This week I tried Années Folles, the fourth fragrance from niche line La Parfumerie Moderne. Années Folles includes notes of lavender, thyme, nutmeg, geranium, tonka bean, benzoin and patchouli, and according to La Parfumerie Moderne, it “swings like a mysterious aromatic melody on a warm pulsating amber rythm [sic]. The powdry [sic] and woody insouciance wake of a festive atmosphere calls the tune until dawn from the open windows of this proud hotel overlooking the Mediterranean.”

Awkward phrasing and misspellings aside (why, oh why, can’t perfume brands ever hire decent translators or proofreaders?), this description lured me in. There’s the name, for one thing: “années folles,” or “crazy years,” is a common French appellation for the 1920s. I love lavender and ambery-powdery scents. And as for hotels on the Mediterranean, I looked at the photo on the La Parfumerie Moderne website for a minute and then did a quick and lucky search to identify it: it’s the Hôtel Belles-Rives, in Juan-le-Pins on the French Riviera. The author F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed at the Hôtel Belles-Rives, another tie-in to the Roaring Twenties. So how could I resist…

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