Eau de Lavande – rich and virile and sophisticated

French lavender. Photo: perfumeniche.com

Writing a blog takes discipline, consistency, and work. Some days I have all three and some days I run on fumes. So, I make a monthly calendar and schedule what fragrances I am going to write about and when. But experience has taught me to always have to leave room for the unexpected, the serendipitous, the magical surprises that stop all the clocks, mute all the devices and unravel scheduling.

One such unexpected surprise was Eau de Lavande by Annick Goutal. So taken am I with it, that I want to write about it and share my excitement about it at this moment! I mean, if you saw the Easter bunny, you'd want to share the surprise, the excitement, the experience right away, wouldn’t you? I knew you’d understand.

Perfumer Annick Goutal is the master of soliflore fragrances. I used to think that soliflores were just too easy - they lacked magic, depth, and ooh-la-la. Then I took a whiff of Eau de Lavande and realised how naive I had been. Smelling Eau de Lavande changed my perspective on solflores and over time I’ve developed a better understanding of what these fragrances are saying and just how beautiful soliflores can be.

Just take the time to really experience Goutal’s La Violette, with its blast of metallic violet sweetened by red fruits, so that it smells like the little purple violet candies my English aunt used to send me when I was a child or her Le Chèvrefeuille, with the sweet, honeyed smell of honeysuckle that evokes the tender days of spring.

I’ve come to deeply appreciate soliflores and the skill required to make a good one like Eau de Lavande

It opens fresh and bracing with lavender, not sweet English lavender, but potent wild French lavender - sharp, aromatic and camphorous. Ms. Goutal is not fooling around, and neither am I – there’s nothing to do but to commit to it.  A soft floral note emerges as it moves to a warm, rich, spicy heart. I smell fenugreek and curry and I smell immortelle. Lavender and immortelle have an olfactory affinity that is masterfully highlighted here. Lavender collides with immortelle to give Eau de Lavande a gorgeous virility – think wild French lavender mixed with Sables. I knew you’d understand. As this starts to fade, the caramelized sugar aspect of the immortelle segues to a base of soft vanilla, so that the drydown is elegant, sophisticated, and refined.

Eau de Lavande is a masculine fragrance, no doubt about it. And as a soliflore it is rather linear. Still, I would worship the trousers that cling to the man who wears it.

Check out Eau de Lavande in our Shop.