Maison Francis Kurkdjian and Le Labo exclusives

So the Parisian life is kind of busy apparently… but I finally got to smell the Le Labo city exclusives and visited Francis Kurkdjian’s boutique. I’ve been a “horrible” perfumery student because I keep forgetting my notebooks at home when I smell things, so I’ll be writing out of memory.

Let’s start with Le Labo exclusives…

Tubereuse 40 - Inside Tubereuse 40, you smell the result of being inspired by an existing “eau de cologne” accord, and you can tell that Morillas put a really nice twist on it. But this is a fantastic fragrance. It’s an interesting take on a tuberose because it’s a modern take on “tuberose” which is olfactively distant than let’s say Fracas.

Poivre 23 – this one stood out for me because it is multifaceted: peppery/spicy notes, ambery, balasmic, and fruity notes. It is a very textural fragrance where you get a spicy enveloping note and hidden inside, you have this pruney, fruity something… and an accord of absolute of rose or absolute of Egyptian jasmine? This is by far the best fragrance in the line.

I do not mean to not write about the other fragrances, but I was so rushed to smell these that I decided to commit to smelling the aforementioned two that stood out for me instantly.

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3 minutes walking distance from Colette, we have Francis Kurkdjian’s new boutique store. FK gives me hope. He’s doing something really good for perfumery. This guy is a genius… from the vision to the concept to the message all the way down to the packaging, everything is FK. Even in his fragrances and this I will let you guys discover, you can find his winning accords inside.

Hidden inside his fragrances, you can smell his affinity for the orange blossoms… in a fragrance, you can find Narciso Rodriguez for Him… you can find a Jean Paul Gautier accord in another…. etc. Of course, Acqua Universalis is very interesting and quite beautiful. But I cannot help but return to the olfactive structure of CK One and green tea.

His fragrant bubbles (one of cut grasse: cis 3 hexenol) is a very interesting concept. It is strange that many years ago, I dreamt of fragrant bubbles and I find it amazing that it was made into a reality – in his case, to allow his niece to explore the olfactive world.