Perfume Pen Pals: Cartier X L'Heure Folle


Katie,

Minutes after applying Cartier X (I'm not typing out the complete name because I don't want to), I thought, "Why the hell didn't Katie warn me?!" Later on, I looked up your Cartier reviews and saw that you had warned me. So I'm sorry.

Why do these fruity perfumes all smell alike? They're sickening. And they smell like someone getting sick. They both make me sick and they smell like sick: they're the entire spectrum of sickness. Plus, this one has no base. No woods, no flowers, it's just all sweet repulsive fruit, sitting and rotting on my arm.

Upon completing any work, it's a good exercise to take away one element. The Cartier perfumer should've taken away this one. Just thrown it in the trash.

Dan


Dan,

Regarding your horreur at Cartier X L'Heure Folle, I tracked down this quote from parfumer Mathilde Laurent on Grain de Musc:

“I hate fruity perfumes. I find them anti-sexy. But I like to work on things I don’t like, to bring out a different aspect of it. For my version of the tutti-frutti, I went for leaves, everything that’s green and on a bush. I wanted fruit that hurt the teeth a little. It’s nature as I love it. I only eat raspberries straight off the bush in my grandfather’s garden, including the unripe ones.”

How d'ya like them apples?

Katie


Katie,

I'm glad most artists aren't inclined to work on things they don't like or else we might have to suffer through Didion romance novels or Dylan rock operas or science fiction films from Scorsese.

This is going to sound like a crass over- generalization, but I believe women who wear these aggressively fruity and optimistic perfumes also tend to speak in little girl voices, dress ten years too young for their age and abstain from all category of indecency. There's a market for this kind of thing, for the perfume and the women, but it's not me.

Dan

9 comments:

  1. I haven't tried this Cartier range yet, but generally avoid fruit salads in fragrance. The first sample I happened to try after the onset of perfume mania in '08 was DKNY Delicious Night, which boasts a "frozen pomelo" note and a "chilled blackberry martini accord". It had the texture of wire wool steeped in Ribena, and while it didn't deter my neophyte nose from further exploration, it has made me wary of berry-centric scents, including now "C***** X".

    Actually, a Didion romance novel sounds intriguing. I'll bet the hero dies on the first page...

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  2. X L'Heure Folle made my nose hairs hurt a little when I tried it. It wasn't tutti-frutti sweet at all, but it was a bit mouth-puckering. I couldn't quite wrap my olfactory bulb around it. One of those "admire it but can't wear it" scents.

    I'm with Flittersniffer. I've never indulged in a romance novel, but if the hero died on page one, I'd be all over it. Especially if it went downhill from there.

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  3. You two are funny. "P.S. I Love You" is a movie where the hero dies at the beginning, but Hilary Swank keeps getting creepy mash notes from him in the mail. I always misremember the title as "P.S. I'm Dead".

    Personally, I think Dan is overreacting with his "repulsive rotting fruit" screed. He's just lead a sheltered life, and has never been exposed to the likes of Delicious Night or Harajuku Lovers Music.

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  4. Now Nuit Noire by Mona di Orio - that's "repulsive rotting fruit" to my nose - with added civet (shudder) and a general air of crepuscular menace in an exotic location.

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  5. FS - now I'm keen to smell Nuit Noire to put things into perspective.

    "Crepuscular menace in an exotic location" reminds me of the film "Don't Look Now", which I watched again the other night.

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  6. FS-I think I like your description of Nuit Noire better than Luca's. Katie, if you haven't read Luca's description, try the fragrance first. Otherwise you'll never get his description out of your nose.

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  7. Aha - just found it. I appear to agree with Luca for once...

    May we look forward to a KP video review of Nuit Noire in due course?!

    "Don't Look Now" is a very moody film, for sure. Put me off swimming for a while.

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  8. FS, I think it's safe to say a video review of Nuit Noire will be a long time coming.

    M61 - I'll hold off on reading Luca's NN para till I sniff it.

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  9. Wait a minute (she said, 2 1/2 weeks later)! I'm in London now, and I just got my hands on Nuit Noire, and eagerly grabbed it, remembering only that I had promised to sniff it and report back. I couldn't remember what y'all had said about it, just that I needed to check out it out.

    Now I'm reading your "repulsive rotting fruit", fs, and cracking up, because (drum roll) I loved it and bought it on the spot! I get that civet and there, and love the beastiness of it, and I do pick up on the fruit in the beginning, but the whole thing works on me like a more sophisticated and vintaged-out Miller Harris Fleur Oriental, which I love.

    No accounting for taste...or perhaps lack of taste, in my case, if flittersniffer and Luca T are united in their shivering horror of Noir de Noir.

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