Christopher Sheldrake: 57 posts

Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

Serge Lutens is best known for his opulent Arabian Tale fantasies in perfume form. It is perhaps for this reason that his simpler, less exotic blends like Sa Majesté la Rose do not draw as much attention. Sa Majesté la Rose, of course, is not missing a fanciful element, because its lush, complex rose accord evokes the sensation of being showered with fragrant rose petals. This is something I have actually experienced in the unromantic setting of a Grasse rose processing plant, but I will never forget the exhilarating scent and the soft touch of petals warm from the sun. To find even a glimpse of this memory in a perfume bottle is already special. Therefore, I picked Sa Majesté la Rose to wear on January 1st to usher a year of excitement, adventure and perhaps, plenty of roses!

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

In my 10 Perfumes I Should Love … But Do Not, Serge Lutens Rahat Loukoum occupies the top spot. It contains everything I should enjoy, but the end result smells like a cross between a cheap almond candle and a cleaning product. It is also one of the most popular Lutens fragrance. One of the reasons I finally decided to write this review is to hear the views of those who love this fragrance and gladly wear it. Since all of us perceive fragrances slightly differently, perhaps I am missing something. As things stand however, Rahat Loukoum, inspired by the Turkish confection, is not much of a delight for me.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

“I’ve loved Chinese screens since I was eighteen years old. I nearly fainted with joy when, entering a Chinese shop, I saw a Coromandel for the first time. Screens were the first thing I bought,” said Coco Chanel in one of her interviews, as quoted by Claude Delay in Chanel Solitaire, 1983, p.12.) The dark lacquered wood of Coromandel screens with their unique luminescence was the main impression of those who visited her apartment at 31 rue Cambon in Paris. Their unique blend of opulence and austerity, of dark sheen and bright gold embellishments was the inspiration for the fragrance of the same name from Les Exclusifs collection: Chanel Coromandel.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

I am going to lay my cards on the table. I love Chanel to the point of forgiving it Chance and Bleu de Chanel. Even as I had qualms with the exclusive collections from other luxury houses, I have enjoyed and purchased every single perfume from Chanel’s Les Exclusifs. That is, until Jersey came onto the scene. To put it mildly, I am baffled by this scent, which is an orchestration of excellent ingredients that ends up smelling like a cheap Duane Reade candle.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

“Prosperity, pleasure and success, may be rough of grain and common in fibre, but sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things,” wrote Oscar Wilde in his moving essay “De Profundis,” which inspired Serge Lutens’s wistful and delicate creation. De Profundis, which also refers to Psalm 130, means “from the depth” in Latin, and it is from the depths of sadness and despair that Wilde wrote his epistle during his imprisonment. Knowing the background story can easily color one’s perception of a perfume, and this is especially true in the case of Lutens  who is fond of complex and eclectic imagery. So, having learned of the origins of De Profundis, one might expect a somber composition of funereal darkness. Nothing could be further from the truth—De Profundis is a soaring, ethereal vignette of green flowers, full of surprises and such magic twists that I once again have to take off my hat to Lutens and his perfumer Christopher Sheldrake.

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