Louve (2007)
by Serge Lutens Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido

I don't like the opening– only one word popped into my mind: “cheap!” …but “bubble gum” or “air freshener” would have worked just as well. So… this is the she-wolf? Frankly, I don’t get the train of thought that resulted in that name. Louve opens with a sweet, sweet bitter almond / cherry accord that doesn’t smell very rich or refined to me – just sweet. It has a definite marzipan thing going for it at first, and then it seems to change to cherry cough syrup for its heart notes, but those are just preliminaries – they have very little to do with the remainder of the fragrance. The main run of the fragrance is a sweet, powdery almond accord that moves in close to the skin, and stays there for a long, long time. It is a feminine scent that is quite pleasant – certainly refined, uberly powdery, I suppose, but I don’t find it very intriguing – it’s a very nice skin scent...

The person who wants a subtle, sweet, feminine skin scent (and this one really should be considered) might be turned off by the opening: They should probably not smell this for the first five minutes… Personally, I think there are many, many fragrances available (most of them quite a bit less expensive) that can equal or exceed the performance of Louve as a subtle skin scent, but this one is worthy of a testing.

Opens with frothy marzipan and maraschino cherries. VERY light and sweet and girly. The cherry gives way to powder and airy musk, which weave in and out of the marzipan. Suddenly, ten minutes in, a sharp bitter almond upstages the other nights, and predominates for 5 minutes or so. When the bitter almond fades, the marzipan-marchino-powder-musk returns: subtler, gentler, well-blended and less sweet. This is my favorite phase of the perfume.

Not an everyday perfume for me, but perfect for a girly-girl mood: wear this one to get a pedicure with your pre-teen niece.

Total Amaretto upon spraying. After the initial sharp, sweet, candied (almost synthetic?) almond note has faded, it turns into a vaguely medicinal concoction on my skin - which has nothing to do with almonds and everything with a memory I can't quite put my finger on. Cough syrup, an alcoholic bitter... something similar to that. Unpleasant.
As the scent progresses, I'm picking up the original almond opening again, but mellowed, powdery and devoid of all the sugar and the candied wetness. This is the part of the scent that I like best, I wish it would smell like that for the entire duration. Alas, it fades soon into an inoffensive musky odour.

It's a wild ride, I'll have to give it that. It has me intrigued, but I can't say it's an entirely pleasant experience.

Comfort, comfort and more comfort! There's no intrigue and no mystery, but the comfort is all-encompassing. It is like a bowl of Middle Eastern confections: almond nougat, pistachio loukhoum, and cardamom kisses rolled in dried rose petals. On the drydown is a soft powdery white heliotrope, true to the fresh blossoms, is warmed with amber and vanilla.

When you wear this, don't expect romance. It's more for those flannel pajama nights.

Louve is a sickly sweet sugar bomb that ends up smelling like musk.

I was really hoping to love this one but, alas, this is not the case. I admire Hypnotic Poison but have problems detecting it on my skin after 30 minutes, so I considered this to be an ideal alternative. Unfortunately, after applying, all I smell is marzipan and that’s not what I want to smell like in public...