Fougère Bengale - herbal and warm and languidly seductive

Cooler temperatures often make me crave fragrances that have warmth to them, like Fougère Bengale from French indie brand Parfum d'Empire Paris.

Parfum d'Empire was launched in 2003 by perfumer Marc-Antoine Corticchiato. He was born in Morocco in 1960 to a Corsican family but grew up in the Corsican village of Corticchiato. As a young child, he developed an interest in the plants of the Corsican maquis - that dense scrubland vegetation area in the Mediterranean region characterized by evergreen shrubs growing alongside aromatic plants, such as immortelle, rockrose, eucalyptus, and myrtle. In fact, it was his fascination with the smells of plant life that drew him to perfumery.

Fougère Bengale was designed to evoke memories of Bengalese tiger hunts from the colonial era. It opens with a blast of fresh, herbal, mint-tinged English barbershop lavender. It’s joined by a note of warm, green, anisic tarragon. I smell an earthy, herbal, curry-like note of immortelle. Immortelle has a medicinal aspect that I notice, but as it blooms, it smells like sun-warmed hay and wild grass. As it evolves, a note of woody, camphoraceous, animalic patchouli is bolstered by geranium, a keynote in the fougère accord, which adds elegance and masculinity to the mix. Blond tobacco, sweet and aromatic, is warm and sensual; it links to a note of Tonka bean that’s sweet and vanilla-like, with facets of hay and tobacco that extend those notes. It calls forward a note of rich, creamy vanilla that gives Fougère Bengale a cozy sensuality.

Fougère Bengale is a masculine fragrance. There is nothing unisex about it, but I am inexplicably drawn to its complex beauty. Every time I wear it, I discover new facets and dimensions within it, like the patterns seen in a kaleidoscope. That’s one of the things I love about it. That, and the way that it smells.