Brooke Belldon holding her bell jar of Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle
The icy slip into niche perfume.
I don’t really have memories of certain smells rooted in my childhood. Being trans, there’s a gap in my memories where my childhood was. Attempting to conjure memories of my life before I began to transition takes effort. I never experience any Proustian triggers that transport me back to baking cookies with grandma or summer holidays away at the beach. Life for me sort of began at 18 when I finally escaped Small Town, Ohio and moved up to Cleveland, which was the closest place to me that resembled a big city. After a couple of dubious living situations, I landed a room sharing a townhouse with two other trans girls in a block of townhouses that was sort of its own little LGBT community. Two drag queens lived in the townhouse next door to mine. They became my unofficial moms and basically raised me during the formative years of my transition. They also worked for two major beauty brands and, luckily enough, introduced me to perfume.
CHANEL No.19 photo by Brooke Belldon©
One day they came around with a shopping bag full of Chanel fragrances. Not knowing any better, I automatically reached for the No.5, but was given No.19 instead. “This one is you,” they said. I knew nothing about perfume at the time. It was all completely new to me. But those first sniffs of No.19 still echo back to me today. Enchanted forest in a snow globe. That’s how I describe No.19, and that’s where it takes me. I had no idea what I was smelling. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “notes”. But the feeling it evoked for me was so cocooning, centering and introspective. It was everything that I needed at that time in my life, and it became somewhat talismanic for me. Even today, when I need to set my head right, I need my No.19.
CHANEL no. 19 photo by Brooke Belldon©
My relationship with perfumes became indicative of periods of my life. A few months with Cristalle and then on to Coco when I was finally walking in big girl shoes before I had a head-on collision with Piguet Fracas For me, Fracas just became IT. I loved how over-the-top feminine it was and extravagantly louche and reckless it felt. Every spray triggered a continuous loop of “Whatever Lola Wants”. It was my signature scent for a time in my life when I had a very non-committal attitude to employment, lived to shop and fed my friends expensive leftovers from dates I had zero interest in because we didn’t have a stove.
Robert Piguet Fracas photo by Brooke Belldon©
My love of Fracas kicked off a big tuberose phase for me that went well into the time I began living in London – the original Michael Kors (#neverforget), Frederic Malle Carnal Flower and Nasomatto Narcotic Venus were all staples of mine, and I wanted to discover more. This led me to the proverbial rabbit hole.
Fracas EDT photo by Brooke Belldon©
I had no idea that perfume blogs were a thing until I stumbled upon one talking about Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle. Their reaction to this perfume was so extreme it made me curious to find out what other people thought about it too, and they were all as equally divisive. I wanted to experience what they were experiencing, so I ordered a bottle from Paris almost immediately.
Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle photo by Brooke Belldon©
Those first sniffs. I’d never smelled anything like it in my life. Gasoline fumes and cold vapor. I had no idea why I loved it so much. It was tuberose turned inside out with all of its ugly bits on display in a cold, medicinal extravaganza. Tubereuse Criminelle transformed my entire ideal of tuberose as this curvaceous, Jessica Rabbit into a cold, wicked ice queen, and I was so into it.
Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle photo by Brooke Belldon©
Tubereuse Criminelle opened the door to niche perfumery for me. It showed me that perfume didn’t have to try to be pretty or likable to elicit a response that I vibed with. This tension between beauty and repulsion is something I look for in almost every perfume now. The hidden dangers, the dark secrets, the suspense of turning the next corner in these wonderful olfactory mazes waiting to be explored in bottles on our shelves.
Notes include: tuberose, jasmine, orange blossom, hyacinth, nutmeg, clove, styrax, musk and vanilla
Brooke Belldon -Guest Contributor
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Please welcome Brooke as a new Guest Contributor… have you tried Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle. Editor’s note: The bell jar flacon for Tubereuse Criminelle (on Serge Lutens’ site) has been changed (discontinued) and is now in the Gratte Ciel bottle which you can see here.