Les Heures de Cartier: L'Heure Mysterieuse XII

I saw the list of notes and read some of the posts here. Well, I just had to test a sample. Some of my favourite notes! Incense, olibanum, jasmine, patchouli. It makes a spicy, warm and inviting fragrance. Im not sure where the chocolate illusion comes from but it is present on me for a brief while. The resins provide decent longevity and creaminess. Spicy incense, coriander and jasmine. A unisex fragrance for nightwear as surely too much for the day. For the most part it is spicy and a bit resinous. I have to add that I am a Vegetarian person who loves spicy food so please test as my diet effects how this presents on my skin. Reasonably priced 3ml samples are available. If a spice or choc loving person starts becoming amorous with you when wearing this then you have been prewarned that it is a deadly olfactory confection. 🙂 The price has come down a bit with time so a good time to buy online. Not bad longevity in these warm UK summer conditions.

The incense hour makes a lot of sense as the XII hour with its religious spiritual connotations. L'Heure Mysterieuse seeks to soothe the mind and cleanse the soul for the new day to come. And it does so with gentle generosity and loving kindness. The patchouli is chocolatey (not unlike the VII hour) and nutmeg adds a touch of gourmand feel (not unlike the XI hour). The incense is slightly citrusy with a beautifully delicate piney undertone. Perfect to meditate to, and an absolute joy to wear (I may agree with some of the comments below that it lacks the punch and wow of a truly memorable scent, but I don’t think that’s what XII is about. As stated above It’s a deeply personal experience. In the L’Heure collection there are plenty of choices that deliver the wow and then some) ****(*)

Thanks to great Mathilde Laurent, Cartier's fragrances are always of great quality. This line (Les Heures de Cartier) is a rare treasure, all of which are experimental, but seemingly get much less attention than it deserves. XII is the frolic between incense and patchouli. It opens up with patchouli as herbic medicine, but you may carefully discover some jasmine and even with more cautions, incense deeply buried in. However, this soon reverses. Incense becomes the dominant and embraces patchouli. And earthy nutmeg and fresh coriander are the ones setting up the stage. As you can tell this masterpiece is too dramatic for daily, but absolutely needs to be added to a certain artwork collection.

Fragrance of the artistic perfumery of Cartier, created by the nose of the house Mathilde Laurent. Fragrance of great caliber, immense refinement, which embodies the mysterious magic of distant exotic lands. Mystical, kaleidoscopic fragrance: amber, aromatic, balsamic, warm spicy, with an enveloping, seductive, damned sensual charm. Intriguing fragrance, which develops its magical olfactory performance unchanged over the hours, a masterpiece of rare beauty.

It is interesting to read how others think of this fragrance. Skin chemistry is a fickle thing, is it not? This one smells wonderfully spicy on my skin and exudes an aura of mystery... It evokes a singular, decadent image in my mind; I'm in Shanghai in the 1920s, dressed in a sumptuous silky floor-length gown, luxuriating on a bed scattered with velvet Fortuny cushions...with a gorgeous man (or men), of course... ;)