Blog post by Gwen
Tilda Swinton Like This – familiar and comforting and personal
Photo: perfumeniche
Celebrity-inspired fragrances can be tricky. Some smell like their public persona, say, sexy and seductive or how they want to be perceived, sweet and gentle. What it comes down to is the celebrity's involvement in the fragrance's creative process. So, when Etienne de Swardt, founder and Creative Director of Etat Libre D’Orange, met Tilda Swinton, the Oscar-winning British actress known for her eclectic career and striking screen presence, through a mutual friend, and the conversation turned to perfume it was only a matter of time before they collaborated on a fragrance. Swinton had a very clear vision of what a fragrance with her name on it would smell like, and she wanted to be deeply involved in the creative process with perfumer Mathilde Bijaoui.
Swinton said, ‘When Mathilde Bijaoui first asked me what my own favourite scent in a bottle might contain, I described a magic potion that I could carry with me wherever I went that would hold for me the fragrance - the spirit - of home.” Her comment on the final product: ‘The miracle is that Mathilde made it.’
It opens with a note of sweet, tangy tangerine that’s bright, lively and captivating. It’s followed by a warm, spicy note of ginger that’s joined by creamy, earthy pumpkin. It smells like a cake or pie out of the oven, cooling on a breadboard. I love an unexpected gourmand twist, and this one sets the tone for the rest of the fragrance. A note of immortelle smells like warm spices and maple syrup and bridges the top notes to the heart where Moroccan neroli, citrusy, fresh and floral, links to a lush note of Grasse rose that’s rich, honeyed and powdery. At the base, earthy, woody vetiver is gently balanced by floral, vanilla-tinged heliotrope. Musks smooth the blend and create a sense of intimacy.
Tilda Swinton’s Like This dries down to a familiar, comforting skin scent that has a stirring, haunting beauty.
The name ‘Like This’ refers to one of Swinton’s favourite poems from “The Essential Rumi”, written by Rumi, the 12th-century Sufi poet:
If anyone wants to know what “spirit” is,
Or what “God’s fragrance” means,
Lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like This.
You would be forgiven if you thought any fragrance born out of a collaboration between a French perfume house that celebrates sexuality and eroticism and an Oscar-winning British actress known for her eclectic career and striking screen presence would be edgy, sexy, or weird. Instead, Tilda Swinton Like This is a deeply personal fragrance created for Tilda Swinton, the real person, not Tilda Swinton, the celebrity.
Lean into it.
Check out Tilda Swinton Like This in our Shop.