Soie Malaquais

At the risk of over-hyping this perfume...it is an otherworldly fragrance. Ethereal. Mysterious. Elegant. This is my favourite perfume and it has become my signature scent (my poor bank account...). Soie Malaquais is a light atmospheric gourmand. At first there is the bright opening of earl grey tea. Then it is followed by the rich scent of dark chocolate; smooth and slightly bitter. Threads of incense weave through it, adding a smoky, meditative warmth. Beneath that lies something papery and nostalgic, like the faint scent of old books. Wearing it feels like the sensation of being wrapped in silk while drifting through a pool of ink. It is soft, dark, and luxurious. Once the fragrance settles into the skin, Soie Malaquais begins to resemble a Mont Blanc dessert or even Kurikinton paired with a cup of tea. The soft citrus still lingers but a tannic gourmand aroma emerges. Many perfumes blur together into a single indistinct sweetness or floral haze. This one does not. The notes reveal themselves clearly enough that you can recognize them individually, yet they blend together with remarkable harmony. It feels like listening to a symphony where every instrument can be heard but none overwhelms the others. To be 100% honest, what first drew me to this fragrance was the bottle. I gambled and blind-bought this. Thankfully I got lucky. I made an impulse purchase because the bottle design was nostalgic and I was willing to use up a fragrance I didn’t like if it meant that I could reuse the bottle. Specifically, the deep burgundy glass looks like something you might find in an old apothecary. It reminded me of a vintage medicine bottle filled with a secret elixir. The porcelain base reminded me of the vases my Portuguese grandmother kept in her home. So, in that sense, the brand absolutely succeeded in appealing to my sense of nostalgia. The design spoke to me instantly, and I cannot pretend I wasn’t influenced by it. Their marketing worked perfectly. It was love at first sight and marriage at first sniff. Despite my luck, here is a warning for everyone else: DO NOT BLIND BUY THIS FRAGRANCE. Get the discovery set first, and if you like it, use the discount that comes with the discovery set to get a full bottle. You know how some people have a gene that makes cilantro taste like soap? Well, I’m convinced that there’s also a gene that some people have that can make blackcurrants smell like cat piss. I repeat: test before you buy!!! You might fall into the small group of people who hate how Soie Malaquais smells. Please keep in mind you’re kind of getting ripped-off by the bottle as well. The juice is only held in the top half. The bottom half is merely decorative. But the refills are 200ml (double the amount) for the same price. At least the refills make things (slightly) more practical. Of course, there is another unavoidable downside: this perfume is very expensive. If you fall in love with it, you should be prepared to save up for it. And unfortunately for anyone hoping otherwise, there really isn’t anything quite like it. Some perfumes have obvious relatives or affordable dupes. This one does not. Soie Malaquais stands completely alone. It has no siblings and no cousins in the perfume world. Don’t even bother recommending Peace & Love by Lataffa as a dupe. So if you smell it and love it, be warned: your wallet may suffer.

A very very beautiful fragrance of the highest quality and is blended so goddamn well, on a tester strip it's nice but lacks depth and balance, but on my skin its a whole 'nother beast, it transcended into an immediate top 10, dare i say top 5 contender among my favourite fragrances!. I really struggle to describe exactly what this scent profile is like which is rare for a fragrance bit in this case it's a good thing, apart from the opening which has a jammy rose, sparkling fresh citrus and black currant, on my skin they all blend beautifully into a uniform smell that is 'Soie Malaquais', which is something incredibly soft and elegant, fruity but in a way that doesn't make you picture a specific fruit (if that makes sense), unique, refined, attention grabbing but not imperative or demanding; it has traces of some effervescent citruses that lend it a nice sparkling texture after every waft, with a little gourmand ever so slightly present dark chocholate-ish feeling I get on my skin minus any bitterness, its very off(I mean 'off' as interesting/intriguing), but in a really refreshing way tbh. And it remains like this throughout the rest of the wearing at least for me, I really can't do it enough justice trying to describe it 😭😂, like even the 'Silk' note, it sounds weird when you see it and haven't smelt it, but it somehow makes perfect sense once you do smell it if that makes sense?, so do definitely test it as we all smell things differently!. As for wearability, this reads very much a cold weather leaning fragrances but you might be able to get away with it on a cold summer evening, its very much an elegant fragrance that makes you special without occupying the airspace of the entire room, on the topic of that, on my skin it's a medium projecting fragrance, with it slowly becoming a skin scent after 5 or 6 hours which is nice, it leaves a very nice scent trail and intimate bubble that adds to the intrigue (overall longevity is a good 9 hours on my skin too, with traces of it still being on my skin at the 10-11 hour mark!!) This is unisex leaning feminine to me, however I can very much see how people would immediately rule this out as a woman's fragrance, which if it was the opening alone I would agree with, however the dry downs subtedly and balanced notes with its silky-expensive smelling nuance makes it leans more unisex, so if you're a guy and you enjoy this dont be afraid to rock it, since I for sure am 💯. In conclusion, not sure if it's the recency bias, but this is an undervalued about gem in my opinion (I only personally heard about it a few months ago for the first time), and it really is one of the most unique/particular scents I've smelt so far, the perfumery alone is so well done, so I believe Marie Salamagne deserves a round of applause for creating this, im most certainly getting a full bottle for myself in the near future (the bottle is beautiful too which is a plus). Incredible artistry and Divinely balanced. 9.8/10

I'll start off by saying I like this scent. And yes, the bottle is nice. To me, this is a no perfume perfume. It just smells like someone who is clean, showered and put together. Like maybe they just shampooed their hair, out on lotion and steamed their freshly clean clothes. Not that it literally smells like shampoo, lotion or laundry, but you get the idea. If I smelled this on someone I would never think it was a perfume. It's very minimalist. I get the chestnut and silk notes for sure, but not much of anything else. Certainly no blackcurrant, which I would notice because I typically can't stand blackcurrant notes. The chestnut actually registers more as hazelnut to me, but maybe that's the combination of the chestnut and cacao notes. Hazelnut is a scent I enjoy a lot. In fact this scent reminds me of those little hazelnut-scented conditioners L'Oreal used to include with their demi-permanent hair dyes. I've always wanted a scent to replicate that because it's absolute heaven to me. This perfume is not a dupe for that, but it certainly is reminiscent. Now the elephant in the room is the price. The bottle is beautiful, for sure, but $520AUD for this is just not worth it. Especially when to me, this is such a simple and minimalist scent, and a very soft one at that, which doesn't last long at all. The scent itself is an all-occasions mass-appealing easy reach, and for that reason, it doesn't make sense to spend over $500 for this. It's nice, but it's not some otherworldly type of scent that's going to make you smell unique. I think you're mostly paying for the brand and the bottle. If you can afford that and it's worth it to you, then go for it. To the comment below about this not having a soul, I agree that it's extremely simplistic, but I do get a certain persona from it. It brings to mind someone who appreciates art and fashion, and probably studied one of those at university before going on to work in the fashion industry. Someone who is chic and expensive, and who would spend $200 on a plain black top just because they appreciate the quality, craftsmanship and brand heritage. They don't care that no one else knows, because they can feel the difference. It's a very textural scent, and while some may find it overly simple, I wouldn't say it lacks soul, it's just not complex enough for the price.

I love being a hater and will jump at every opportunity to dogpile on a viral fragrance because 99.9% of the time, people convince themselves it’s amazing because they boast a hefty price tag. Expensive must equal amazing, am I right? Okay that rant over. I come here with my tail tucked betwix my legs, and turn to this fragrance with the utmost repentance. It’s so good. Too good. It gets better the longer it sits on your skin. It’s intoxicating. I have more than 6 brain cells and know that the price of a fragrance does not mean it has to last forever and survive nuclear warfare. I don’t know where that deluded expectation came from, but I digress. It sits closer to skin after many hours, and getting whiffs of my wrists throughout the day brings me so much joy. It smells familiar, like a time and place and person, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. It is mature, classy, confident, yet still mysterious to me. Well blended to the point where you can’t even pin point truly what you’re smelling. You can get general concepts of it, but overall it’s so GD well done it cannot be replicated. I blazed through a 2mL sample in 2.5 days, and I’m waiting for my travel size to come in. I’m being brave in 2026 and not buying full bottles because I have enough in my current collection to outlive the next 4-5 generations. I do wish I had a full bottle because it’s so beautiful, but it’s not needed for someone with plenty full bottles already. Cannot recommend this one enough! At least sample it. Everyone needs to smell this beaut at least once in their lifetime!

This perfume to me is very beautiful. Many say it’s such an old lady sweet scent but I like it regardless, though I absolutely get what they mean. There’s something old in the composition, as if it’s something that’s been around for decades, reformulated multiple times, given new looks and bottles and having a dizzying array of adverts and starlets that had endorsed it. A classic without trying. One would think that the inclusion of both black currant and bergamot would give it lift and a bright-sour opening but it surprisingly doesn’t. What you get is a very vanilla-leaning chestnut and a dusting of a sweetened cocoa with the hidden rose at its most confectionary and lotion-like. It’s the fictional gourmand-type of vintage fragrance where everything is sweet but you dare not call it edible. The inclusion of a chestnut reminds me of MM’s By the Fireplace and Commodity’s Milk and though both render the gourmand aspect a lot creamier and milkier to fill out its body, Soie Malaquais is decidedly more syrupy and glazed in its approach, with the underlying fruits from earlier possibly adding to the wetness of the syrupy glaze rather than being the contrasting flavors thrown on top of a cloying dessert. I would definitely buy a full bottle but I must do so with strategy in mind because it is quite a hefty price all things considered, but out of all the roses in their current collection, this one stands on its own as a unique sampling of the three, not necessarily similar to anything in the market, though obviously rooted in some sort of memory.