New Perfume Review: Houbigant Quelques Fleurs Jardin Secrets (Luca Maffei) 2017+ Eternal Spring Draw

 

image via googlesearch.com

I love knowing secrets, especially scented ones.  Imagine a retreat you escape to, that no knows about.  This can be a place hidden in plain sight or somewhere far away, but what makes it special is that it is your secret place.

Houbigant Quelque Fleurs Jardin Secrets photo by Aaron in his garden

My secret place is my garden where I spend as much time as I possibly can.  It’s not a place I usually allow others; it is literally my own secret garden – my castle, my refuge, my home.  When Michelyn reported from Esxence that wunderkind Italian perfumer Luca Maffei and Creative Director Elisabetta Perris debuted a ‘secret garden” for the storied House of Houbigant, my interest was piqued. 

Tim Walker for Italian Vogue Dancing Flowers©

Quelques Fleurs Jardin Secret's  beauty is intertwined with the history of one of the most iconic and revered fragrances in the world; Robert Bienaimé’s 1912 floral masterpiece Quelques Fleurs which still captives me each time its magic tickles my nose. As a collector of vintage fragrances, it one of the most perfect fragrances ever created and I am thrilled how beautifully Luca Maffei reinterpreted this gem.  Hundreds of thousands of  fragrant delights tempt; fantasy at every turn.  Colors dance in an ecstatic kaleidoscopic ever changing…wonderment with each glance. 

Drew Barrymore photographed by Annie Liebovitz

Then, out of your peripherial vision, you see a lone arbor and a narrow path. Walking down the path you are transported to a magical land of eternal spring. A  wondrous world with perfectly placed citrus trees, beautifully manicured rose hedges, and graceful flowers carpet the ground. 

Photo Tim Walker ©

There are flowers placed by color here and there, and each row is spaced just so, to allow an airy feel to the peaceful atmosphere.The scent of citrus tree fruit is the first you encounter – mandarin orange. You are calm and exhilarated simultaneously. Next, vibrant green bergamot trees filled with still green fruits adds a lively twist to the orange as we come to our first corner. 

Chanel Iman for The Block Summer 2010©

The area opens up to a small field lined by paths on each side lined by rose hedges filled with yellow, red, but mostly white blossoms. Their fragrance is not overpowering, it is graceful and certainly elegant. One both sides of the path stand perfectly formed magnolias with their pale pink and white flowers emanating their light citrusy floral magic in the breeze along with the orange blossoms a short way behind.  You feel your soul is being cleansed.

MC Digital art

Moving forward the path is lined with rows of jasmine planted in rich sandalwood mulch leading to the entrance of a walled gazebo covered with ylang ylang vines. Here you can sit awhile and contemplate the beauty that surrounds you and gaze at a fountain, seemingly from another time, where water flows surrounded by fragrant bushes. The air around you is crystal clear and smells clean and inviting, with a pleasant musky undertone emanating from your own skin. It’s at this moment you realize you have found sweet bliss in your own scented secret garden.

TOP NOTES: Bergamot, Yellow Mandarin, Neroli.

HEART NOTES: Magnolia Flower, Narcissus Absolute, Rosa Centifolia Absolute, Orange Blossom Absolute, Jasmine, Orris, Ylang Ylang.

BASE NOTES: Sandalwood, Ambrette Absolute, White Amber, Musk.

Quelques Fleurs Jardin Secret EDP is available exclusively at Neiman Marcus in the USA and on Houbigant Paris’ website

Disclaimer:  Review based on tester supplied by Houbigant Paris.  Thank you.  Opinions are my own.

–Aaron Potterman, Contributor and Vintage Perfume Expert and Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief who also is the Art Director

Quelque Fleurs Jardins Secrets photo by Aaron 

Thanks to the generosity of Houbigant Paris USA and The Perris Group we have a 100 ml bottle (valued at $190) for a registered US reader, (please register so your comment counts here). To be eligible, please tell us what you thought of Aaron’s review of Quelques Fleurs Jardins Secret, a hidden place you love to spend time or if you have a garden and your favorite Houbigant Fragrance.  The draw closes 4/23/2017

We announce the winners on our site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS FEED…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume

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17 comments

  • GrandmaGaga says:

    My, what beautiful writing! I’ve never smelt the original but this sounds positively gorgeous; a recreation of a fragrant garden. Surrounded by people, my hidden place is often in my own mind where I can conjure up any number of tranquil locales….of course, a beautiful scent goes a long way to creating these gardens in my mind. Thank you for the chance to experience my first Houbigant fragrance. I am in the US.

  • cardinalmind says:

    Fougere Royale! I’ve asked in a forum before what’s a nice office scent and that was recommended to me. Now I’ve finished the sample and is craving it. One of the hidden place I love to spend time at work is the fire exit. It’s so quiet there which is nice if I want to self-reflect and focus,

    Aaron’s review was fascinating to read and made me even want to experience the perfume. I’m in the US. Thanks and have a nice day!

  • fazalcheema says:

    Like Aaron, I also have many vintage perfumes including those from houbigant. I am intrigued because this is Luca’s modern interpretation of classic Quelques Fleurs. From notes Quelques Fleurs Jardins Secret may seem like a heavy composition due to jasmin and sandalwood but it is actually clean. My favorite Houbigant perfumes are vintage and modern versions of Fougere Royale. I am in US.

  • ntabassum92 says:

    WOW, fantastic review. Unfortunately, now I really want to visit this magical garden that you have described! I love to spend time in the woods around my home, just walking to the grocery store or wandering around 🙂 I believe I enjoy the original Quelques Fleur, if I remember correctly!

  • brandi97 says:

    I remember being a little girl at Christmas and always waiting to see what marvelous parfum my mother would unwrap. That was the ritual every Christmas: a new parfum, the highly concentrated, purest form of some of the world’s most rarest and famous scents. One year, she received an especially beautiful box, lined with purple satin that held a small vial of some of the most brilliant gold liquid I had ever seen. There was also a dainty, lavender tassel hanging gently from its neck. The tassel is what mostly piqued my interest, being that I was probably 10 or 11 at the time. That was until she opened the bottle, and without even applying any to
    her wrist, the most enchanting scent drifted across the room I had ever smelled. Since that moment, I have been hooked on Houbigant Quelques Fleurs. This review took me back to that special Christmas memory and combined with the nuances of the garden visions from Aaron’s review that whisked me back to my own hidden place in my mind: my father’s prized
    rose garden with roses raised for submission into the Texas Tyler Rose Festival. This is where I was allowed to play with the tassels from the spent bottles of Houbigant parfum she had acquired over the marked celebrations of birthdays, anniversaries and Valentine’s days. Special days that were then filled with requests for more Quelques Fleur. When the spring winds lifted the scents of those many difference fragrances from the myriad of varieties of fragrant roses, I was a flower princess with bouquets around me filling spring winds with their own potpourri. It was a rare, special scent only to be rivaled by Quelques Fleurs. Now, as an adult, I find great intrigue when a new scent comes from this design house, as I have been a very faithful
    Quelques Fleurs L’Original user for over 30 years. (I have a bottle in my purse right now!) Aaron Potterman’s review was rich with visions of those dizzying arrays of misty arbors, galavanting meadows and breezy open areas inviting ones senses to take it all in, creating an intimate, secret place in their mind to reflect the revelry and eccentricities in nature that are beauties among themselves. Thus making the ability to envision- and potentially even imagine – the scent emblazoned upon one’s minds eye a reality. I am in the US.

  • Tara Mikz says:

    Hi I just found this review as I am st Neiman Marcus now
    I bought it but would love one for my mom
    Thanks beautiful review

  • Barbie says:

    Yet again, Aaron entices the senses with his powerful scent imagery! This one sounds divine!!❤️

  • NiceVULady says:

    Aaron’s review was the feeling of walking through a beautiful floral garden. I could almost smell the flowers. I have a garden and when I was getting it together I decided that it was going to be a scent garden. Quelques Fleur was my grandmother’s favorite along with Yardley. I love both of them. I would so love to smell this. Thanks for the draw.

  • RoseMacaroon says:

    I love gardens, absolutely adored the images in this post! Would love to try this, as well as the 1912 Quelque Fleures which is going to be far less available, clearly!
    Thanks for the draw! I love that the public garden i live close to is sort of magically in a steep little canyon, so it always feels like an urban oasis (yes, even slightly a secret!)

  • Richard Potter says:

    I love my Quelques Fleurs and the not for this one sound amazing. I can hardly wait to try it!

  • Anna Egeria says:

    This is such a beautiful post! I have my own “secret garden” which I’m always working on. I love spending time there and in the nearby woods. My late aunt wore the original Quelques Fleurs so I’m anxious to try this new version. Thank you for this chance!

  • zamar says:

    “You feel your soul is being cleansed”. Yes I can feel it right. Actually anytime I am thinking of bergamot, orange blossom, sandalwood and neroli this happens. Very nice review. Thank you.
    I have no secret garden; but I love walking in the wood lonely. Again, thanks for the draw. I am in the US.

  • Cynthia says:

    What a beautiful review. I felt as if I was walking through this special hidden garden. I love the original Quelques Fleurs and am now desperate to try this one!

  • Hikmat Sher Afridi says:

    Amazing review that reminds me SHALIMAR GARDENS at Lahore which is a secret garden for many who want to run away from busy life and take some relief in a pleasant, charming and breath in floral paradise, surrounded by varieties of fruit trees. Never tried any of the Houbigant fragrances, besides that Ciao, Duc de Vervins, Raffinee and Fougere Royale are on my wish/want list.
    Thanks to the generosity of Houbigant Paris USA & The Perris Group, and Cafleurebon for the opportunity by letting my relative address in US.

  • doveskylark says:

    I like how Aaron made the fragrance notes sound like walking on the path towards a secret place of serenity.
    I have a tiny balcony with a jasmine and a lavender plant. I put my desk on the balcony. It overlooks a very noisy street. On my balcony, I can be part and apart from the cacophony.
    I live in the USA.