jeudi 17 juin 2010

First whiffs of the new Heures de Parfum by Mathilde Laurent for Cartier




La Diaphane, La Fougueuse, La DéfendueThe Diaphanous, the Spirited, the Forbidden. These could be the names of French warships or of the patches women adorned their faces with in the 18th century.They are, of course, the names of Mathilde Laurent’s new Heures de Parfum for Cartier, to be launched in November and presented today amidst the gold and diamonds of the jeweler’s new collection. I’ll be writing full reviews of these once I’ve got a chance to live with them. So far, I’ve worn two, and I’ve found them gutsy, generous yet subtle – the type of scent that should have been put out, say, by Guerlain. Their loss, Cartier’s gain.

L’Heure Fougueuse (the Spirited Hour) is one of those compositions that seem to shift according to the way the light hits them. I get whiffs of a tea -- it features one of Mathilde Laurent’s favourite materials, maté, which she’s already used in La Treizième Heure and considers the new oak moss, and Karismal, a hedione-like material – with drops of lemon juice from the magnolia accord in the top notes. Then I get whiffs of hay and funky, warm leather, but leather on a live animal. And that animal’s a horse. Mathilde’s stated intention was in fact to create a new type of animalic accord. I’ve been swivelling my head for the past two days, wondering whose skin smelled so delicious – rather than which perfume had caught my attention. It was me: a female Centaur.

L’Heure Défendue (the Forbidden Hour) is what Mathilde calls a “black oriental”: a treatment of cocoa as a non-foody note. “I wanted to use it as a real perfumery ingredient”, she explains, “to give it the same status as vanilla.” The dark chocolate – patchouli accord is a natural, and has been featured both in Angel and Bornéo 1834, but where the former drowns it in sugar and the second plays on an oddly dry, powdery milk chocolate note, L’Heure Défendue is unremittingly dark, rose-infused, soft and warm as cashmere – in fact, it melts into Cashmeran, “a material I could drown in”, says Mathilde.

L’Heure Diaphane (“The Diaphanous Hour”) is an opalescent rose-peony-lychee accord with overtones of hawthorn. I haven’t worn it and truth be told, its delicate notes were eaten up by the leather, chocolate and patchouli of its sisters. It’s lovely, but it’ll have to wait. I’ve got an assignation with Lady Chatterley’s lover. Or would that be Lady Godiva’s?


P.S. When I was in London, my friend Nicola said “I can’t wait until Cartier completes their Heures de Parfum collection so they put out a boxed set of minis”. This made me think that Cartier should definitely consider putting out mignonettes like Hermès does with the Hermessences, or travel sprays with refills like By Kilian, so that more of us can experience their pricey but outstanding fragrances in their original packaging rather than going for splits and decants. All those in favour say “Aye”.


40 commentaires:

  1. Aye!

    though you know I am most taken with Brillante, the Spirited Hour sounds very intriguing!

    Can't wait to try these!

    xoA

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  2. I'm looking forward to L'Heure Fougueuse (I'm sold based on the name alone).

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  3. Aye, aye, matey! And thank you for being my lifeline to new perfumes worth smelling. I'm not allowed to buy things online from Europe unless I can be guaranteed I won't be charged at the door by U.S. Customs, so I have to just revel in your words and wait until these pretties come to the provinces of perfume, where I reside.

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  4. Aye, indeed! Can't wait to try these, D.

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  5. Aye! I have travel sets of TDC Osmanthus and BK Beyond Love, and keep hoping BK will issue Oud and Rose Oud in this format, too! I also appreciate those sets of smaller bottles because I believe the unopened bottles will stay fresh longer, especially BK's bottles, which have regular caps and an atomizer to switch from bottle to bottle. I love the coffrets that Lancome and Chanel did, too. ~~nozknoz

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  6. Aye!

    L’Heure Fougueuse sounds wonderful; I love the scent of the horse. I can't wait to try this!

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  7. Musette, L'Heure Fougueuse *is* intriguing, and I haven't entirely wrapped my head around it yet. Anyway, there's time to review, this doesn't come out until November!

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  8. Uella, I'm not entirely sure it's what you'll like though.

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  9. Cait, I think they'll be coming out in France and elsewhere at the same time anyway. Though at that price, buying unsniffed is not an option.

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  10. Jarvis, I think you'd find the Fougueuse to your liking.

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  11. Beautyontheoutside, there isn't much that's more beautiful than that smell, is there? Here it's not overpowering, just discreetly present. We're not in the stables!

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  12. Nozknoz, I particularly like the Hermessence trio, where you can combine the ones you want from the collection. And the principle of the Frédéric Malle travel atomizer and refill bottles is pretty good too. And the Kilian atomizers are very covetable.

    I mean, even for someone who can comfortably afford a full bottle, it makes a lot of sense to have a smaller size to carry around in your purse, leave at the office or take along when you travel, doesn't it?

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  13. L'Heure Fougueuse has really tickled my fantasy... it sounds related, though not necessarily similar, to the XIIIème heure (the only heure I liked, but I liked it very much. Too bad Cartier didn't give me a sample. Their loss.). The other two sound like "must-never-touch-my-skin", especially the heure defendue: rose + choco-tchouli* is one of the accords I hate the most!This time, my loss, of course.

    *My nose often fools me on the standard rose+patchouli combo: I always get a huge chocolate facet out of it. I actually seem to smell lots of chocolate in all rose based compositions I don't like (the fruit jam-roses and the patch-roses). I guess my nose is freaky! Luckily, I still have a few roses I can love: the spicy, the woody, and the honeyed ones...

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  14. Zazie, the Fougueuse is indeed related to the Treizième, through the maté, but while the latter is a work on smoke, the former is a work on animalic: Mathilde was also explaining that she is looking for "universal" smells, things that are encrypted in our ancestral memory.

    Amazingly, given that the chocolate + patchouli accord would normally make me run a mile, the Défendue is very different and I must say I'm very taken by it, because it's absolutely not sweet. Rose is a facet of the chocolate bean, Mathilde explained, so that's the way it's treated, rather than as a strong note. There is also another unexpected facet I'll unveil in a later review.

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  15. Aye....oh Aye YI YI ......
    oh...my....please !

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  16. I say "Aye!" more for the benefit of others than for my own. So far, I've only liked La Treizième Heure (which I go back and forth on) and cannot imagine owning any of them, really. And I can't bet such things would be cheap enough for a student like I am to indulge in. Though now that I think about it, I wonder if I don't want XIII because I cannot under any circumstances afford it....

    That being said, these things sound heinously good. I can't wait to try these (and I got away with making my own samples once, so...). L’Heure Fougueuse sounds terrific. I'm, as always, hoping not to fall in love.

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  17. Eric, I see what you mean. Impossible loves are no fun, really, aren't they?

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  18. "Rose is a facet of the chocolate bean"

    Interesting and... amazing.
    I'll tell my nose he is not completely off when reading "chocolate" in Nahéma.
    You spoke once of those associations that happen in our brain, that create an entire material out of a facet or upon recognizing pieces of familiar accords...like automatically filling the blanks.
    The strange thing is that, sometimes, I perceive these holograms of scents with the same force as the actual notes in the perfume, getting big bananas out of jasmine, golden honey out of orange blossoms, and liquid chocolate out of (some) roses...

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  19. AYE!

    Of course, I've yet to sniff any of these at all. ::sigh:: It's hard living in the hinterlands.

    I'd like to find a fragrance with a chocolate note that I liked, but so far I haven't. There's something about it that usually turns me right off, which is surprising considering how much of it I've eaten in my life! It often smells very synthetic to me, very plastic-y.

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  20. Zazie, that's exactly how it works and I do it all the time.

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  21. Amy, well you might like to put something in your mouth but not on your skin, right? In this case, we're on cocoa absolute, so no synthetic feel, that's for sure.

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  22. Aye!
    She is so so talented, look forward to smelling them all in due course and more of your fab reviews in the meantime.
    In particular I am very intrigued by l'Heure Defendue, may be it will change my mind about chocolate in scents. Cashmeran is also in Dans tes Bras...bodes well.

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  23. Silvia, as I said above, I'm not normally a big chocolate + patch + rose person and I'm not sure I'd wear L'Heure Défendue in the heat, but it's certainly different enough to warrant a serious try when it becomes accessible (if I come back to London before November you'll get a whiff).

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  24. Yes, yes, yes!!!!! Would love to see these in a box of minis. In fact, I was thinking it even before I read your words on it. Cartier, are you listening? :-)

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  25. Karin, starting to look like a grassroots movement here!

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  26. Aye-
    I'd buy a lot more perfume if it were offered in smaller bottles. I thought L'Artisan was on the right track w/ presenting Poivre Piquant, Safran Troublant, and Piment Brulant as a mini group. I bought this coffet (sp) and would buy a lot more if packaged /marketed this way.
    Thanks for the preview on the Cartiers

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  27. Jennifer, I hope this can be forwarded to Cartier's marketing department. I'm sure there'd be a demand.

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  28. Well, of course a resounding "Aye!" along with everyone else. I adore XIII La Treizieme Heure, although the price keeps me from buying a bottle. And the others certainly hold my interest enough to want small amounts of them.

    But La Fougueuse and perhaps, La Defendue sound very intriguing indeed! I don't like Angel or Borneo, but you make Defendue seem worlds apart from them.

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  29. L’Heure Défendue intrigues me. I quite like cocoa as a note, but nearly all the versions I know oversweeten it for my tastes, bar, perhaps, Borneo and Coromandel. Non-sweet cocoa and rose sounds delightful...

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  30. aye!
    it would be great if chanel offered the same for their exclusive line

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  31. Especially La Fougueuse sounds intriguing! But it seems like I won't be buying this or any other Les Heures fragrance. I finally dragged myself over to Cartier here in Amsterdam, only to find out that they don't stock them. And I'm not in the mood for blind buys or ordering samples.

    I understand the exclusivity factor, but just how many hoops do they accept us customers to jump through? Maybe I'm simply not part of their target audience since I don't live in Paris or New York.

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  32. Melissa, it is, though of course I suppose it all depends on the sweetness-amplifying nature of one's skin...

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  33. Sean's Jo, it would be. Imagine how adorable a row of mini-atomizers would look... Mind you, Chanel *are* making a gesture and preparing to sell the exclusives in 100 ml bottles it seems.

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  34. Ulf, it could just be part of a roll-out: it's a new undertaking for Cartier and I could imagine they were testing the waters. After all, it's not quite their primary line of business.

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  35. AYE!

    the first few heures were some of the best scents i've sniffed in a very long time, and these sound wonderful, too.

    i think she is doing fabulous work for them. and they seem to be giving her quality materials with which to work. a nice team.

    cheers,
    minette

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