Marc-Antoine Corticchiato: 3 posts

Patricia wraps herself in iris, sandalwood and amber and talks about some of her favorite fragrances from Parfum d’Empire.

Even if Equistrius, a fragrance from the French niche line Parfum d’Empire, hadn’t been named for an outstanding competition horse, I would have been intrigued by the well-balanced combination of some of my favorite notes in perfume. Although Equistrius can easily be worn year round, I find it especially suited to early fall, when the days begin to shorten noticeably, the southward-heading robins congregate in my backyard Kousa dogwood to devour its ripening berries, and the breeze carries a premonition of the chill to come.

Equistrius opens with refreshing green notes and violet, but eases quickly into a warm and buttery iris that is mouthwateringly delicious and demands frequent wrist to nose enjoyment. This is a soft, rather than a demanding iris, and perfume notes have included rice powder to convey this softness. What I get is more a feeling of rice paper: white, translucent, and richly grained, allowing the warm amber and milky sandalwood to show through, especially as the perfume continues to soften and develop on skin.

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Scents that capture everything green are my obsession. Don’t give me a pale whisper of crushed stems or a hint of young leaf;  that’s not enough. I want the dazzling, overwhelming, explosive experience that you feel at the height of springtime when everything smells green and heady–the buds dripping with honey, blades of grass pushing through the asphalt, leaves unfurling from their sticky casings with violent force. Green is life, and I want to feel this verdant rush.

But I’m in the minority. As Coty, Balmain and scores of other houses quickly discovered after launching their violently green perfumes, from Coty Chypre to Balmain Vent Vert, most people don’t want that much force. Green can be exciting, but it can also be raspy, sharp, challenging. Green accents are essential for many compositions, but strong green fragrances are rare. Which is why initially Parfum d’Empire Corsica Furiosa seems like such a welcome divergence.

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My first impression of Parfum d’Empire Eau Suave was that it was a rose fit for a king.  I was therefore surprised to find out that I was utterly mistaken and that Eau Suave was inspired by Josephine, love of Napoleon, and was meant for empresses and other women.  I had it backwards. This is the kind of trouble that you get into when you don’t bother to read anything about a perfume but simply smell it from a vial, taking a cue only from the name and more importantly from the vial’s contents.

In this case, “Eau Suave” seemed like the name of a cologne for a dandy or for a dandy’s modern equivalent.  I opened the vial and out rushed a red, red rose that had a pitch characteristic to me of male fragrances.  Shows what I know.  But it did make me think about how we perceive fragrances as masculine or feminine and what signals or clues we use to arrive at that decision.

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