Cartier L’Heure (IV) Fougueuse … and a giveaway

We’re having headache-inducing weather: wet, then sunny; cold and gale force winds. It’s supposed to get dryer and quieter this week.

Two boxes left to unpack – and those have to wait for the small bookcase to arrive end of this month/beginning of next (cookbooks in the boxes and no space for them elsewhere). Working away at garden. It’s going to take months to get it sorted, which is fine. Need to unearth the crowbar some guys left behind a year ago to get the stepping stones out to make way for a sane path.

Managed to make gluten free granola this morning and baba ganoush in the afternoon, so feel slightly virtuous.

Anita in her deep deep kindness sent me some l’Heure Fougueuse in its classy original red and gold double box (see pics and of deconstruction). She included some strange candy to distract the customs people, who didn’t touch the parcel, so I guess it worked. She also included a boxed sample vial of Fouguese which we’ll get to later.

I had mentioned this fragrance several times months ago, that it is on my ‘list’, but I couldn’t imagine actually buying it. So, I’m one happy bunny. Very happy bunny.

Years ago, I actually visited the Cartier shop on 5^th Avenue in Manhattan to try (and get samples of) a few of the Les Heures. It was a rather memorable visit as 1) it was pouring rain outside and I was quite damp, but the employees still treated me with consideration and respect; and 2) they were very patient with me and generous with samples. Sometimes luxury shops can get with the programme.

So, Fouguese.

Just to bounce off Portia’s post from last week about the Atelier des Ors bottles and how lush they are, the same is true of the Les Heures bottles, though they aren’t quite as imaginative. They are, however, beautiful, heavy, the caps actually fit and stay on, and looking through the front of the bottle you see the l’Heure number. Understated, but well conceived and designed.

Notes for Fougueuse, which launched in 2011 and is labelled a chypre, include: bergamot, magnolia, mate, vetiver, lavender, leather, oakmoss and musk.

Once I had the box open, I immediately sprayed this on – and on my son (who is still home from uni, and has very good skin). Very different from one person to the other.

On me, Fougueuse is horse and leather. That’s pretty much it from the get-go. It starts strong, with a tinge of almost sour horse tack. As it unfolds, it becomes the best-leather-item-you’ve-had-for-ages smell with a bit of the mate smoothing it. Even the lavender in this is good – it’s like the lavender hedges here that smell of sunshine. By the time it reaches its close (it’s a very long-lived perfume on me) I get a big gentle sweaty horse, pong and a deep mossiness.

On my son, in contrast, this is a horse eating hay in a field of flowers – ie, a lot more development. I did say he has good skin. It’s gentler in the opening; what I guess is the mate provides a hay aspect; it dries down with less pong, less leather, and more non-animalic animal, sunshine, meadow flowers, and vetiver/musk.

Fougueuse is such a pleasure to wear. It reminds me of hot summers during my teenage years spent around horses – that feeling of being effortlessly happy even though you were often dirty and working very hard.

So, that sample. Leave a comment to enter the draw for it. Given the parcel arrived here safely from the US, I’m happy to try to send this anywhere in our big grand world.