I’m sure many of you have had this experience. You find a new perfume. You love it. You wear it a few times, and the love fades. You decide it isn’t you at all, and you give it away to a more deserving home. Then….it keeps popping into the back of your mind — perhaps it really was all that after all? You get another sample or bottle, decide your original doubts were on target, it just isn’t right for you, so you give it away again. And then…
L’Artisan introduced Les Epices de la Passion, a coffret with three spiced “love potions”, in 2002. I’ve been having an on-again, off-again love affair with Safran Troublant since I first smelled it (more about that tomorrow), but the other two fragrances, Piment Brûlant and Poivre Piquant, I pretty much ignored after trying them briefly on test strips some time ago. Both scents were created by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour, and since he is seriously in the running for my own little parallel-universe award for Perfumer of the Year (and I’m sure he is quite excited about it too), I thought it would be worth giving them more serious attention.
Piment Brûlant was inspired by the Aztec drink xocolatl, a bitter mixture of chocolate and cornmeal spiked with chili peppers, cinnamon, achiote and other spices; the Aztec emperor Montezuma reputedly drank up to 50 cups every day from a golden goblet…
L’Artisan launched Méchant Loup in 1997. Like yesterday’s Dzongkha, it was created by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour; it is usually described as a “deep, spicy, woodsy scent” and the notes include pepper, star anise, licorice, sandalwood, honey, hazelnut, myrrh, tonka bean and cedar.
The L’Artisan website translates “Méchant Loup” as Big Bad Wolf, and it is very nearly just that. It has a kind of roasted hazelnut and burnt sugar accord that is vaguely reminiscent of Hermès Vetiver Tonka, but Méchant Loup is darker and richer, and the hazelnut mingles with honeyed woods, musty dried leaves and a touch of something that smells like whiskey and cigar smoke and old leather chairs…
Dzongkha is the third fragrance in the L’Artisan Parfumeur travel series that includes Bois Farine and Timbuktu. Dzongkha was developed by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour, and was inspired by the Dzongs of Bhutan. The fragrance notes include peony, lychee, cardamom, tea with milk, vetiver, incense, cypriol (a grass used to make papyrus), cedar, leather and iris.
Dzongkha was one of the few fragrances that I was really looking forward to this year, and I am happy to report that it did not disappoint, in fact, I like it even better than I expected. It is heavily dominated by iris, one of my favorite notes; iris is listed in the heart and base notes but is evident almost from the first, along with sweet floral notes that I would never have identified as peony. For that matter, I wouldn’t have picked out the lychee either…
As previously reported, this year’s harvest fragrance from L’Artisan Parfumeur is Fleur de Narcisse, created by perfumer Anne Flipo (who also did last year’s Fleur d’Oranger)…