Photo - perfumeniche.com - Playing hockey in Paris, February 2012
When we decided to get married, my husband and I made a promise to make travel a priority for us. So, when we can find a good deal on airfare, we go. That’s how I ended up in Paris last week.
I’ve been to Paris in the winter before, in fact, it’s one of my favourite times of year to visit there. Everything is still open, cafés still have tables on the sidewalks – there are more Parisians, fewer tourists and no crowds. Interiors are cozy, menus shift to winter fare, wines are heartier.
This trip I treated myself to a three-hour, one on one workshop with Stéphanie Bakouche Kouidri. She is the Training Manager at L’Artisan Parfumeur in Paris. Name ring a bell? It should. Stéphanie Bakouche is the nose behind the highly acclaimed Invasion Barbare, one of my all time favourite frags.
The morning spent with Mme. Kouidri was unforgettable. She was genial, open and engaging. She taught me loads - from smelling things I would not otherwise have had access to, to sharing information, tips and insider knowledge. She taught me how to experience fragrance in a new way, how to appreciate the perfumer’s craft a little more and some of the things to look for in a fragrance from a nose’s perspective.
During a break for coffee and macarons, I wandered around the shop, smelling, sniffing, sampling. I own a number if L’Artisan scents, I have sampled all their frags and I am familiar with them, but it was as if I had never smelled some of them before. Over and over again I kept going back to one I had previously dismissed, but now required my full attention - Mon Numéro 3. I bought it that day and have been enjoying it since.
Part of L’Artisan’s Mon Numéro collection, Mon Numéro 3 starts clean and crisp with bergamot and grapefruit, aromatic from sage and lavender and a little spicy from coriander and cardamom. The effect is beautiful, soft and exhilarating. But there’s no time to linger because this opening leads right to a heart of iris – cool, earthy and rooty at first, and then floral as carnation and cyclamen come forward. The surprise here, for me, is the carnation – creamy, pretty and totally unexpected, it complements the iris perfectly. As it blooms, the floral heart moves to a musky base of patchouli and vetiver, lightened by hay and sweetened by tonka bean. What a stunner! Honestly, if my knees weren’t so bad, I’d kneel every time I put it on.
Mon Numéro 3 is a refined scent that is built around a stunning iris heart laid on a musky, sensuous base. It has an elegance that makes it perfectly unisex no matter what the temperature, because even winter in Paris is très chic.
Today, we're adding Mon Numéro 3 to our decant sample offering. Decants are $5.00.
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