Manos Gerakinis Immortelle: Treackly Burnt Sugar - fragrance review

The name Immortelle comes from the golden-hued plant of everlasting flowers (immortelle in French) or helichrysum. The scent of immortelle absolute in its raw state is difficult to describe, somewhat similar to sweet fenugreek and curcuma, spices used in Indian curry, with a maple-like facet. Quite logical, if you consider the fact that the substance contains alpha, beta and gamma curcumene. Manos Gerakinis, a niche Greek line that is aiming ambitiously and delivers in sillage and lasting power most admirably, tried to harness exactly this precious oil, the one from everlasting flowers.

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A cross between burnt sugar and dry straw is a rather valiant effort at conveying immortelle's nuanced profile, but the more the immortelle oil warms up on the skin, the more it reveals human-like, supple nuances of honeyed notes, waxy, intimate... It pairs well in chypres and oriental fragrances, where it is placed next to labdanum, clove, citruses, chamomille, lavender and rose essences.

In Manos Gerakinis's Immortelle niche offering, the immortelle accord takes on a sweet and deep aspect, with spicy accents, a dark gourmand. The cinnamon is pronounced, making me passingly think of a Middle Eastern dessert carré. The result is resinous without becoming heavy, nor suffocating, nevertheless. Benzoin, a resin with caramelic aspects, pairs with the rustic roughness of immortelle that recalls the Corsican maquis and Greek insular landscape.

There are some ways in which Immortelle reminds me of Goutal's classic Sables (probably the reference point for immortelle scents, for daring to be the first one seriously highlighting it) and of Serge Lutens's Jeux de Peau with its whiff of toasted bread and its subtly caramelized notes. People who love L de Lolita Lempicka and Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur might also find in Immortelle a trusty ally for their moments of daytime sensuous abandon.

The Manos Gerakinis brand has an official website by that name, where all the shopping options are mentioned clearly with international presence in the Middle East and Russia.

Perfumery Material: Immortelle/Helichrysum/Everlasting Flower

The scent of Corsican maquis*, the wild herbs, the countryside scattered with dried flowers which almost caramelise under the hot Mediterranean sun.... Rich scents of dry straw, dusty amber, coffee, burnt licorice, syrupy and powdery, and spices (reminiscent of celery, fenugreek and curry) rise from those humble , tiny blossoms; mingling mightly in the air, just by taking a stroll amidst the stony country-roads. Traversing the wild nature on Cythera island, I catch a hint of ham too under the caramelic notes! This is immortelle or everlasting flower, the sunny yellow joy of the Mediterranean.

Golden sun, that's what helicrysum ( its alternative name) means in Greek; the French similarly call it "petit soleil".
A gift of the gods bestowed upon men, and both golden and sunny its inclusion in perfumes is indeed, as we will see.
Greeks also call it αμαραντος (never withering, literally "immortelle"), because of its legendary stamina to environmental hardship; the term sempre viva in Italian amounts to the same thing.

"Flower of stone and of my dreams,tender part of my soul, eternal beauty of my yearning,

cool fragrance in the wind of the desert.[...]

In this holy land of dreams, where we both sprang,

I confess my love's passion, sempre viva, my Cytherean daughter,

oh sweet extension of my soul, oh dry flower of the land of my love." 

[by Yiorgos Kasimatis-Drymoniatis, "Blood & Eros of the Small Homeland"; translation from the Greek my own]

Helichrysum angustifolium (meaning long and narrow leaved) or Helichrysum italicum (because it grows abundantly in Italy and especially Corsica, but is rare elsewhere on the globe) is steam distilled to produce a yellow-reddish essential oil which is prized in perfumery thanks to its unique odour profile and properties, rich in terpenes, ketones as well as neryl acetate and monoterpenic alcohols (notably linalool and nerol).
More than a ton of helichrysum/immortelle blossoms is required to produce just under a kilo of essential oil, rendering the oil an expensive one.
Helichysum Italicum is harvested in June as the level of Neryl acetate, the main beneficial component (immortelle has anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and anti-oxidant properties and a corticoid-like action), is at its peak then; but a second harvest also takes place in October and November. In the region of Sartene, in the Ortolo valley, among the menhirs, the dolmens and other megalithic ruins, there are bio-sustainable fields where immortelle is cultivated, but the wild blossoms scatter the hills from the Ortolo up the mountains of Balagna and down the sea shores "licking" the Balkans. What's essential is the sun. Even as far back as classical writer Theophrastus, "the most excellent and most fragrant of all materials come from the sunny regions"

The odour of immortelle absolute is difficult to describe, somewhat similar to sweet fenugreek and curcuma, spices used in Indian curry**, with a maple-like facet. Quite logical if you think that the essence contains alpha, beta and gamma curcumene. Like burnt sugar and dry straw combined is a suitable effort at conveying immortelle's nuanced profile, but the more the oil warms up on the skin, the more it reveals human-like, supple nuances of honeyed notes, waxy, intimate... It pairs well in chypres and oriental fragrances, where it pairs with labdanum, clove, citruses, chamomille, lavender and rose essences.

In medicine and aromatherapy immortelle has a significant position  as it possesses properties that aid the liver, the digestive track, blood circulation, skin ailments and the general well-being. It's not even clear whether there are not many more beneficial properties to the yellow flower, research is continuing. Its skin healing properties have been the reasons immortelle is prized for long though and why L'Occitane en Provence devotes a whole anti-ageing skincare line to this humble little plant.

*Maquis also contains rosemary and cistus labdanum
**Sometimes called "curry plant" it has nothing whatsoever to do with the mixture of spices used in Indian cooking, nor with the curry tree (Murraya koenigii); it's only reminiscent in scent. The curry plant recurs among gardeners as a cat deterrent similar to the "scaredy-cat" plant, Plectranthus caninus (also known as Coleus canina).

List of fragrances featuring Immortelle/Helichrysum perceptibly:

[highlighted links point to fragrance reviews]

Annick Goutal Eau de Monsieur
Annick Goutal Sables
Ayala Moriel Immortelle L'Amour
Balmain Ambre Gris
Comptoir Sud Pacifique Aqua Motu

Dior Eau Noire
Eau d'Italie Jardin du Poete
Frapin 1270
Guerlain Cologne du 68
Guerlain Cuir Beluga
Histoires de Parfums Tubereuse 3 Animale
L'Artisan Parfumeur Cote d'Amour
L'Artisan Parfumeur Havana Vanille/Vanille Absolument
L'Atelier Boheme Immortelle
L'Erbolario Dolcelisir
L'Occitane Immortelle de Corse
L'Occitane Cade for men
Lolita Lempicka L de Lolita Lempicka
Mona di Orio Oiro
Nez a Nez Immortelle Marilyn
Nobile 1943 Ambra Nobile
Parfums de Nicolai Vanille Intense
Robert Piguet Visa re-issue (2007)
Serge Lutens Chypre Rouge
Serge Lutens Chene

Serge Lutens Jeux de Peau 
Serge Lutens El Attarine

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Pyrazines; maple & caramel notes

El Attarine by Serge Lutens: fragrance review

“The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold.” ~Job 28:19

The golden glory of sunrise over the beige stones of the Merenid tombs overlooking Fez has nothing on El Attarine by Serge Lutens, nor do the riches of Arabia as it encompasses them all in its majestic stride.
"Today, I offer you gold, sun-drenched topaz, everlasting flowers and saps", Lutens and Sheldrake, his magician in the wings, had promised us and this solar fragrance has been most successfully achieved in El Attarine.

"In Arab countries, “attarin” means sweet-smelling, and refers to everything within the realm of the atar: fragrance, heart, flavour and essence". Attars recall the mysteries of the east, its people and the rituals in which they engage. The mingling of smell and taste is not unheard of in the Lutens/Sheldrake cosmos, as both Douce Amère and Mandarine Mandarin are impressions of gustatory speciments (absinthe and mandarin respectively) that reveal side panels of aromas like in a Byzantine triptych ~"Attarine is not a closed door. You cannot make a perfume with only your nose".

El Attarine is also the name of a regal, elite Koranic school in Fez dating from the 14th century: Medersa or Medressa El Attarine, (Medersa means religious school) thus the fragrance is another homage to the Arabic culture that has been providing Lutens with inspiration for the last 2 decades at least. Created in 1325 by Sultan Ya’qub Abu Said Uthman II who also had a hand in several other buildings around the city of Fez, El Attarine is situated at the edge of the spice and perfume market; the unison of carnal to spiritual is only a stone's throw away.

El Attarine, the fragrance by Lutens, bursts like the solar corona of an eclipse that is infused in the honeyed tones of the nectar of orange blossoms. This honey note, probably attributed to phenylacetic acid, which makes a much more pronounced appearence in the derisive Miel de Bois, is here giving an intense sweetness of drops dribbling from a bronze spoon on dried fruits; fruits that lay on a basket at the market under clear blue skies, alongside little squares of heaped spices in all the colours of the rainbow: there is a little cumin, very delicately interwoven, and stamens of red saffron, the very delicate peppery bite of poppy seeds. The milky, sweet tenderness of those nuances vaguely recalls the more intense and sweaty Arabie, with its souk ambience on a hot day. The garlands of jasmine fanned out on woody notes are discreet, as if a glimpse behind a closing shutter leaving us wondering on the surreptitious inhabitants.

And then, after about half an hour, there rises the olfactory focus of immortelle/helychrisum, more commonly known as everlasting flower, aimed at offering a new interpretation that will set a new frontier in fragrance exploration. Both facets of the material, essence and absolute seem to have been utilized: With a complex odour profile, immortelle is a fascinating note with a herbaceous, honey-like aroma in the essential oil whereas it recalls the unique odour of spicy fenugreek (Trigonella Foenum Graecum) in the absolute, imparting amazing lasting power and evoking maple syrup for many. In El Attarine the immortelle note is less maple-like, less sticky than Annick Goutal's archetype in Sables and with less of a curry, salty-pungent note than Eau Noire by Dior. Rather it has the slightly bitter, pleasurable edge also present in L de Lolita Lempicka minus the cinnamon lappings; it offsets alongside a smidge of what smells like medicinal "oud" (a pathogenic secretion of some trees in the Far East) the initial intense sweetness into a progression than holds your attention span for the twists through the alleyways of Fez.

Like the Gettys lying on a starlit terrace in Marrakesh, beautiful and damned and a whole generation assembled as if for eternity where the curtain of the past seemed to lift before an extraordinary future, before the disillusionment and the tragic end set in, El Attarine is a re-affirmation of a passionate relationship with both the past and the future.
El Attarine possesses that most elusive of qualities: luminous translucence which can make a fragrance appear like a faceted gem mounted in 22 carat gold: it catches every ray of the sun as it hits it from different angles into a magnificent study of light. In contrast to the byzantine candelabras of Serge Noire, casting shadows amidst the light, El Attarine is melting under the intense sun of a terrible dawn.

In a Parthian Shot, Serge left us with this cryptogram: "It is an accord born out of a disagreement in the first person. From my attarinian solitude, the fruits of my imagination were abundant".
It is up to you to participate into its solution by trying out El Attarine.
The fragrance is quite lasting but with a rather discreet sillage that shouldn't pose any problems to those who are in your vicinity.

El Attarine belongs to the line of Exclusives sold only in the Salons du Palais Royal in Paris, encased in beautiful bell jars of 75ml.

Pic of Talitha and Paul Getty at The Pleasure Palace in Marrakech, shot by P.Lichfield in 1969 ~reproduced via Telegraph.co.uk. Pic of Limited Edition bottle courtesy of El Attarine via Ambre Gris. Pic of sunrise sent to me by mail unacredited.