persistent, though.

6/10

Vitriol d'Oeillet EDP by Serge Lutens Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido

Year: 2011
Nose: Christopher Sheldrake

Super harsh opening, pungent green notes, raw freshly-cut carnation flowers, a massive aldehydes feel, all in a trasparent, metallic, vibrant cloud, with a slightly sweet base. The carnation is powerful, vivid and biting, surrounded by spices (cloves and pepper) and a tasty, savoury bittersweet note of pimiento. The softer base of vanilla and ylang comes in shape and emerges as minutes pass, slowly turning the fragrance in a sweeter and almost slightly milky tanning cream-like scent (I recall Un bois vanille). The middle phase is basically a talcum-musky fairly pleasant and sweet take on the initial accord - meaning that it's still all there, just "emulsified" in a sweeter shape. The evolution is a bit odd and almost "sea-roving", it ranges from metallic to sweet than switching back to a dry green/floral, then ending back again to a musky sweet drydown, which eventually dries and settles in a discomforting floral/medicinal accord. And frankly I do not enjoy any of these passages in particular, it's like watching a movie with people yelling and moving in front of the screen – the movie is carnation and the rest is, well, all the rest that surrounds (or better say, covers) it here. Plus I don't get any "feeling" in particular - it's not refined, not pleasant, not "ironic", not evocative... not even shady or masculine or avant-garde. Not that it has to be some of these, it's just that it's more kind of a sequence of smells, none of which achieves any result in terms of identity. A bit too much, in a bit too much unclear concept. If you like carnation, you'd better go CdG's Carnation - an unbeatable quintessential tribute to this beautiful flower.

5/10