Gardenia Perfume Redux – Arquiste Boutonniere & Serge Lutens Une Voix Noire & winners

I have so missed gardenia perfumes, and we have two more to add to the gardenia perfume list –

Arquiste Boutonniere and Serge Lutens Une Voix Noire.  

We also have the winners of the Best Perfumes for Fall, the Fairy Perfume Mother and Best Orange Blossom Perfume Sample sets.  All of that will be at the bottom. The winners have until Thursday October 18, 2012, to claim their prize, or they will go back in the drawing.  

We have a hiatus from a new note comprehensive review this week because I couldn’t figure out how to test or do a reminder spray on about 40-50 amber perfumes while in New York City.  Amber is next week so if you’ve been whining — bitching — asking me politely to please do amber next, well, it is next.

Arquiste Boutonniere is billed as gardenia for men.

Um, no.  Just no. Hell no, mitts off.  Mines!  Okay,  yours too, but definitely MINES!  

It’s not that I begrudge the guys a gardenia perfume, but I’m quite fond of this one. More than quite fond. Arquiste Boutonniere is really spectacular, it’s the best of gardenia perfumes all wrapped up into one, and I think anyone, even those not crazy about gardenia will find something to hug really tightly in the Arquiste Boutonniere. Rodrigo Flores-Roux created this for Arquiste, with the brief describing a men’s gardenia boutonniere. Denyse noted a while back that the first mod that came back was too feral, so Carlos Huber moved up the time of the Boutonniere in the evening out to more early evening – shaving some feral off of the night.

Can I just say here – again – that if Carlos were so inclined to let us at that “more feral” gardenia, we would be exceedingly grateful?  A nice limited edition for a few people who are quite enamored of the gardenia would be not too much to ask surely.  

Notes for Arquiste Boutonniere are gardenia, gardenia, gardenia and gardenia. There.  Okay, there are a couple of other notes in it –  lavender, bergamot, mandarin, gardenia, genet, vetiver and oakmoss.  I get a nice amount – not excessive and probably won’t even make the bleue cheese in gardenia hater’s lips curl a little – of bleue cheesy skank on the open.  Up pops the lavender and bergamot to stand in front distracting attention from all the gardenia butt-grinding.  Arquiste Boutonnier should be worn by a man of good breeding, always prepared to drop the facade and start  

ripping off bodices.  

I can’t think of anything that would make me happier than guys wearing this amazing gardenia.  It really walks the gender-bending line, veering away from the overtly floral gardenia, but girls can happily wear it.  

Arquiste is a subtle fragrance line that is creating an array of perfumes that are slowly just taking my breath away.  They aren’t headline snatchers, smacking you over the head with how whacky and weird and wonderful they are.  They are perfumes that you find wearable and slowly discover how whacky and weird and wonderful they are. 

Mark at CaFleureBon has a review of Arquiste Boutonniere as well, which is a great guy’s perspective if you are a wee bit suspicious of a chick who admittedly loves gardenia telling guys they should be wearing this.  

We stroll down the gardenia path, leaving the dandified and slightly dangerous Arquiste Boutonniere to play with…

Serge Lutens Une Voix Noire (black voice) 

I’m having more trouble putting this somewhere in my gardenia perfume classifications.  Opening with that gardenia grape Kool-Aid smell that’s so enchanting because you think you know what’s to come, it doesn’t roll into bleue cheese or rich dank, it doesn’t go green or feral or all of the other lovely things a great gardenia perfume often does.  It drifts back and forth – at turns sweet and then smoky, never settling to one until it changes a quarter turn to some new variety of sweet and then smoky, taking on booze in the sweetness, tobacco in the smoky, getting a raspy edge, then smooths out velvety soft.    It is the overripe sweet that has not yet decayed the last slowing intakes of air.  Mark Behnke at CaFleureBon called Serge Lutens Une Voix Noire “Requiem for a Gardenia.”  

Like Serge Lutens De Profundis, this… this calls to me in the same way.  They are both a wistful surrender at the end.  The heart that no longer hopes for itself and savors life’s last sweet drops.

It is not what I thought it would be or wished for.  

It was better.  

The perfume and life.

I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through.

In that small cafe;
The park across the way;
The children’s carousel;
The chestnut trees;
The wishin’ well.

I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day;
In every thing that’s light and gay.
I’ll always think of you that way.

I’ll find you
In the morning sun
And when the night is new.
I’ll be looking at the moon,
But I’ll be seeing you.

I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day;
In every thing that’s light and gay.
I’ll always think of you that way.

I’ll find you
In the morning sun
And when the night is new.
I’ll be looking at the moon,
But I’ll be seeing you.

Winner of the Fairy Godmother giveaway is – Jackie!  

Winners of the Orange Blossom sample sets are Lynda Barclay Mathis and Farouche.

Winner of the Best Perfumes of Fall giveaway is – Tammy!  

Click up there on Contact Us, send me your name, address and a reminder of which giveaway you won, and I’ll confirm that I got your e-mail and then get it shipped out to you. Make sure you get that confirmation from me. Every now and then our e-mail thingie misfires or it gets trapped in my spam filter, and goes nowhere.  

I have just a teeny amount of the Arquiste Boutonniere and the Serge Lutens Une Voix Noire, and I can do two sample sets in a giveaway – just leave a comment here or on our Facebook page to be entered.

I did have two vials of the Arquiste, but I lost one in New York.  The source of the Arquiste sample is a shamelessly begged-for one from Arquiste. The source of the Serge Lutens Une Voix Noire is, um, Anita’s deft work at Barney’s in New York City. On that subject, I really won’t can’t will get killed if I say more.  

BTW, the Sniffa lunch was probably outside of the norm..  Alyssa Harad and Anita (Musette) both did a great job with their speeches.  March, not having access to stale rolls, did get a fortuitous gift of mints at the table to throw at Musette during her speech.