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Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Serge Lutens- L'Orpheline



In order to even start wrapping my head around L'Orpheline I had to completely ignore two things: my expectation from a Serge Lutens perfume, and the story/marketing materials provided by the company. I usually do the latter anyway, but here it was especially important. Because if you think that "The Little Orphan" is an odd choice for a perfume name, reading Lutens' quotes (you can find the whole thing on Fragrantica) and fragments from his painful and lonely childhood is sends you right to Les Misrables territory, and I don't mean the musical version, but straight to Victor Hugo's written world of wretchedness and endless suffering. How does that go with a luxury perfume? It doesn't (and I don't want it to).

Serge Lutens is the grand-master of oriental perfumes, thick and rich flowers, and otherworldly incense. L'Orpheline is nothing like that. The first time I sprayed it (at a rather crowded store) I couldn't focus my nose on the actual notes or on anything wafting off my skin. The fragrance seemed to move very fast in every direction, wrapping invisible threads around air molecules. It was there but not. Upon subsequent wearings (first from samples and eventually from the bottle I bought) I managed to hold on to these wisps of not-quite incense and fly away with them into a clear blue sky.

L'Orpheline seems at first like air and whiffs of a shockingly artificial musk (we're talking about a perfume from the same man who brought us MKK and Clair de Musk). But it's not. Actually it is shockingly artificial in the same way that several Le Labo and CdG fragrances utilize imaginary wood notes. But this is Uncle Serge after all, the artist who knows skin the way few others do. The not-really-wood and not-really-musk combined create multiple special effects. From cool air to a warm and cozy shelter, tree limbs with life of their own grow and twist like menacing fingers before they form a safe haven. And skin. Creamy, soft, slightly sweetened. Man or man-made, L'Orpheline is enchanting.

The special effects continue when it comes to sillage and longevity. There's something very misleading in the way L'Orpheline wears on me. It pretends to be a skin scent that whispers softly, but this musk is devious and can suddenly project to the other side of the room with no warning (I admit that I tend to go to town with this one because it never feels quite enough at first). Longevity is an all-day affair if you pay attention. Just when I think it might be time to refresh I realize that I can still smell L'Orpheline clearly.I guess this is the one thing that never abandons the little orphan. Or something. It's a great modern perfume no matter what.

Serge Lutens- L'Orpheline ($140, 50ml EDP) is available from Twisted Lily, Luckyscent, Aedes, Barneys, and the other usual suspects. My first sample came from Twisted Lily.

Fashion illustration by Rene Gruau for Madame Gres,1946, via hprint.com.

3 comments:

  1. Loved your review and found it spot on!

    I fell in love with L'Orpheline almost instantly, found it enchanting and very hard to pin down to. Like many other scents I love it has several inbuilt contradictions: cool - warm, clean - dirty, clear - murky. It's one of those scents that plays hide-and-seek with you.

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  2. Fantastic review - you perfectly captured the wonder of this scent. I took forever to get around to trying it, but am absolutely head over heels in love with it now. It feels like an early holiday present for me from Uncle Serge - whatever the reason, it works magic with my skin chemistry. Very, very comforting. It also is an incredibly perfect match for my DH (as always, he let me try it on him as a skin chemistry and scent guinea pig) and it's one of the times I most wish he would break his ban on wearing scents, but, I'm afraid it's just not going to happen.
    Anna

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  3. I got a sample this Summer and to be honest, I wasn't swept away by L'orpheline. I couln't pin down something concrete and couldn't define the scent at all. I think you did an amazing job describing it so accurately. Well, after wearing it 2-3 times and sniffing my wrist to the bone, I slowly realized - I could like this scent very much. It's not love on first sight, but now in this cold season it feels specially warm and cozy ( I squeezed the last drop out of the ampoule to get in the mood for your review). If I get a bottle as a present, I will surely use it up or, as Anna above said, I'd love my DH to wear it so I could smell it around the house.
    Neva

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