Serge Lutens Jeux de Peau: fragrance review & draw

Horace had written* referring to his diet: "Me pascunt olivae, me cichorea, me malvae" ("As for me, olives, chicory, and mallows provide sustenance"). I don't know if I could supress my gluttony for "all the perfumes of Arabia" into a diet of only a few well-chosen ones, but Serge Lutens has a way into tempting me. Jeux de Peau, his newest (upcoming for the US) launch, is no exception. With vivid contrasts and a fascinating plot via Daedalean alleyways, it proves that the Master is still producing fragrances that can surprise and excite.


Jeux de Peau (pronounced Zø de POH) aka Skin Games, a fragrance for both genders, was supposed to smell of buttered toast, recalling Serge's quick run to the boulangerie across the road to pick up a baguette: "It gets me back to the 'don't forget to pick up the bread on the way back from school!' At the boulangerie at the end of the road, its captivating odour and its blond and warm light, a golden moment..." says Serge. Well, naughty, naughty Uncle, this is not what one would expect! The mercurial Serge actually hints at the humanity of the fragrance when he provocatively says "Eat, for this is my body"; especially if we consider that some human skins do smell like bread, the "dough" impression being a Ph variance.

Not that that this cryptic game would be unusual for any fan; in fact the fascination with the newest Lutensian opus comes exactly by its surprising character, at once a part of the Lutens-Sheldrake canon and a little apart; it's new and at the same time familiar, like seeing the photographs of antecedants and trying to pinpoint what part of the genetic roll of dice resulted in similarities with one's own offspring.
Starting to break down the composition of Jeux de Peau much talk has been conducted about the "burnt" note of pyrazines [see this lexicon on perfume effects according to notes/ingredients for definition] but I remain sceptical: Jeux de Peau doesn't really smell burnt or heavily roasted; more milky-spicy-golden in the sandalwood goodness that was Santal Blanc. It has a pronounced celery-pepper opening note, much like Chypre Rouge did, a trait that will certainly prove controversial, coupled with delectable milky-buttery notes which almost melt with pleasure on skin. The celery effect ~celery seeds were a common element in Mediaeval French cooking~ lasts for only about 5 minutes seguing into the main course: the buttery accords, alongside a distinctive, very pleasant chicory note.
Chicory, a bitterish-spicy smell, is a profoundly clever "note", if I am correct in surmissing it was the centre of the Jeux de Peau creation all along: It was substituting coffee in WWII, which might account for some of the memories of Serge, but it also evokes beer because producers add some in their stouts to lend flavour. Beer is so close to bread in olfactory terms that it's enough to put some on a pot on the stove for your guests to be fooled into thinking you're baking your own bread! (Not that you'd resort to such tricks, or would you?) Plus chicory root is 20% inulin which is very similar to starch. So the bread connection is there all right!
Immortelle/helichrysum notes (caramelic maple & spicy fenugreek facets) are allied to the familiar candied-dried fruits (apricot mainly, simply lovely!) which perfumer Chris Sheldrake has been respinning in novel and delecious combinations for Lutens ever since the inauguration of the Palais Royal niche line in 1992. This complex stage in Jeux de Peau by Lutens is sustained for a long, long time; it reminds me of rich Byzantine mosaics; tiny tesserae of glazed material surfacing and receding according to the angle from which you're viewing it.


If you like the core accords of Féminité du Bois or Boxeuses, you will probably detect them easily in Jeux de Peau. But the two diverge in other ways: there's no familiar plum, not much cedar, nor leather (as in the case of Boxeuses), while we can see that wheat & barley are evoked throughout that warm "gourmand" woody. If Serge hadn't mentioned he was inspired from his forays to the baker's clutching the baguette for home, we wouldn't be so insistent on searching for toast; a whiff of Crusader's pain au four it is and delectably so I might add.

If you're wondering if Jeux de Peau would suit you, apart from the wise advice I can offer to always sample a Lutens any fragrance ~just in case~ I can suggest that if you're a lover of other intellectual oriental woodies such as Like This by Etat Libre d'Orange or Tea for Two by L'Artisan, you have high chances of liking this one very much as well. It's rather odd that Jeux de Peau launches in spring, when it's the sort of snuggly fragrance you'd want to put on while wrapped in a cashmere blanket watching nonchalantly the logs in the fireplace change colours from brown to vermillon to bright red to ashen, but Lutensian fans are not very season-specific anyway.

A sample of the upcoming Jeux de Peau will be given away to a reader. State in the comments what is your most fragrant memory from childhood not involving actual fine fragrance and I will pick a random winner. Draw is open till Friday midnight.

Jeux de Peau belonging to the export range of oblong bottles is out in France as we speak (79 euros for 50ml Eau de Parfum), but will launch internationally on March 1st. The Perfume Shoppe in Canada is already taking pre-orders.

*Odes 31, ver 15, ca 30 BC

An intelligent essay on the scent, in French, on Ambre Gris. Photograph in black & white Le Petit Parisien by Willie Ronis via Art is not Dead. Bottle pic via duftarchiv.de
Disclosure: Initial sample was kindly procured by my reader Emanuella. Another sample was later sent by Lutens as part of their mailout, so that is given away to the readers.

Chypre Rouge by Serge Lutens: fragrance review

It's not often that a perfume assumes a stolen identity to pass icognito under our noses, hiding its true nature under a misnomer. Chypre Rouge is not a chypre by any stretch of the imagination, even taking into account the new chypre contestants that assimilate the older façade. It takes the symbolic image of red oakmoss of Chypre Rouge to make one think of an interpretation of a fantasy in which darkness and light mirror the hues of the No-like makeup that Lutens has always opted for in one of his previous incarnations as makeup director for Dior and Shiseido. And much like those waxy materials that metamorphose plain features into studies in cubism, Chypre Rouge has a weird power in it that transports the notion of chypre into the realm of oriental meets occidental.

Chypre Rouge came into the public scene with one of the most impressive yet somehow incoherent press releases to date.
It ran like this:

“I remember looking at the forest ground, covered with dead leaves, and finding it both macabre and beautiful. Something caught my attention: a strange patch of moss at the base of a tree, it looked as if it were bleeding, purple and red. Ceremonial dress, splendid and dying, lit by the rays of a nearby clearing. “Don’t deny, you will confess!” In this doorless dungeon we look for an exit. Thin light comes from a murdering hole.
Eagle nest, precious stones, coat of arms, standards, what are we made of? Eternity, limpidity, freshness, beauty, velvet softness. A secret continent of which we would be the body, in golden darkness, moss of spices and vermeil. The kiss of a choirboy on the ring of an archbishop.
Softness and depth, secret in scents where, laying our cheeks we can only dream.”

(press release courtesy of Scenteur d'Ailleurs)

Now, before you get any naughty ideas about the choirboy and the archibishop's ring, I have to add that imaginative imagery has always been at the core of the Lutens canon, so we are to take this as a flight of fancy, a reminiscence about his childhood in Hansel and Gretel land.

And just where is this mythical land? Osmoz says a propos de Chypre Rouge that it "was inspired by Serge Lutens’s memories of fall in his native Vendée region of western France". Native? Please allow me to disagree on that score. Lutens was born in Lille which is quite far from Vendée. In fact as revealed here, he spent his youth in Lille too!
However I am perfectly willing to believe that he had some extended family or friends who stayed there and that his visits were coloured with the sweeping brush of vermeil and purple mentioned.
It is not without importance to note that he was a neglected child whose mother donned black on her second wedding day, perhaps a symbol that rang poignant in his id. The confessional tone, mingled with the religious overtones of the papal purple, hint at a desire to express some secret ache that needs to surface through the catharsis of the artistic. And so Chypre Rouge becomes deeply personal, psychological endoscopisis rendering it difficult to interpret by someone outside the circle.

Upon encountering Chypre Rouge one is hit with the earthy smell of celery. So vivid is the impression that doubting our artistic tendencies we do a double take wondering what came upon them to devise such a -shocking to many- opening. Of course Lutens is no stranger to exagerration and carefully constructed ugliness; which puts the essential final straw on a perfect specimen, like the demonic camphorous Vapo-rub opening of Tubéreuse Criminelle, another daring Chris Sheldrake creation. However the latter is to be distributed directly from Les Salons du Palais Royal being part of the exclusive range, therefore a touch of the outré is not particularly unexpected. Chypre Rouge forms part of the export line and therefore it stroke me as odd that such a choice of top notes was opted for.
The progression to fenugreek and immortelle (the note that accounts for the maple surupy hot sands of a deserted beach of Annick Goutal's Sables and the pronounced curriness in Dior Eau Noire) comes after some minutes to soothe sensibilities and transport into the territory of the spicy with subtle whiffs of flowers, dried, rolled into heaps of curried dust. Mace and coriander raise their beady heads out of this basket that recalls Arabic souks, like most of the Lutens creations, especially Arabie, influenced by his mysterious seraglioat Morocco that no one has ever visited. Named "Al Medina al Hamra", Red City because of its architecture, Marrakesh has served as a rich pool of inspiration for Lutens and his vision of perfume as a homage to a cross-reference of civilisations.
The final phase of caramelised nuts rolled into musky, smooth moss is the least challengening, but by then potential audiences will have either walked away or braved the initial coup in anticipation of the soft nucleus. It is unfortunate that I tend to the former group.

Chypre Rouge launched in 2006 as an Eau de Parfum Haute Concetration, a term that denotes higher concentration of aromatic essences because of the nature of the latter that demand a higher saturation point to be perceptible and is not meant to imply that it is louder in odour volume.

Official notes:
thyme, pine needles, pecans, fruit gums, honey, beeswax, jasmine, patchouli, amber, vanilla, moss and musks.

Instead of further commentary I direct you to Placebo with brilliant Brian Molko and their song "Meds":



(uploaded by dagonsio)

Please remind me to post "The Bitter End" (again by Placebo) if Serge Lutens trully retires from fragrance creation, per rumours.

Top pic from the film Carrie by Brian de Palma (1976)/Filmhai. Ad pic courtesy of autourdeserge.