Nuit Etoilée – green and warm and mood-invoking

Photo: perfumeniche

My father was a backyard astronomer. Born near the ocean, he grew up gazing at the stars and learning how to navigate by them. On hot summer nights, he’d sit sky-watching with us kids in the backyard, pointing out stars in constellations and telling us their names. I loved lying in the grass, looking up at the deep blue night sky, with its background of twinkling stars, shooting stars, and planets. It left me with a lifelong fascination with astronomy, from the Greeks and the music of the spheres to Copernicus’ model of the universe to the Moon landing to images of the Pillars of Creation. They always bring sweet memories of my father back to me.  

So, when I read that Annick Goutal created a fragrance called Nuit Etoilée, Starry Night in English, I had to check it out.

The Annick Goutal website says that Nuit Etoilée is the olfactory expression of what it is to “walk for hours close to nature at nightfall. Listening to the wild grass crumple and the pine cones crack under your feet. Collecting branches of evergreen, snapping them, smelling their resinous odor on our fingertips. Then to lie back and enjoy the moonlight, as though alone in the world...” Sounds appealing to me.

Nuit Etoilée opens with a note of bright, sparkling citron; its lively effervescence is sweetened with juicy orange. The citrus fruits are soon joined by green, herbal peppermint. Together, they create the feeling of a cool, fresh breeze. It’s almost aromatherapeutic, and I relax into it every time I catch a whiff of it coming up from my wrist. Slowly, the soft green scent of Siberian pine creeps in. It has a fresh coolness that echoes the peppermint. Fir balsam brings more freshness, but also wood and resin. This is where this close-to-the-skin scent transitions from cool to warm while still keeping its serene beauty. Angelica seed keeps the green grassiness at the base while its peppery facets add warmth. It links with peppery aspects of the smooth, milky/sweet Tonka bean. A note of immortelle completes the fragrance with a woody warmth.  

If you are expecting a foresty/piney scent, a resinous, heavy fragrance, then you’ll be disappointed with Nuit Etoilée because it dries down to a green, warm, mood-invoking scent that seduces with its harmony of gentle notes.

To me, this is the smell of lying on crushed grass. There are broken conifer twigs on the ground around me, and a cool, fresh breeze washes over me. Body heat warms the air around me as I settle into the grass. I close my eyes and see the stars.

Check out Nuit Etoilée in our Shop.