L’artisan Fleur de Narcisse

Well, I have my sample of this overpriced elixir in my hands for about a week, and I’ve been spritzing it off and on since thent, trying to figure it out.

Am I more enlightened about what it is now? Not so much. I was totally in love with Fleur D’Oranger, and I’m going to miss it now that it’s gone, and I halfway expected Fleur de Narcisse to be a floral in the same way. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Notes of narcissus, hay, hyacinth, blond tobacco, iris, black currant bud, moss and leather. What the hell? That’s not a floral. When I first spritz it, again, it’s NOT a floral in any traditional sense, though it does feel like the inside parts of a flower. Marina described this in her review, and she is spot on, and I can’t improve upon her review at all, only to add my own impressions. This does have that undercurrent that Frederic Malle’s Carnal Flower does, that almost oiliness, that is hard to sniff up close and find pretty, but just exudes beauty at a distance in an abstract kind of way. The leather and hay sprout up through the flower after about ten minutes, and this scent takes a turn down a pretty earthy path.

Back in the day, on the farm, we used to do a lot of gardening in our leather gloves and mulching with hay. This is THAT smell, a series of complex things all running together to create this whole other thing. For me, it is a scent memory that includes the smell of earth and laughing with my mom on a day where the sun beat down on us as we tended to growing things. When I was living that memory, I didn’t know how special it was — it is only through the arch of time that I can look back and see it as a grace-filled moment. Fleur de Narcisse is like that, hard to see up close, but exquisite when you pull back and quit trying to see its parts.

This scent is no shrinking violet — or flower of any sort — it is substantial and sensuous. Due to be released in November in the U.S., it is currently available from First in Fragrance for 220 Euros, plus shipping, etc.. This is not an inexpensive perfume. Is it worth it? Given that I don’t recall smelling anything else like it in recent memory, and putting it on a par with the price tag of Carnal Flower in the depth of ingredients and uniqueness, I think it is, but only if you aren’t expecting a bouquet of sweet posies… just sayin’.

Drawing for this week — a sample of Fleur de narcisse. Just drop a note in the comments that you’d like to be in the drawing, and I’ll include you!