Hi there Posse! Sometimes many of us hard core perfumistas need to smell of the beast. To be completely taken over, cloaked in the primal pelt of fragrance. I admit freely to you that animalics are a great love of mine. The more outrageous the better. Byredo M/Mink (got a bottle), Serge Lutens Muscs Koublai Khan (got an old export bottle with the Palais Royale pic), AbdesSalaam Attar Oud Caravan 3 (yep, have a small bottle of this too) and the Olympic Orchids DevilScent Project (got me again). So when I smelled Peau de Bete I knew I needed a bottle to go in my collection. A recent achievement and one I’m thrilled with. It’s not available retail in Australia sadly.
Here Patty explains the rise of SKANK as a positive fragrant adjective.
Not everyone will love Peau de Bete, and they’re not supposed to. It’s an uber niche representation of fragrance. Somehow, though, it has become a successful fragrance and is still available in most places you can find Les Liquides Imaginaires. It’s definitely worth looking for, even if you just screw up your nose and go EWWWWWW!
Peau de Bete by Les Liquides Imaginaires
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Cumin, saffron, chamomile, black pepper, parsley
Heart: Atlas cedar, guaiac wood, juniper, Texas cedar, cypriol oil or nagarmotha, styrax, ambrarome, grass, amyris, patchouli leaf, patchouli
Base: Castoreum, civet
Sweaty steam room with a slight mould problem contrasted with the sizzle of black pepper and woods. There is the tainted smell of something feral and dark, unwashed and rank underlying the sweet, dank patchouli and caustic minty woodiness of juniper and cedar. Add in some bed head and slow flowing creek water, the sweat urinous smell of a cats patch and shake all of that together.
You’d expect it to be stomach turning, right?
Nope. Couldn’t be further from the truth. All these smells are somehow warming, comforting and safe.
You know where it takes me? It takes me to the nights I would be ill as a child. They weren’t often, I was a breaker of bones and lander on sharp objects from ridiculous heights rather than sick. Some of those nights I would be smelling the stench of my unwashed sickness and Mum would come in half asleep every couple of hours to check on me, also a dishevelled sweaty mess. The combined smell of our rankness as she nursed me and held me is kind of the way this makes me feel. Taken to the nth degree.
Are you a lover of the dark, dank side of fragrance?
Portia xx
Portia also writes for Australian Perfume Junkies
I spit a raisin clean out of my mouth, laughing, as I read your description of this! Though your mom memory was lovely! I am not a huge fan of animalics but I want to sniff this just to see if I get even a fraction of what you’re getting!!!
xoxoxo
Ha! All things I smell and think ‘there are people who are going to love and smell amazing in this’ as I place them gently back on the shelf!
HA! Amy, I think you are not alone.
Portia xx
I have a 10ml decant of this and like it a lot. Its so cuddly and warm and a bit furry too. Pity it is so expensive.
Yeah, it does take a bite out of your wallet Tanja. So worth it though. MMMM
Portia xx
I am all about the animalics! Peau de Bête is fantastic, like a hot pelt — I have a small sample. Salome is another favorite, like many mentioned above, and the FB is pretty inexpensive! I am that person who thought Zoologist’s Civet, Beaver, and Hyrax weren’t stanky ENOUGH.
OMG! You are a skank queen.
How fabulous. Me TOO!
Portia xx
I forgot to put Zoologist Civet on my favorite list, as well as Auphorie Binturong. Glad to hear others’ appreciating these fragrances!
Would love to try this but don’t see it available around here..
Tom,
You would smell TO DIE FOR in Peau de Bete. I’ll being you some next visit. If I mail it then I don’t get the pleasure of smelling how good it is.
Remind me please.
Portia xx
FYI Tom, samples of Peau de Bete are available from theperfumedcourt.com. However, you can’t beat getting a sample and visit from Portia!
Haven’t had a chance to smell Peau de Bête yet, but I am the happy owner/wearer of M/M Ink, Musc Koublai Khan, Absolue pour le Soir and Salome.
Hey TaraC,
I reckon we could happily live in each others perfume wardrobes. The only one you mention that I don’t have a FB of is Salome.
Portia xx
Animalics are also a great love of mine Portia. And I get what you are saying. For me I think it’s the indolic jasmine and civet notes I especially love, amongst others, even some cumin. These fragrances seem to bloom on me, where my sister in comparison, screams “ cat pee” when she samples them. My faves are Papullon Salome, Bogue Maai, Auphorie Mayura, and Areej Le Doré Flux de Fleur.
I don’t wear Lutens MKK; however, I love to bury my nose in it. My comparable story to yours; MKK smells like urinous dog belly to me. (I know, may be off putting to some). However, this scent is precious to me. I love my dogs more than life itself so nothing about them is yucky to me. My previous boy Bentley was paralyzed the last year of his life, and taking impeccable care of his needs (incontinence and carrying him) gave me the greatest joy. Of course I washed his belly frequently and I embraced everything about his care. MKK is my special scent memory of him and I cherish it.
I need to sample the others you mentioned including Peau de Bete. They may work for me!
I love that doggy story Kathleen. So sad watching our fur babies deteriorate.
Woo Hoo! Another animalic lover!
Wish you lived in Sydney, I could blow your brains out with some of the animalic stuff I have here.
Portia xx
Wish!!! Not surprisingly for an animalics lover, that sounds like a very good time! I love the ripe, heady, almost rotting, feral, rich and heaviness of animalics. And therefore, also obsessed with vintages.
We would have a WONDERFUL time in my collection then.
Portia xx
No doubt in my mind! In the meantime and since I’m on the other side of the world from you, please keep sending recommendations of fragrances you enjoy and I’ll keep sampling.
100% Kathleen, will do.
Portia xx
hey, you two! Get a ROOM! lol! xoxoxoxo
I also enjoy the animalics! My favorite is Papillon Salome. Reminds me of nightime romps I had with an old girlfriend that loved rose perfumes…….(sigh). Salome wraps me in special memories. I also have Bal a Versailles that is floral and a little less animal.
James, I love your memories, Val is utterly gorgeous and is a special favourite of mine too,
Portia xx