Belle de Jour by Eris Parfums

Hiya Posse. Barbara Herman is one of my perfume heroes.  Originally a blogger, Yesterday’s Perfume, then an author, Scent and Subversion: Decoding a Century of Provocative Perfume (2013). Then Eris Parfums, a fragrant house steeped in history for modern sensibilities. On top of that every interaction I’ve had with Barbara has been pleasant, smooth, and warm. We aren’t besties but have communicated through emails irregularly. At every point in her journey, to an onlooker from afar, she has achieved excellence gracefully. The perfume line, created by perfumer Antoine Lie with Barbara’s creative direction, are a series of beautiful, considered, interesting fragrances with very fond looks to the past. Today, after wearing half my sample I decided that we needed to revisit Belle de Jour.

Belle de Jour by Eris Parfums

Eris Parfums give these featured accords:
Top: Moroccan Coriander, Madagascan Pink Pepper, Tunisian Orange Flower
Heart: Spanish Cistus Labdanum, Egyptian Jasmine, Indian Pimento Berry
Base: Atlas Cedarwood, Musk (synthetic), Seaweed Absolute

People have the impression that an animalic perfume needs to be huge. A ball breaking, axe wielding Amazon of a fragrance. Belle de Jour is proof that they need be no such thing. If anything it plays quite the demure wallflower. It’s very pretty and you’d hardly notice the raunch. That is unless you get in really close and suddenly nuit d’amour. 

A lightly sizzling fruit compote opening that has green undertones keeping it grounded. A fresh, blue sky and joyfully summertime fragrance that does clean, sweet and green in a thoroughly modern vintage reincarnation. There a Play Doh references from I don’t know what.

Dry green wood comes through the heart, like pruning camellia branches or old cold tea leaves. Belle de Jour is cool. Both the cool of temperature and cool kids. I can imagine it being perfect for both sexes but it skews towards modern feminine. For something so nuanced it’s extremely wearable. Could even become an easy, signature spritz and go.

The raunch is cleverly contained within a jasmine, seaweed, musk pyramid. It smells like sea air meets humanity and floats below a soft and pretty fragrance. An interesting dichotomy and only super noticeable in testing conditions. Outside it’s only the merest hint. That classic French hit of ass but very low key.

I’ve talked about Green Spell on Posse before too.

Did you, would you Belle de Jour?
Portia xx

This post has echoes of a previous APJ post.