L’Artisan Parfumeur Noir Exquis and Paris Café collage (MC)
It’s always a pleasure to experience a L’Artisan Parfumeur perfume from Bertrand Duchaufour. He has signed three of my favourites from the line – Seville à l’aube, Vanille Absolument and Traversée du Bosphore and I am always looking forward to his work for this iconic brand. While travel is a theme for many of his perfumes, for the latest installment of the L’Artisan Parfumeur collection, Duchaufour has crafted a perfume with a more intimate story centred in his home territory, France. For Noir Exquis, M. Duchaufour has been inspired by a rendez vous in a Parisian patisserie. “Two people meet over a coffee, hushed looks are exchanged”. This romantic meeting is the beginning of a new story with Noir Exquis.”
Digital collage Eiffel Tower and Café au lait-MC
I happen to be a coffee addict and I need my morning fix or my body and minds fails to connect. Usually I succumb to a second and later in the day a third. For me coffee has a bitter quality and l hasn’t learnt to love it in its unadorned state. I require a touch of creaminess with a drop of milk. As someone who is living in France what would my morning coffee be without a sinfully rich pastry, diet be damned.
Noir Exquis is a sugar free, caffeine free way to enjoy my addictions guilt free. The aroma of coffee swirls and is smoothed and sweetened with crème fraiche. There is an intoxicating nutty quality that encourages my yearnings for a pain aux raisins, one of my favourite breakfast treats.
French Actress Françoise Hardy drinking coffee 1967
Often this gourmand style of perfume layers on the dried fruits and honey, but in Noir Exquis the texture is less dense. It’s suffused with an airy quality that releases warm puffs of deliciousness from my skin. Here the sweetness comes from a hint of orange blossom but also maple syrup that provides a sublime contrast to the darker coffee aroma. The coffee absolute in Noir Exquis is not dark or bitter. It’s a lighter, sweeter iteration that brushes my skin tenderly but with surprising tenacity. The perfume winds down to a tonka infused vanilla centred by macassa wood. Wisps of smokiness and light spices round out Noir Exquis and a woody presence is always noticeable. The perfume’s character stays true from start to finish. There are some ebbs and flows as the dry down is softer in temperament but the cosy feeling I get from Noir Exquis remains unchanged.
Roasted Chestnuts and Winter Sky
Noir Exquis will be perfect for autumn and winter when I’m looking for some warmth and comfort to cocoon me from the cold and silvered skies. It’s a snug, smoothly blended perfume that is fairly simple in construction, but it’s one of those scents that I will end up reaching for on a regular basis. It reminds me of winter holiday time in my seaside town.
Otis Redding and Coffee & Cigarettes collage MC
Roasted chestnuts are sold along the waterfront and the sweet smells of churros and candy floss from the funfair saturate the air. While the locals play boules (petanque) and the children are entertained, warmth is provided by vin chaud (mulled wine) and the smell of coffee permeates the air. If I could only hear the mellifluous tones of Otis Redding wooing me with his 1966 classic Coffee and Cigarettes all would be right with the world.
Disclosure : Sample provided by L’Artisan Parfumeur Paris, opinions my own.
Megan Paki, Editor and Editor Megan In Sainte Maxime
Art Direction: Michelyn
Thanks to L’Artisan Parfumeur we have a 50 ml bottle of Noir Exquis for a registered reader worldwide. You must do this or your comment won’t count. To be eligible, please leave a comment with why you would like to win Noir Exquis, how you take your coffee, your favorite L’artisan Parfumeur perfume and where you live. Draw ends 9/18/2015
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