FAG ASH LIL : : : JASMIN ET CIGARETTE by ETAT LIBRE D’ORANGE (2006)

The Etat Libre d’Orange perfumes all have a very human quality.  The first impressions are generally flashy and ‘philosophical’, but the ends usually smell like real peoples’ lives.  In the case of Jasmin Et Cigarette, rather than designing a perfume to be worn in a late night bar, the company hilariously put the end result of this scenario (the morning after) actually in the perfume.  And so the top note of a beautifully fresh, living jasmine flower,  delicate, alive, kidnapped directly from nature,  is soon taken over, convincingly,  by the stale aroma of cigarette butts stubbed out by Saturday night careless punters in some overflowing,  snooker club’s ashtray.  Having myself actually on occasion at teenage parties mistakenly drunk from a beer glass in which someone’s fag had been extinguished, and paid the subsequent wrenching,  bog-heaving price,  I must…