Frederic Malle French Lover

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French Lover is classified as a men’s fragrance, but why should this earthy and dark scent be exclusive to one gender? I’m happy to be back between the gears of Frederic Malle’s scent machine.

French Lover

French Lover

In Bottle: Fascinating in a dark and earthy way. This is dirt, dust and ruggedness in a perfume.

Applied: Dark and earthy is my first impression. French Lover opens with a strong galbanum presence coupled with angelica and a bit of patchouli and moss. Despite the moss–which I often associate with dewy–French Lover’s moss and other ingredients present a very dry interpretation. This is desert and power. It’s unrelenting with it’s show of strong materials and continues to be powerful way into the endstage. As the scent wears on, it gets stronger with a middle note of smoked greenery. Add in a dollop of cedar, a dash of vetiver and tone down the angelica and you’ve got the final experience as French Lover rolls out with a strong showing of dry woods.

Extra: French Lover was launched in 2007 and composed by Pierre Bourdon.

Design: Designed in much the same way as most other Frederic Malle fragrances. Bottled in a simple, but luxurious to hold cylindrical bottle with a simple black label running along the glass to tell you what you’re getting. All this topped with a black cap. I like the design well enough and the bottle has a very nice weightiness to it.

Fragrance Family: Earthy Woodsy

Notes: Galbanum, angelica, spices, incense, cedar, vetiver, oakmoss, white musk.

Probably the most interesting thing I’ve smelled in a while. It’s not my kind of thing, but it’s a very well-composed fragrance with a lot of personality.

Reviewed in This Post: French Lover, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Frederic Malle Portrait of a Lady

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Portrait of a Lady was the talk of Niche Town when it was first released. It took me a while to get my sample of this fragrance but I’m glad that I did.

Portrait of a Lady

Portrait of a Lady

In Bottle: Sour to my nose thanks to the currants with a spicy kick from the cinnamon and clove.

Applied: Sour currants that give way to spicy cinnamon and clove that mixes in with the incense in the midstage. I get mostly smoke from Portrait of a Lady until she keeps aging on my skin and there’s a bit of earthiness that comes up from the patchouli as the scent keeps aging the amber and its warmness rushes up to mingle with the smoke and spice. The rose in this scent doesn’t come up until later in the fragrance where the spicy notes settle down a bit to leave us with a soft, warmed, rose with a hint of spice.

Extra: Portrait of a Lady was created by Dominique Ropion who also created fragrances such as Burberry The Beat, Cacharel Amor Amor, and Armani Code for Women.

Design: Bottled in much the same way as other Frederic Malle scents, in a cylindrical glass bottle. It has a nice weight to it and the simple design makes you focus more on the scent inside the bottle than the flashy exterior. It’s simple and functional for what it is.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Raspberry, blackcurrant, clove, cinnamon, rose, sandalwood, patchouli, incense, musk, amber, benzoin.

Portrait of a Lady is a really well done oriental, it smells a bit like an oriental powerhouse but also has elements of a sophisticated modern scent. I especially like the spicy rose present in this fragrance.

Reviewed in This Post: Portrait of a Lady, 2011, Eau de Parfum.

Frederic Malle Carnal Flower

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Carnal Flower is like a homage to the distinctive, seductive heady tuberose. I’ve always encountered tuberose and approached it with a semi-satirical love. I don’t actually like tuberose that much but I smell it so strongly in fragrances that it converted me over to the tuberose side some time last year.

Carnal Flower

In Bottle: Big old tuberose. Though the tuberose used in Carnal Flower has a cleaner, clearer presence than what I would normally get. Carnal Flower is made of higher quality materials than most perfumes, and the aroma of the tuberose with this crystal clear, heady but tempered scent is the reward.

Applied: There’s a very brief moment upon application where the tuberose hasn’t hit my nose yet where I can smell a sheer pretty base of clean gentle citrus and flowers. Then tuberose makes its entrance and it is all I get from then on. But as stated above, the tuberose in Carnal Flower has this crystalline and pure quality to it. It’s a natural aroma, smells very complex and is not too strong or sour. it’s perfectly full, dense, and heady. White florals all the way on this one as the tuberose heads the way from the top to the middle to the bottom where you’re greeted by the bolstering of the scent. Soliflores are fascinating in how they manage to smell so complex for a perfume focused around a single flower. Carnal Flower is one of these beautifully complex soliflores. The fragrance is elegant, powerful, and is an extremely good example of how beautiful a high-quality tuberose scent can smell.

Extra: Carnal Flower’s got a lot of selling points but one of the more famous is its boast that its smell is that of the most natural tuberose. I’m inclined to agree.  This stuff is very good.

Design: Bottled in much the same way as other Frederic Malle scents. A cylindrical glass bottle with a cylindrical cap. It doesn’t look flashy, garish, nor does the shape of the bottle hinder the purpose of the bottle in the first place. The packaging is a bit plain, I admit, but the stuff inside the bottle is what you’re really looking for when you buy a Frederic Malle fragrance.

Fragrance Family: Soliflore

Notes: Bergamot, melon, eucalyptus, ylang-ylang, jasmine, tuberose, Salicylates, tuberose absolute, orange blossom absolute, coconut, musk.

Since winning me over, tuberose has since convinced me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have it sitting around on the off chance that I get the urge to smell like a big white floral. Hey came around to liking tuberose from a year ago. Who knows what might happen a year from now? Maybe I’ll be so crazy for tuberose that it would be all I ever wanted to smell.

Reviewed in This Post: Carnal Flower, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur

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A lot of good things have been said about Musc Ravageur. The one that caught my eye the most was the comment that this stuff smells like cinnamon buns and leather. Always on the look out for a cinnamon bun-like fragrance, I got my hands on Musc Ravageur. Musc Ravageur

In Bottle: Spicy citrus, I get the cinnamon but mostly I get citrus, a little bit of dark musk and strong lavender.

Applied: That lavender mixed with citrus makes an interesting scent that many people might say smells medicinal or even powdery. But no, that’s just lavender doing its thing. Wear Musc Ravageur for a little more and it will evolve into a sweeter confection with a blend of smooth vanilla and cinnamon with clove dashed in there for extra spice. This stuff is powerful, projects like crazy, and it clung to me all day, staying in that delicious mid-stage where, I have to admit, it does smell a little bit like cinnamon buns but there’s an undercurrent at work here making it far more exciting. I catch whiffs of leather, incense, and musk.  Musc Ravageur has a dark  base that wafts in and out here and there taking this a little farther away than just as a gourmand. It’s a spicy, dense, sweet, delicious but very grown up. When Musc Ravageur finally chills out, the sweetness leads way into a spicy woodsy scent with a dark vanilla note, aided a bit by fading leather, and a lingering animalic muskiness.

Extra: Frederic Malle’s line of fragrances includes such beauties as Musc Ravageur and one of my other favorites; Angéliques sous la pluie by the much esteemed Jean-Claude Ellena. You may also find in the Frederic Malle line the rather famous Carnal Flower a–what else–tuberose dominant fragrance. Musc Ravageur, itself, was composed by Maurice Roucel who also composed Insolence by Guerlain, Donna Karan Be Delicious, and many others.

Design: I don’t own a bottle of Musc Ravageur but it looks like its bottled in a rather simple cylinder. Musc Ravageur, I guess, is not about the packaging as it keeps things as simple looking as possible. Classic-looking bottle and I really like it that way.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Gourmand

Notes: Lavender, bergamot, clove, cinnamon, gaiac wood, cedar, sandalwood, vanilla, tonka, musk.

Out of all the gourmands I’ve tried, Musc Ravageur is one of the nicest. It’s a well blended fragrance with a lot of interesting evolution going on when you wear it. It has excellent longevity and projection.

Reviewed in This Post: Musc Ravageur, 2009, Eau de Parfum.