Explosion of Emotion by Janna Kemperman

Bertrand Duchaufour just can’t quit making fragrances for L’Artisan Parfumeur. Ever since his first fragrance he composed for L’Artisan in 1997, Mechant Loup, M. Duchaufour has composed over twenty-five more perfumes for L’Artisan Parfumeur. He has gone and had temporary flings and one scent stands with a number of labels but if there is a home for someone as prolific as M. Duchaufour it would have to be L’Artisan. That is why when Nick Steward the Creative Director at L’Artisan was looking to create a new collection that would hearken back to the days in 1976 when Jean Laporte founded L’Artisan as one of the first niche perfume houses there was really only one choice. The new collection is called Explosions D’Emotions and all three fragrances; Amour Nocturne, Deliria, and Skin on Skin were signed by M. Duchaufour.

Amour Nocturne is meant to be “for those who love the night” which is a funny thought for a fragrance that uses a warm milk accord along with a gunpowder note. I’m not sure what kind of nights it is that M. Duchaufour lives through in Paris but I guess if it involved gunpowder I’d probably need some warm milk to get me to sleep.  Amour Nocturne opens with that hot milk accord. For those of you who are parents or those who make their hot chocolate by heating milk on a stove top you will recognize the humid and slightly sweet aspect of this accord. Each time I wore this I marveled at the construction of this as it is light in presence but substantial in impact; especially as the orris bubbles out of the milk. M. Duchaufour uses orris to take Amour Nocturne into a milk drink I would never want to drink and creates an olfactory Hot Orris. The orris has to really wait for the milk accord to cool down before fully displaying its charms but the early moments when they are together makes Amour Nocturne feel unique. Caramel swirls around the periphery as it gives the sweet and sour edge to the orris and milk that you sometime notice when the milk has stayed on the heat a tad too long. The base is the aforementioned gunpowder sprinkled over cedar. This is not gunpowder after it has been expended this is gunpowder with all of its potential intact and is slightly metallic along with the impending air of fire underneath.

Deliria is meant to be “a wanton embrace” and again I am amused because Deliria is all about fruit and candy with a rum chaser. This smells like a Parisian midway with toffee apples and cotton candy while I drink from my hip flask of rum. As much as I wouldn’t want to have a toffee apple or cotton candy with my snifter of 5-Star Barbancourt in reality; as a fragrance they work better than they should. Deliria opens with the apple all on its own, crisp and tart. Then it is dipped into the viscous toffee while you are handed the spindle of cotton candy. The sweet is counterpoint to the tart and all of this seems sort of familiar until the rum arrives. Over the years if there is one accord that M.Duchaufour has perfected and can make it do all sorts of olfactory tricks it would be rum. In Deliria he asks it to add the syrupy sugar cane extract quality without the alcoholic heft. Sort of like a fragrant version of low calorie rum. It serves to have the sweet dense aspects of the rum melt seamlessly into the sweet gourmand accord he has built to this point. Once it clicks into place Deliria stays like this for many hours without really developing further.

Skin on Skin is the most interesting of these three fragrances as M. Duchaufour want to evoke “a multi-sensorial carnal creation”. As with the other two this definitely evokes a specific feel for me and what I connect it to I guess could be described as “multi-sensorial” and “carnal” but the vibe of Skin on Skin is that of a fetish bar which again I find funny because that milieu is rarely about skin on skin. Skin on Skin is leather, whisky, sweat, and metal which makes it slightly weird and wholly fascinating. Skin on Skin transposes the exotic and mundane as M. Duchaufour twists lavender and saffron together and then uses iris and rose to take the floral quotient up a bit but not a lot. The smooth polished leather accord then takes over the heart. This leather accord is something that M. Duchaufour only arrived at in the last two or three years and as with the rum in Deliria he can make it do what he wants to. For Skin on Skin it feels like a well-worn head-to-toe leather suit complete with enough musk to remind you there is a person underneath. This is where Skin on Skin really lives up to its name as human skin meets leather. The iris adds a hint of metallic facets and then the whisky adds that peculiar 2AM closing time aspect to the end of Skin on Skin.

All three Explosions D’Emotions fragrances had all-day longevity which is not surprising as they are eau de parfum strength. They also all wear pretty close to the skin with very little projection.

It has been awhile since L’Artisan Parfumeur have released a set of fragrances which have such distinct extroverted personalities. I think it will be the rare perfumista who will love all three of these but none of these smell like a lot of the other things you can find out there. It is in that where M. Duchaufour honors the legacy that M. Laporte started thirty-seven years ago when he founded L’Artisan Parfumeur.

Disclosure: This review was based on press samples provided by L’Artisan Parfumeur.

Thanks to L’Artisan Parfumeur we have a special reader’s choice draw for one 15mL press bottle. This is a  US, Canada and EU draw. Tell us where you are from please. To be eligible leave a comment choosing which one of the Explosions D’Emotions you would like to win. Draw will end on August 14, 2013.

We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS option…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume.

-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor