Rien’s trick is maximalism, which, after its initial shock, reveals an incredible classicism. Indeed, with the first spritz, there’s no doubt that Rien is a bold animalic leather. Well-composed and decadent, every phase of its development is full and rich, making good use of an incredible arrangement of approximately eighty notes. Its leatheriness is smoky, spicy, bitter, astringent, and certain. Radiating off its surface is the coarse and arid heat of black pepper, fizzing and shimmering aldehydes, the sapping effect of incense, down to a plush and glowing heart of labdanum, patchouli, rose, and oakmoss. Flesh on flesh, Rien approaches its wearer and clings to their body - it asks you to surrender to it, and the resulting pleasures of Rien are manifest.
Like Rien, Attaquer Le Soleil appeals to the body first, living up to its connection with the hedonistic Marquis de Sade. This is a visceral writing in the language of scent. In creating this scent, perfumer Quentin Bisch engaged in the Sadean exercise of becoming comfortable with a note that challenges his tastes. The result is a working that translates along the course of its wearing experience. Its focus is cistus labdanum, which we observe assuming many forms in this fragrance as Quentin Bisch undergoes the transformative passage from vice to virtue. This is a resinous and balsamic fragrance of great nuance. This resinous note is at first redolent of dry sand struck by an unforgiving sunlight, freshened up with traces of citrus fruit. It beguiles with spicy and pine-like inflections, calling to mind the addictive astringency of myrrh, the intensely damp and earthy scent of patchouli, ambery honey, and a decidedly spiritual incense note. Crossing vegetal, mineral, woody, and ambery tones, its experience is marvellous.
Jasmin et Cigarette is one of ELdO’s earliest works, which fascinates according to the remarkable trick of clashing the sacred and the profane, already contained in its name. It confronts the aesthetic and moral sensibilities that prescribe how we should – and shouldn’t – smell, reminding us that the line dividing the sacred from the profane is an arbitrary one. That said, Jasmin smells fantastic - its tender and waxy white petals are infused with the softly sweet and ashy smoke of tobacco, fused with the blushing and ripe warmth of apricot, all festooned in a nest of sunwarmed hay. This is one big narcotic effect, a dizzyingly good length of realistic jasmine trailing along humid heat and air - its radiance is marvellous. In contrast, Eau de Protection is an exaggerated scent, as a dominant rose note erupts, forming a larger-than-life image of the flower, tracing its petals down to its stem still connected to the earth. It is shaded precisely, with notes of black pepper, ginger, patchouli, and cumin. One rose becomes many; it is a symphony in multiplicity. A fistful of roses - to be pricked by thorns - a cliched prettiness becomes a scent of pure strength.
Exit The King works old and new, pleating new material into a traditional chypre form. A familiar combination of patchouli, moss, sandalwood, and ambergris erodes upon the force of exciting and new top notes, including soapy aldehydes and musks, rose, jasmine, and the vernal green of muguet - all of which is spiced with pepper notes. Its freshness is anchored by the base, and the revolutionary message of this scent is contained in the confident blending of its ingredients. It appeals to our memories but also blurs them - it works at a primordial level that is immediately understood. Wearing Exit The King is an immense pleasure.
The Afternoon of a Faun speaks to my love for art and aesthetics. It is an olfactory poem that celebrates Debussy’s symphonic poem, which was also made into a ballet, all of which draws from Mallarmé eclogue poem. And in this respect, the scent celebrates many different mediums all expressing the same idea - and to my mind, it works. This is the scent of a Faun enchanted by nymphs in the forest, amongst a complex dreamscape rich with associations without immediately apparent logic. Immortelle lends its signature intensity without being oppressive, which is dry yet shady, bright but not blinding. It is the perfect background for a floating harmony of spiced roses, incense, leather and resin – a chypric dance of ingredients that float on the delicate and lullaby sound of a pan-flute. You can smell the leaves on the floor of the forest, and even the waxed wood of the stage. If the case for perfume-as-art needed to be made, I would put this scent forward.
