Perfume of the Day: Frederic Malle, Carnal Flower

I don’t often love tuberose scents, but this one is undeniably gorgeous.   A lovely combination of green, sweet, and white, soapy floral,  and it just lays on the skin like silk pajamas.  If you like Marc Jacobs, you’ll love, love, love this to death.  It’s not as heavy or overbearing as many white florals with gardenia/tuberose can be.  The drydown is surprisingly..rich..creamy, a bit powdery.  Find it at Barneys.

With Tuberose, nature offers her own take on dramatic olfactive clashes. These pretty flowers exude a mixture of flowershop freshness and carnal opulence. This natural contradiction has fascinated generations of perfumers and Dominique Ropion is no exception. Starting from the latest high-tech analysis of the odor of living Tuberose, he proposed to use whatever product was necessary to get a formula that was close to nature and to create a fragrance that could mix with the wearer’s skin scent. The frequent stays of Frédéric Malle in California, where the odor of Tuberose and Gardenia is everywhere, were very inspiring and led him to encourage Dominique Ropion to reinforce the solar and carnal character of the flower. His answer was to exaggerate some aspects already existing in the natural scent, such as Coconut and Salycilates and to add a trace of musk.