Eight & Bob Annicke 6 bottle, image courtesy of Eight & Bob

He was the dashing star of a glamourous life that reads like a 30s movie script. Albert Fouquet, handsome scion of Parisian nobility, bon vivant, was a self-taught perfumer who mixed scents in the family chateau in between his world travels, assisted by trusty butler, Phillipe. Fouquet’s fragrances were designed solely for his own consumption (though he would occasionally share a drop with the more appreciative members of his circle, which included a young John F. Kennedy, whom Fouquet met by chance on the Cote D’Azur). But everything changed in 1936, when Fouquet met the dazzling Annicke at a dinner in Switzerland. As the French say, he was coup de foudre. A flurry of impassioned letters followed between them, and the newly besotted Fouquet created his first perfume in Annicke’s honour. Other fragrances followed, each marking a reunion of the lovers.  Annicke 6, the last in Eight & Bob’s Annicke line, a resinous, warm floral, is the perfume of someone intended to be held close.

Albert Fouquet image Eight & Bob

Eight & Bob Annicke 6 is a charming, carnation-and-rose fragrance dotted with spice that is both piquant and gently lovely as the glitter of snow on the Haut-Savoie mountains. From its dancing opening of bergamot and pepper to its snuggly resinous dry-down, Annicke 6’s combination of satiny flowers, resins and spice feels quite intimate. It isn’t that the fragrance has short sillage – it wafts enough to garner compliments – but it has a cosseting, silky quality that feels as private and as graceful as the slow waltz of two people who fit together just so.

Starting with a splash of orang-y bergamot and a whip of hot red pepper, Annicke 6 freewheels happily out of its bottle, ready to rhumba. With those zingy opening notes bringing up the dance floor lights, a sultry dash of cinnamon cues the orchestra. But the music changes from percussive to dulcet. Carnation, with its lactonic sweetness, steps quietly into the center. The bergamot hovers just behind it, keeping the mood light. Some measures later, there is stillness. Rose awakens, and the perfume’s romantic heart starts to beat.

courtesy of Eight & Bob

Twenty minutes or so into Annicke 6’s trajectory, it coalesces into a lovely amalgam of sweet spice, rose and carnation that would feel decidedly vintage but for the two-step refrain of zingy pepper and bergamot that recurs throughout its development, ensuring the perfume never takes itself too seriously and giving Annicke 6 a modern overlay. In its middle stages, the fragrance’s milky sensuality – a mixture of the creaminess of carnation and benzoin – reminds me a little of Jacomo Art Collection #2, of which I own a bottle. But where #2 eventually leans into its shaving cream-muskiness and goes suave, Annicke 6 falls into a thick bed of rich, ambery resins and sighs. A perfect balance of easy dreaminess and joie de vivre; poet’s muse and prom queen, sophisticated and youthful, Annicke 6 is delightful.

Image via pixabay

Despite being the last in its series, Annicke 6 gives the impression of an open ending rather than a conclusion. As it wears, rose and carnation whisper communion with each other, the bergamot and pepper tease them playfully, and taffyish benzoin and warm labdanum caress. Romance lingers, the lovers sway cheek to cheek, and the orchestra continues into the small hours of the morning forever. And so it will stay. Fouquet died tragically in a car accident before he could live happily ever after with his Annicke, forever handsome, young, and in love. But their music plays on.

Notes: Sichuan pepper, bergamot, carnation, rose absolute, Madagascar cinnamon, amber, sandalwood, Indian labdanum, benzoin.

Disclaimer: Bottle of Eight & Bob Annicke 6 generously provided by Europerfumes, U.S. distributors for Eight & Bob. My opinions are my own.

Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

Eight & Bob Annicke 6, image courtesy of Twisted Lily.com

Thanks to the generosity of Europerfumes, we have a 3.4 oz bottle of Eight & Bob Annicke 6 for one registered reader in the U.S. only. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what appeals to you about Eight & Bob Annicke 6 based on Lauryn’s review and whether you are familiar with Eight & Bob fragrances? Draw closes 8/3/2021.

The original Eight & Bob is reviewed here

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