La Tulipe is the latest from niche line Byredo. Contrary to popular belief, there are fragrant tulip species, but it doesn’t much matter in this case — La Tulipe is “built around the idea of the tulip” and isn’t meant as an exercise in photo-realism. Just as well, because what it mostly smells like is freesia.

Freesia is a funny thing. I love freesia as a cut flower, but as a perfume it does not suit me — most freesia scents are so much daintier than the real thing. The only straight-up freesia scent I ever bought was Diptyque’s Ofrésia, and I did not own it for long: turns out that I like the smell of freesia just fine in a vase, but not following me around all day on my own person. La Tulipe is not so heavily freesia-d as all that; it’s more like a mix of spring flowers…

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