POOPER SCOOPER : THE LADY TAMER / LA DOMPTEUSE ENCAGEE by SERGE LUTENS (2021)

Gone are the days when I would avidly follow up on every new Serge Lutens release. In the early days we perfumisti lapped them all up as though he were God. The perfumes stood out as so different from what else was around back then in the early nineties: the original – much, much, denser, thicker, sweeter, ambrous, complex, atmospheric elixirs that came at affordable prices felt newly provocative: the bitter green of Sa Majesté La Rose, the unfettered exotic amber of Ambre Sultan as it was back then, so heavy and spicy; the (for me) fascination but utter revulsion of Arabie – whether you liked them or not those perfumes were exceedingly good value and genuinely exciting.

In the intervening years I have had many of them, as you probably have too. I have bought perfumes at the head office at the Palais Royal (Sarrasins, Cuir Mauresque), but not really worn them. I have gulped down others by the multibottle (the original Un Bois Vanille, Borneo 1834, Louve); toyed with others – I do like Vitriol D’Oeillet and Cèdre, for instance. Others stand there, unloved (like Datura Noir). Still others I wish I had managed to get my hands on (Dent De Lait; Rahat Loukoum; Fourreau Noir – perhaps his most underrated amber).

The magnetism towards the man himself and his brand persists.

I have always liked the Lutens florals – A La Nuit , Tubereuse Criminelle – and have worn Nuits De Cellophane (a bitter, synthetic mandarin osmanthus) as a work scent. And in fact The Lady Tamer – as in a female tamer of other things, animals, rather than some brute who oppresses and defangs his women, is like a tropical version of the latter – there is something blinding and headache inducing about it (somehow, the existence of a Serge Lutens Frangipani had eluded my conscious, which I had to rectify the other day in Tokyo – after the Guerlain Vetiver Parfum, this was the other scent I knew I had to smell).

It smells deep pink. It is bright (dazzling, in a way). Frangipani, bitter almond and ylang (and presumably a lot of jasmine and tuberose as well), with some unpleasant initial indolics that make the entirety smell very much like an air freshener used to cover up the smell of the doo doo – like Glade Purple Lilac, or one of those ultra fake florals that masken, but can never hide, the products of our inner recesses. Thinking I would be buying this, instead I was slightly recoiling. On card later, smelling it again today, the plumeria note is far more alluring and I was reminded of the eighties pimiento-flecked editions of Chanel Gardénia, as well as Rochas’ ill fated Poupée (a strange, hazelnut inflected high pitched tuberose I still have some affection for). Shrill. Kinda cute. But yes : Poupee indeed.