When I say Parfums de Nicolaï Le Temps d’Une Fête centers on narcissus, some of you might decide right away it’s not for you. So often narcissus spells a crisp, virginal scent better suited to a girl taking her first communion than a full grown woman with a taste for gin. But take a few sniffs, and you might change your mind. Instead of a cloying, sexless flower, Le Temps d’Une Fête smells of warm narcissus cloaked in mossy, animalic notes. Any girl taking her first communion in it would raise suspicions of having spent more time in the hayloft with the stable boy than at home with her rosary.

The Parfums de Nicolaï website lists Le Temps d’Une Fête’s top notes as galbanum, opoponax, and tree moss; its heart as daffodil and narcissus; and its base as sandalwood, patchouli, and oak moss. The house’s perfumer and co-founder, Patricia de Nicolaï, created it in 2006. (Note: the website is as rinky dink as the house’s perfume packaging. I clicked on the link to the Parfums de Nicolaï home page only to find it blank. But if you root around in Google, you can find a link to something deeper in the website and access the site’s content that way.)

Le Temps d’Une Fête opens with a sweet, green, diffusive fragrance that might have a little neroli tucked in with its galbanum and sharp tree moss…

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