En Passant

I’ve been eyeing this for weeks, (along with Vilhelm A lilac a Day, which I haven’t smelled yet). I smelled en Passant for the first time today and right away bought a 30ml. It’s an amazing piece of work. It gives me a very specific memory, I’m 6 years old wearing my Easter outfit in my front yard ,the morning is bright, and the grass is dewy, I’m waiting for my mom and dad to load us into the van for Easter service, my stomach is full of chocolate and candy, and I feel anxious about going to church. I don’t have anything like this nor have I smelled anything ever like this. I have only smelled a few lilac fragrances , most recently Aerin Lilac path, but they are such different styles of perfume in my opinion. Lilac Path is more close to what I would expect from a lilac perfume, ( a bit powdery warm at the end) . En passant is a beautiful memory for me, maybe a bit less pleasant to wear than my top floral obsessions , but far more beautiful & artistic and far reaching to me. This is one of those bottles I absolutely knew I needed even if i only smell the bottle every day. What a creation. I love both En Passant & Lilac Path. But they are Not even close. I would put En Passant in the same taste/style as Diptyque Ofresia, and Eau Rose, Byredo La Tulipe. It’s not similar to them but they are of a similar style to my nose. En Passant is not an every day floral for me. It’s too specific for me. And brings up a weird feeling & memory. And The wheat note is quite different but goes so perfect with the lilac. I only pick it up if I think about trying to separate it from the lilac, otherwise it blends seemlessly. every thing Olivia Giacobetti creates is phenomenal. Her Ofresia fragrance is one of my top top faves. As well as of course Philosykos in every concentration. Honestly, Philosykos to me is more in the family of En Passant even though one is a fruit and one is a floral, they are together in my brain. Such a specific smell. Something freshly edible about them but NOT gourmand, I hate gourmand. For reference my every day scents are , Gucci bloom (pink) & Philosykos EDT.

Where I grew up in the near-Midwest lilacs were common but sparse across our area. Coming across one was a special moment. Even as a young child the smell of lilac called to me. I can very clearly remember smelling it on the breeze, even at a good distance, and my little face would beam with a smile and I’d gleefully call out “Mom! Dad! Can you smell the lilacs?!” Olivia Giacobetti’s composition for Frederic Malle, En Passant, or In Passing, if I was to be a solipsist, seems to be written to those wonderful memories of mine. A cool spring morning, evening dew still in the air as it starts to evaporate in the gentle rising sun, a breeze brushes my face and body carrying with it the powdery, purple and white, nectary sweet, soft and fleeting yet confident aroma of lilac acting as a balm for the nose and the soul. En Passant smells like that. I cannot be objective about this perfume; it summons so many memories that I am incapable of separating them well enough from the technical part of my brain for it to do what it needs to do. So, all I can and will say is that Giacobetti did a marvelous job with this composition. Every note is crystal clear and photorealistic. I am going to stop there, take my leave of you, and continue my walk down the lilac lined sidewalk of Memory Lane.

I used to work at harvard, and on my way to work every day I walked through a residential neighborhood where every house on the block had at least one lilac bush, of every variety from white to deep purple. I would spend every spring and early summer stopping at each bush and inhaling deeply, observing how the flowers' scent would change in character as they budded, bloomed, and eventually died, and i've been searching for a fragrance ever since that captures that experience of burying your nose in a fresh, uncut lilac bush. en passant captures this experience. on the first spray: shockingly realistic green lilac, stems and leaves included. almost immediately it dries down to the heavier, sweeter scent of crushed lilac blossoms. it transitions quite quickly into a more intimate skin scent, but for me it just perfectly captures the experience of gathering a handful of overripe, damp, dying lilac flowers from the sidewalk and taking a deep inhale - an intimate, indolic floral you really need to look for, but is so worth it to find. this is a love letter to my favorite flower, and a very dear memory of seasons in a phase of my life long gone

So, hear me out. If there was ever a perfume that could have coaxed Tiny Tim into one of his whimsical falsetto trances, it would be En Passant. This fragrance is a delicate watercolor of lilac blossoms, cucumber water, and a fleeting whisper of wheat. It smells like stepping into a Victoria Island Songhees spring garden just as the morning dew is evaporating, which feels entirely in harmony with Tiny Tim’s childlike eccentricity. You can almost imagine Tiny Tim, ukulele in hand, inhaling that lilac breeze and declaring, “this is what tulips sound like when they laugh.” En Passant doesn’t stomp and it doesn’t march. It tiptoes. Some reviewers below say the scent is weak. It is not. It’s fragile, peculiar, and oh so beautiful, the kind of perfume that makes one believe tulips can indeed sing back if you lean in close enough. So, remember, darlings: if you wish to walk through the garden of life on your tippy-toes, humming falsetto and making the daisies blush, En Passant is your ticket. Layer with fennel heavy Francis Kurkdjian's Aqua Media Forte Maison for a sumptuously scandalous Songhees spring salad bar in paradise.

So beautiful, so so beautiful. I've been hearing about this one for ages and the descriptions usually sound like poetic hyperbole. But lo and behold, it really is all that. On the blotter, it smells like a sepia-toned photograph of a lilac. But on my skin, it's like catching the scent of lilac in the air on a warm spring morning, just before the dew burns off. Somewhat like with Philosykos, Giacobetti created not just a scent here but an olfactory mise en scene. It's stunning. I'm testing out a sample now but not sure I would invest in a full bottle. I'm noticing a pattern with Frederic Malle perfumes - they are scents that I feel like I need to keep samples of for reference, just to be able to smell now and again because they are incredible works of art and heartbreakingly beautiful, but for me they might not be so wearable. With En Passant, although I appreciate it and even love it, would I actually reach for it? It's so translucent and ephemeral. I wonder if it would get exasperating to feel like my scent is always passing by on the breeze, just out of reach.