Created in 2015 by Stéphane Humbert Lucas for his French indie line Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777. Part of Lucas’s “Snake Collection,” Mortal Skin is a study of the art of seduction – the danger, passion, and hypnotic obsession inspired by the lethal lure of a viper's pursuit of its prey.

On me, it opens with a note of sticky, sweet blackberry, paired with a cool, metallic, ink accord joined by sweet and balsamic rockrose, creating an opening that’s fresh, gently sweet, exotic and complex. It smells familiar yet foreign, generating a tension that makes me want more. What an enticing start. As it moves into the heart, a note of opoponax comes forward. It’s sweet, balsamic aspects echo the rockrose at the opening. It blooms spicy and resinous, with a hint of smokiness, and adds depth and warmth to Mortal Skin. A note of powdery, soft iris adds a floral dimension that’s bolstered by herbal, bitter green davana. Then myrrh joins the mix. It’s a favourite note of mine. Resinous and earthy, it’s also smooth, erotic and arousing. Too much and it would overpower the fragrance, but Lucas takes it, and me, to the brink before a note of cardamom, warm, spicy, and slightly sweet, calms the myrrh, because a good seduction takes time. Ambergris, warm and musky, launches the base notes. Storax joins the ambergris. It’s sweet and balsamic, with a seductive vanilla facet. I smell incense coiling up from my wrist from labdanum, its animalic undertone links to a note of musky, animalic civet. Then a trio of woods appears: creamy sandalwood, warm balsamic cedarwood, and the scent of birch, which is foresty and outdoorsy. Musk, warm and sensual, is comforting and serene.

Mortal Skin is a complex and compelling fragrance that dries down to a soft, sensual, hypnotic skin scent. There isn’t one note, one moment, one change that I would make to this fragrance.

I have been seduced by this snake.

Notes: Blackberry, ink, rockrose, opoponax, iris, davana, myrrh, cardamom, ambergris, storax, sandalwood, labdanum, civet, Atlas cedarwood, birch and musk.