Multiplying its launches like any mainstream brand and lacking a true artistic direction and a stylistic coherence (in terms of scents, concepts and names), I do not know what Artisan Parfumeur stands for, except a good PR. But this should not worry us if good perfumes are introduced, after all, we the love scents and not the ribbons.
Echange is the new fragrance from Artisan Parfumeur, exclusively sold at Le Bon Marché, and was presented to me at the counter as a creation previously done for a businessman from the City. Later I understood that maybe it's a perfume done in 2007, created for London's City gents and only available at the Royal Exchange store. If Artisan Parfumeur is commercially recycling their made-to-measure perfumes or the 25 bottles sold exclusively at Le Bon Marché are the end of the 2007 stock (they cannot sell in French discount shops) it doesn't matter very much.
Echange stands between the Al Oudh (without its voluptuous animalic civet-cumin notes) and the recently launched Coeur de Vétiver Sacré (without the black tea). It floats in what I call "Davanilla" or the soft vanilla-davana-musk accord that became almost the fingerprint of Artisan Parfumeur, as if they became the fragrance division of Frapin Cognac. It seems a very distant descendant of the spicy perfumes from the 80's but all the strong notes have been turned off under an ocean of freezing peppery cologne freshness with an ambrette effect, the same effect found in masculine modern colognes created by Firmenich (Bulgari is one of them). The perfume starts with a beautiful peppery spicy note wrapped in the fruity aldehydic freshness brought by mandarin and coriander, and ends with transparent woods wrapped in musks, vanilla -benzoin and light amber. Between the 2 extremes of the creation stands a fresh garden rose with pear and raspberry accents combined with an extremely feminine fruity Turkish Rose and a cocktail of spices like cinnamon, cardamom. But above all, there is elemi, in a beautiful accord with mandarin. The fragrance suggests precious distilled liquors through its cognac-whiskey facets, and the rose-tobacco accents of damascones. All is freshly distilled because the freshness of linalool-like molecules dominates the soft woody sweetness of the drydown. It suggests also a work around the natural ambrette note where the fresh rose interpretation given by Chanel is surrounded by the soft oriental accord or "davanilla" with small touches of benzoin and incense, giving a leather suggestion. The musk note is white and creamy, and probably an accord of musc T - tonalide - ambrettolide, or the new Firmenich jewel that says all with a single molecule. Unfortunately the perfume has an extremely poor tenacity on skin and after 30 minutes there was nothing left on my skin, only several musks and a trace of mossy-vanilla. Considering the beautiful natural rose used and possibly even some uber expensive ambrette, it is really a pity this creation is rather a sketch than a true perfume.
Read also a live exclusive interview from New York with perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour on cafleurebon.
Read also a live exclusive interview from New York with perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour on cafleurebon.
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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art
