Known for using far-away travels as inspiration for their scents, L'Artisan Parfumeur brought together two noses living in different parts of the world to create Batucada. Karine Vinchon represents Grasse, where the scent originated and Elizabeth Maier, living in Sao Paulo, kept the scent true to the Brazilian culture that inspired the scent.

Well, sometimes two noses can be better than one, because Batucada is gorgeous one of my favourite frags - softly sexy and quietly refreshing.

It opens fresh and green from citrusy lime and herbaceous mint leaves, but there also a note of rich fruitiness from davana and a lovely tropical note from coconut. The opening is light and refined, not heavy or sharp. It leads straight to a sumptuous floral heart of rich tiare flower and fragrant ylang ylang that highlight cachaça, a sugar cane rum. This is a nod to the caipirinha, the national cocktail of Brazil. I’ve never had a caipirinha, but if it tastes as good as this juice smells, well, I’m gonna be having a few of these over the holidays. At the drydown sweet amber appears, and echoes the sweetness of the cachaça, while sandalwood, musk, vetiver work together to give it a woody, animalic depth. And, vanilla bourbon adds gorgeous rich note. But there is more - the smell of the sea, just a soft aquatic note to round it all out.

To me this frag doesn’t smell of a place or a drink or a dance so much as it smells like I am in that place – sitting at a bar on the beach, I smell the tropical flowers, the ocean, the caipirinha in my hand, my warm sun-kissed skin that smells of the suntan lotion I put on hours ago. It’s a well-crafted, very nuanced scent that it doesn’t smell boozy, too sweet or too sweaty, just softly sexy and quietly refreshing. And, believe me, softly sexy and quietly refreshing can be worn anytime

Notes: Lime, mint, davana, coconut, marine notes, tiare, ylang ylang, amber, sandalwood, musk, vertiver, vnacilla bourbon

Type: EdT

Parfumeurs: Karine Vinchon and Elizabeth Maier