Serge Lutens Le Participe Passé
Expecting a new rubbish bin and an outside food recycling bin from the council within the next couple of weeks. Am ludicrously excited about this. Do these sorts of things make you cheerful?
I booked tickets for the farm shop’s annual pumpkin festival – for Halloween (yes, the 31st of October – my absolute favourite annual holiday). That’s sort of exciting. They will have different coloured pumpkins (otherwise known as squash) alongside the usual orange: blue, yellow, white.
You get to choose your own pumpkin plus they’ll have s’mores, soft serve gourmet ice cream, the ubiquitous pumpkin latte.
This sample, which I bought along with Guerlain Shalimar L’Essence, was chosen for the name: the past participle. The name felt interesting to me – and melancholy for no reason I can put my finger on. Alas, once I received the parcel, I discovered that this is discontinued. Best laid plans etc. Still, I thought it was worth a few words.
The last Lutens I sampled was, I believe, Écrin de Fumée, released a couple of years ago.
Launched in 2018, notes list for LPP (per Fragrantica): artemisia (see pic), bergamot, fruity notes, pepper, Egyptian balsam, resins, caramel, cumin, leather and patchouli.
On me this opens classical if sort of one-dimensional Lutens spices: a melange of cumin, fenugreek, pepper. I immediately thought of the underskirt of Arabie, but Arabie quickly gets plumped up with all that dried fruit plus cinnamon.
Further along, we’re in serious, gooey, immortelle – even though that doesn’t appear to appear on the notes list. Maybe that’s the caramel?
The drydown is spicy, ambre, a bit of coffee (??). Good longevity. Really like the maybe coffee note.
This sat within the Collection Noire range, which is where you’ll find many of the original dark Lutens, like Chergui and Ambre Sultan.
It is Lutens doing full blown Lutens without much nuance – if your fave bit of many of the fragrances is the heavy bazaar melange base. In hindsight I’m not surprised it was discontinued.
Me, I’m glad SL still offers Arabie. Here, it’s available for something like £250 for a belle jar. Ironically, you can also get ‘vintage’ Arabie in the flat, 50ml, bottle on eBay for around the same price. Go figure.
Pics: pexels, wiki
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