The Lipstick Page Forums Beauty Blog: L'Artisan Parfumeur L'Artisan Parfumeur Posted by Dain, Monday, July 25, 2005 7:51 PM (Eastern) L'Artisan Parfumeur deserves a place in the history of perfume. It is responsible for popularizing the "niche" perfume house, as it manifests today. Guerlain, Creed, Caron, none of these are "niche"—they began as caterers to the rich and nobly titled, and in any case, are "prestige" brands today regardless of origin. I should preface this by saying that L'Artisan does not generally smell good on me; there is a strange thing they do on my skin that I cannot fathom. Méchant Loup is likely the only one I would purchase. But they're ingeniously designed, with a very modern lightness and its trick of using novel "gourmand" notes (L'Artisan was the first to use coffee, for example), without losing any complexity. I've had the opportunity to sniff a handful of the famousest ones, mostly by Olivia Giacobetti. These include: Premier Figuier, Mûre et Musc, Voleur de Roses, Méchant Loup, and Tea for Two. Fabulous names, are they not? Even disregarding that most everything sounds better in French—Wicked Wolf and Rose Thief are just delicious names. I'll start with Mûre et Musc, which at any rate is the oldest of these five, created in 1972 (www.basenotes.com as reference). It is a gorgeous but simple thing of blackberry and musk (as the name implies), with the juicy citron-y tartness of blackberry soon settling into a white musk, mysterious as twilight, but clean as soap, with just accents of dark fruit. It straddles the masculine/feminine line with superb ease, and would smell equally wonderful on both men and women. It's not a fruity thing, in truth, a more accurate title would have been Musc et Mûre, but perhaps that doesn't sound as well. It is balanced with something dry and earthy, patchouli, I think, and perhaps vetiver. On a man, it would smell like an immensely enlightened cologne, on a woman, it would smell elegant but laidback. It is simplistic, but with enough to balance to avoid a monotone effect. Wear it to the office, and it is wholly appropriate, even as it avoids the bland. And as you catch whiffs throughout the day, it will lift your spirits and you will stand a little straighter, as if under the unconscious influence of something glorious. Premier Figuier is an interesting thing—the whole fig tree, not just its fruit. You can smell the plant in its entirety: the milky sweet fruit, the waxy resinous leaves, the sharp green sap, even the date-like sugar brown of dried figs. It is spectacularly luminescent, and wonderfully like the best holiday in the world, as if you were lying in the shade with a good book in Provence, and lo, in the shade of a fig tree, even. This was the inspiration for another Olivia Giacobetti creation, Philosykos by Diptyque, which emphasizes the dry, olivine temperament of the plant, rather than the fruit. Premier Figuier, however, is milky and gentle, glowing with all the intense sunlight of the Mediterranean. If you can't make it to the Côte D'Azur, this is the closest thing to it I can imagine in a bottle. I have rarely smelled anything like Voleur de Roses, and I must admit I am grateful for it. A gorgeous thing, and one that stretches one's conceptions of what a rose perfume might be, but it "turns" disagreeably sour on me, which is mildly tragic. This is not a "white" rose, the powdery high notes of tea rose. It is not a "green" rose, sharp and citrusy, which reminds you that, after all, a rose has thorns. It is not a "golden" rose, delicious and warm and liquid. It is not a "red" rose, which is the classic, fresh, blooming scent—a rare thing that is hard to capture given the prohibitive cost of rose extract. More often, the best you get is a "pink" rose, which is the gorgeousness watered down to merely pretty. Voleur de Roses is a "purple" rose, in which the feminimity of the flower combats the earthy antagonism of patchouli, brought into balance by the lush fruitiness of plum. I am sorry to say, this smells mostly of patchouli on me, with the roses rotting in the vase (if you've ever been lax about changing water for your flowers, or throwing them out when the time comes... you will have a pretty good idea of what I am talking about). Tea for Two is wonderful, though it doesn't connect in the way that merits a purchase. Fine black tea, sweetened with honey, spiced with cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger. The spices are not obtrusive, but merely as an accent to the tea, as if the tea has been spiced, but not the perfume. If you've ever tried Mary Twining Spiced Tea (from Twinings), you'll have a pretty good idea. It retains all the smokiness of black tea, without any of the acidity. And in the background, it is the smell of a wood fire, all blaze and bark and earth. And with all of this, it is still light, by which I mean that its flavors are unmuddied, but transparent, like the amber liquid in your teacup. It is, perhaps, the most perfect example of a comfort scent I have ever encountered, without transgression into the danger zone of becoming too "foody". And finally, my favorite of the five: Méchant Loup. This is meant to be a masculine, but it isn't, as Luca Turin terms it, "hairy chested". It is supremely intelligent, though perhaps not wise. I imagine this is all in line with the famed L'Artisan quality of lucidity. As the name suggests, it is meant to evoke deep forest, but I find it smells more like a romantic notion of a gothic library. At its core is hazelnut, though to my nose it is serves merely as a background; or, as I wrote in my review, "I do smell the hazelnut nuttiness, and the milky, ever-so-slightly spicy (not in the sense that cinnamon is spicy), unctuousness of the hazelnut beckons like a sweet beacon from its heart." Mostly, I smell sandalwood and myrrh, with some honeyed notes for sweetness and the rough earthiness of forest loam to lend it some gothic charm. And lastly something green growing, nothing I can place, not the fresh joy of fresh springtime growth, but an aggression that equals the earthiness. Even if it doesn't smell like a forest thicket—maybe because the myrrh (which is the strongest element to my nose, though it does not, per se, dominate) is a scent sacrosanct (heh. like bibles?), which my mind associates with the hushed reverence of the libraries I study in nine months of the year—it does remind me of a Wicked Wolf. As in my review: "It smells like a lopsided grin. O, the cynism of this perfume! I love it." 0 Comment(s)    Email this post Rants, raves, and musings on all things cosmetic. Profile | Current Blog Site Feed (Atom) Previous Articles ·· Summer music... ·· Serge Lutens! ·· A couple of cheap thrills... ·· Illness... ·· Balenciaga Cristobal ·· Shaving... ·· The Blog Trend ·· Bobbi Brown ·· I was in a rather pissy mood... ·· The Emperor of Scent, by Chandler Burr Archives TheBroadroom.Net's Beauty Blog (archive) April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 Links Colleen's Adult Acne Blog Fashiontribes Daily