L’Eau Chic – fresh and carefree and easy-to-wear

Photo: perfumeniche

When I first visited Paris, I was taken by the outdoor markets. I had never seen anything like them. They had stalls for everything from food and clothes to leather goods and kitchenware. By far my favourite stall was where soaps were sold. I had never seen so many varieties, including rose, lavender, vanilla, and patchouli… I brought some home for gifts and myself. Over time, I found a favourite: geranium. Since then, I’ve become partial to geraniums. We plant them in our garden each year because they remind us of the geraniums that overflow in window boxes on Parisian balconies.

I love the big red classic variety; their vivid colour and the intoxicating smell of the leaves and the roots - green, sharp, earthy and dirty. So, I was pretty excited when I passed by the Nicolaï Parfumeur-Créateur on Rue de Richelieu in Paris and saw a window display featuring their latest launch, L’Eau Chic, surrounded by graphics of geraniums. I just had to check it out and walked into the shop. A genial sales assistant approached me and offered me a generous spritz of L’Eau Chic. Oh, that smell of geranium! As we chatted, she told me the fragrance was inspired by Patricia de Nicolaï’s childhood memory of the geranium soaps her parents used in their bedroom bathroom. Could we be soap sisters? I thought to myself. A while later, I walked out of the shop with a smile on my face, a song in my heart and a bottle of L’Eau Chic in my bag.

On me, it opens with a note of Bourbon geranium that’s fresh and rose-tinged. It has a mint aspect that’s boosted by the addition of spearmint and peppermint. Lavender, a cousin of mint, is aromatic, slightly floral and sweet. Together, these notes create an opening that’s cool, refreshing and invigorating without being sharp or loud. As it blooms, the mint’s tea facet links to the tea aspect of sweet, grassy chamomile so that the freshness stays present at the heart. A note of powdery, floral iris joins the mix, adding elegance to L’Eau Chic. Clove adds a gentle, spicy warmth. Pimento twins with the clove by adding its complex warm spiciness. When the spices combine with the freshness, they create an irresistible spicy/green accord. It all sits on a woody base of creamy sandalwood and fresh, soft white musk.

L'Eau Chic dries down to a fresh, carefree, easy-to-wear summer fragrance.

This is not the heavy, earthy, dirty smell of geranium leaf and root that I love – no, this is a new kind of geranium love. De Nicolaï’s treatment of geranium doesn’t diminish its unique character; it refines it, making it elegant, stylish, and, well, chic.

And while it’s perfect for summer, I wear it into fall and winter because it smells so good, it makes me feel so good, and because every season needs a little ‘chic’ in it.

Check out L'Eau Chic in our Shop.