Tubéreuse 3 Animale – floral and animalic and seductive

The Cabin - Photo: perfumeniche©

We own some land just a couple of hours north of Toronto, and my husband built a cabin for us there before our son was born. We’ve had some wonderful family times there over the years, and we always look forward to going back.

With no neighbours near, the cabin is quiet, secluded and serene. And when it’s just me and my husband, it’s rugged, rustic and romantic, especially in the winter when we snuzzle by a cozy fire, open a good bottle of red and roast chestnuts. The smell of the forest, the glow from the wine, the smell of the fire and our skin as it warms – there is only one fragrance for these nights, these moments, these moods: Tubéreuse 3 Animale 

Tubéreuse 3 Animale is part of the ‘An Ode to Tuberose’ from French niche house Histoires de Parfums. The names are fairly descriptive: Tubéreuse 1 Capricieuse,  Tubéreuse 2 Virginale and Tubéreuse 3 Animale. Each fragrance in the trio has its place, but Tubéreuse 3 Animale has a place in my heart.

Tuberose, or Polianthes tuberosa, isn’t a rose at all but a fragrant, waxy, night-blooming white floral. Though it smells like orange blossom and gardenia, it has definite phases – a camphourous aspect as it opens, a mushroomy, earthy facet as it blooms and a rotting, bloody meat aspect when it browns. Opulent, erotic and carnal, tuberose is the flower of seduction, and I especially love the way it’s treated in Tubéreuse 3 Animale.

It opens with tuberose backed with a citrusy, floral note of neroli, along with sweet, lemony kumquat. The neroli and the kumquat bring out the camphourous aspect of tuberose that morphs into a note of rubber – it is simply sublime. As it blooms, tuberose stays at the heart while aromatic herbs and dry grass give it an earthiness, a sweatiness that is offset with a succulent, lush note of plum. Tuberose stays through to the base, where notes of blond tobacco and immortelle warm, sweeten and soften the tuberose so that the drydown is rich, animalic and deeply erotic.

Tuberose is a big girl with a big voice that can get screechy, but tempered with masculine notes of herbs, blond tobacco and immortelle, she purrs.

In the game of seduction, there is no season and there are no rules, so I have one bottle of Tubéreuse 3 Animale at the cabin and one at home. Oh, and a couple of decants in my purse.

Check out Tubéreuse 3 Animale in our Shop.