French Quarter, Mardi Gras, photo by Point Images, 2013

The trombones down Bourbon Street are moaning, beads are flying past technicolour wigs and drag queens in ballgowns while revelers are dancing with their beers wherever there’s a square inch of space. This is Mardi Gras, chere, where, for a few days every year, everything is larger than life and anything goes – and we’ve got the fragrances to go with it!

Photo by Jacques Bagios

Etat Libre D' Orange I Am Trash (Daniela Andrier):Mardi Gras has its roots in pre-Lenten carnivals across the world that share many of the same rituals, including masking and disguises, gender reversals, and suspension of certain moral codes. Historically Christian carnivals upended social order for a brief spell, providing a period of physical indulgence before Lent’s privations, of social transgression before penitence, wrapped up in one noisy, bawdy glitterball celebration.

Collage By Despina

Excesses of food and drink during Mardi Gras indulged appetite before fasting, but they also had a practical side. Perishables left over from winter would be used up before they rotted. Employing a similar ethos, Etat Libre D'Orange's 2018 release, I Am Trash, repurposes perfume dregs and industry by-products to create something beautiful, a bright-hued half fruity, half floral fragrance. The top of I Am Trash is almost edible, dominated by a vivid strawberry and apple notes mixing with tangerine juice. The composition moves in different directions as it matures, bringing in creamy woody notes in tandem with cottony rose. There’s a joyousness to I Am Trash that feels ready made for dancing in the street in candy-apple heels. Notes: Apple essence, bitter orange, Guatemala lemongrass, green tangerine, rose absolute, Iso E Super, gariguette strawberry, cedarwood atlas, Sandalore®, Akigalawood®  See Despina Veneti’s full review.

Photo by Arthur Elgort, Vogue, March 1999

Etat Libre D’Orange Putain des Palaces (Nathalie Feisthauer): A classic feature of Carnival is inversion of the social order; nobility were satirized as commoners dressed in exaggerated depictions of the ruling classes. This tradition carries on in the oversized, grotesque features of many of the floats and puppets that parade through downtown New Orleans. No fragrance house is better at challenging conventional norms than Etienne de Swardt’s Etat Libre D’Orange so it was the first place I turned for Mardi Gras scents. Putain des Palaces embodies carnival’s topsy-turvy, starting out as a fragrance of Grace Kelly femininity before revealing a base that is, well, base.

courtesy of Etat Libre D’Orange©

On the surface, this pretty, powdery rose and violet perfume is as feminine and well-bred as a debutante’s ballgown. But as it wears, this society girl’s coiffure falls out of its pins, and cigarette smoke and all sorts of naughtiness cling by morning.  Used tobacco and fine leather smudge those genteel top notes like kohl eyes after a night of dancing and drinking. No saints are going to be marching in to this number! Notes: Rose absolute, violet, leather, lily of the valley, mandarin, ginger, rice powder, amber and animalic notes.

Photo by Leland Bobbe

Goest Jackal (Jacqueline Steel): Need a perfume for Ash Wednesday repentance? You might want to reach for Goest Jackal, which goes on like a party in full swing before quieting down to a sober but lovely and rather unqique skin scent. There’s a great big dollop of animalic patchouli right at the start, along with some deliciously dirty vanilla, booze and ashy smoke – the smell of a whiskey-soaked bar on the wrong side of the tracks. Bitter chocolate finds its way smack into the middle, grabbing some rich, loamy tobacco on route. While many other perfumes burnish as they develop, Jackal softens and lightens, slowly settling down on its haunches. The boozy, smoky aspects calm down as the scent turns smoother, more dryly vanillic and musky. It sounds butch, but Jackal sways between masculine and feminine all the way to the dry-down.Notes: Sweet smoke, bitter chocolate, dirt.

Reese Witherspoon, photo by Steven McCurry, Harper's Bazaar, Feb 2016

Mojo Magique Belle (Laurent Le Guernac): If you’ve meandered into the Garden District, you might want to spritz on a bit of Mojo Magique Belle, which feels like a New Orleans spring. With its creamy gardenia and sloe-eyed jasmine opening, this magnolia-skinned beauty manages sultry while holding onto her manners. A big pinch of black pepper and some brilliant lemon-orange cuts through the heady sweetness of those buxom flowers. Later, a creamy wood note mingles with some sharp green oakmoss to even out the balance of piquant and narcotic aromas. Poised but sexy as all get out, this is one southern belle of a fragrance. Notes: Gardenia, jasmine, citrus, black pepper, moss, creamy woods.

Mardi Gras float, New Orleans, stock photo

Now, crank up some Dixieland, grab a mask and something to swig, dab one of these lovelies on, and bébé, laissez les bon temps rouler!

Disclaimer: Samples kindly provided by Madame Aucoin Perfumes. My opinions are my own.

Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

Madame Aucoin Perfume, located at 608 Bienville Street in New Orleans and Mardi Gras Perfumes used in this article collage by Michelyn

Thanks to the generosity of Madam Aucoin Perfume in New Orleans, we have a sample set of Etat Libre D’Orange Putains des Palaces and I Am Trash, Mojo Magique Belle and Goest Jackal for one registered reader in the U.S. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what appeals to you about the Mardi Gras perfumes discussed in Lauryn’s review and if you’ve ever been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Draw closes 3/8/2019.

Mardi Gras is March 5, 2019, Madame Aucoin is pronounced OH-QWEN

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