Nuit de Cellophane was released by Serge Lutens in early 2009 as part of the brand’s export collection. The press release for this fragrance includes a typically Lutensian snippet of prose-poetry and dialogue, but the sample-vial card offers a more concise description: “The night embodied in scent and sight. Chinese osmanthus.” Nuit de Cellophane’s list of notes includes jasmine, osmanthus, carnation, lily, almond, honey, sandalwood, and musk.
I hope my “perfumista” credentials won’t be revoked when I reveal that I’m not a Serge Lutens fanatic. I admire the line’s artistic philosophy and many of its fragrances (and I did own the original Shiseido Féminité du Bois years ago), but although I can appreciate the scents in an abstract sense, I somehow don’t enjoy wearing most of them. Even Sa Majesté la Rose, the rose soliflore of the line, which would seem to be a good fit for my tastes, rubs me the wrong way. (Is it the geranium that bothers my nose? the honey? I’ve never been able to figure it out.) Long story short, I respect Serge Lutens from a distance, but the house’s aesthetic just doesn’t fit me. On the other hand, Nuit de Cellophane sounded like the type of sweet floral that usually appeals to me, and if it turned out to be a non-Serge-like scent, as many diehard Lutensians lamented, then I would probably like it…
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Posted by Robin
on
31 May 2011
Serge Lutens will launch Vitriol d’Oeillet, a new woody floral perfume in the export range, in July…
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Posted by Kevin
on
6 April 2011
Ah, bread! Oh, bakeries! Unless a doctor tells me I’ll start to disintegrate — quickly — if I don’t stop eating white flour, I shall munch my way through many more loaves, rolls, cakes, and cookies in my lifetime. When I was a little boy I had strange ideas about bread. Though my live-in grandmother made fresh breads once, or sometimes twice, a day, I felt “homemade” bread was no better than a homemade belt (Jethro Bodine, anyone?) or a homemade pair of shoes (the horror!) I was a clueless little snob. As the rest of my family (and neighbors and friends) devoured my grandmother’s biscuits, I insisted on store-bought bread for my meals: a soft/doughy, sweet mess/mass called Sunbeam.
Serge Lutens’ new Jeux de Peau (“skin games”) was supposedly inspired by childhood scent-memories of warm, crusty breads at little Serge’s local boulangerie. Though I’m a bit tired of food-y scents at the moment, and associate most of them with winter (please, no more cocoa or tonka bean for awhile, perfumers), my nose was “open” to the possibilities of a bread fragrance…
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Posted by Angela
on
14 March 2011
One of the hazards of a bulging perfume cabinet is how hard it can be to justify buying another bottle, especially when you know you already have a few bottles from the same fragrance family. That’s my dilemma with Serge Lutens Cuir Mauresque. Since Cuir Mauresque became available in the United States last year, my fingers have wavered over the “add to shopping cart” button many a time. I tell myself Cuir Mauresque is special — warm and cozy, intimate and spicy, different from my other leathers. Meanwhile, Caron Tabac Blond, Lancôme Cuir de Lancôme, Bvlgari Black, Robert Piguet Bandit, Christian Dior Diorling, and probably some others I’m forgetting languish as they wait their turn in the fragrance rotation. What’s a girl to do?
Serge Lutens launched Cuir Mauresque in 1996 as one of its non-export, bell jar “exclusives” (as opposed to the export line in the rectangular bottle). In 2010, Cuir Mauresque (“moorish leather”) joined the export line for a limited edition run. Perfumer Christopher Sheldrake developed Cuir Mauresque, and its notes include mandarin peel, orange blossom, burnt styrax, incense, cinnamon, nutmeg, amber, myrrh, cumin, musk, cedar, and civet.
Like many of the Serge Lutens fragrances, Cuir Mauresque kicks off with a surprising note that offers a freaky insight into the rest of the fragrance…
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Posted by Robin
on
20 December 2010
