Immortelle Solaire

If you want to smell real immortelle in a perfume, presented as you’d find it in nature, but given the proper adornments of a small cast of other characters to adulate it even further, look to Immortelle Solaire. It’s a gorgeous piece of work, and I’m thrilled it actually smells of immortelle (have Les Indemodables finally gotten over whatever-they-were-doing with the false names? So it seems, thankfully). The initial sniffs reveal an immortelle drenched in bright and hot sunlight. The immortelle overall is earthy, pleasantly and roundly spicy, a touch vanillic, and strikingly similar to fenugreek except bone dry and absent much of the sweetness. The “heat of sunlight” over the top instantly strikes you; it was so dry and coarse it made my throat close up a tiny bit in anticipation of a cough! I’m honestly not sure what’s achieving this. It’s new to me and I can’t pinpoint it. Part of that is due to this “note’s” extremely short life, making it very hard to study - unless you respray and respray, which is highly ill-advised - before notes of hazelnut, the same beautiful hazelnut material they used in Patchouli Noisette it seems, dehydrated fruit, and patchouli, the patchouli also from PN, join the immortelle to adorn it with exquisite gifts. Immortelle is a bit green and herbal, spicy, very dry, and licorice-like in its natural state. Thanks to the hazelnut there is a nutty, white, and unctuous quality to it, which immortelle is naturally missing. Thanks to the fruit there is a very pleasant, and not all cloying, rounded sweetness and slightly gourmand quality to it, which immortelle is naturally missing. Thanks to the patchouli there is deep and dark earthiness of loamy topsoil that gives an even more distinct impression of an arid but fertile landscape, which immortelle doesn’t necessarily naturally replicate. In the final dry down the patchouli and a good dose of styrax take more of the stage, but the immortelle plays on, which gives the final skin scent a beautiful leather note - high quality from the best of Italian tanneries heated in the Mediterranean sun. But, throughout Immortelle Solaire’s life, it is thoroughly and convincingly immortelle - just shown a lot of love. Some may bemoan the perfume’s more linear and monodimensional nature, and LI generally speaking don’t go for grand and operatic and story-telling perfumes it’s true, but it does what Les Indemodables and Antoine Lie together are proving time and time again to be masters of: ignoring no space or detail. The balance of darkness and light, earthiness and greenness, gourmand and animalics, gives Immortelle Solaire a symmetry and completeness that we simply very rarely get in perfumes today. I am completely and totally won over by this perfume. I can’t stop my arms and hands from going to my nose, and I want the aroma to never end. Stunning.

There are no surprises here, no cheap synthetics; the scents are original and truly timeless, as well as long-lasting. With Antoine Lie as the perfumer, miracles happen in such a comfortable creative nest. For months now, Immortelle Solaire has been fascinating me. It was wonderful in +30°C heat, but also in the cool autumn days. As a lover of the immortelle (helichrysum) note, I initially felt that in this perfume it was moderate, even delicate — as if candied fruits, sweets, and spices had taken olfactory control. Yet everything was in balance; nothing about it is gourmand or overly sweet. Nor is it balsamic. It is the scent of hot Mediterranean stone, of sun-warmed wood and dry earth. From the heart of limestone, bushes of yellow immortelle flowers — Helichrysum arenarium, the eternal flower — burst forth. I thought, even feared, that in Immortelle Solaire the immortelle would wilt with sadness once the sun began to turn its back on it. The opposite happened: the perfume embraced autumn even more intoxicatingly, the immortelle note intensified, still wrapped in the sweetness of spices and dried fruits. It was joined by something nutty, velvety, and lightly smoky — misty, almost. And yet, the bottle has captured the sun’s rays: it’s as if the fragrance absorbed the energy of light and a touch of summer nostalgia, weaving a patina of summer’s immortality into the opulent melancholy of autumn. I’m enchanted by this elegant, ethereal, and warm scent — soothing, restorative, opening up sunlit craters within me, becoming part of who I am. Is that my signature scent smiling at me? Perhaps, perhaps 😊

Just because I haven’t been raving about recent releases from Les Indemodables that us in no way a reflection of my excitement at every new release and despite the last few not really blowing my skirt up, they have been consistently fantastic in quality and intent. Les Indemodables is a special brand and this is a special perfume. The opening of the immortelle is mollases thick and almost as sweet but balanced with a dark aniseed note, it’s rooty and earthy like liquorice. It’s almost gourmand nutty, caramel facets become sort of leathery and more what I know from Immortelle perfumes. This clearly has a thickness and a nod to white florals, perhaps a glug of jasmine? The experience starts to get that characteristic curried note in the drydown, and just gets deeper, warmer, lightly animalic, pissy, tanned leather but oddly floral. I bought this sample in the summertime and I’m not one to say that a certain perfume doesn’t ‘work’ in certain conditions, however I remember thinking... I can’t wear this I’m this heat, it’s such a thick, fisherman’s wooly jumper of a fragrance there’s no way I can appreciate and love it under these circumstances. However, I persevered, I wore it. It was fantastic in the heat, less is more I would say but the heat made it open up. Now, my favourite Immortelle is Histoires Marquis de Sade, and couldn’t be more different to this, I’d call it savoury to Solaire’s sweet. You can tell the raw material is so multifaceted and shows off all of it in this creation. I thought it was BRILLIANT!!!

Immortelle Solaire makes me dream about exploring the Mediterranean maquis, where rocky crags are carpeted with sunny disc-shaped helichrysum flowers. It smells of a golden glow, warm and immersive. Here, Antoine Lie advances the licorice aspect of immortelle, that woody, bittersweet rooty quality, while the maple characteristic, while evident, is just a bit more restrained here. It smells more akin to flowers themselves than from the oil and absolute distillation from the plants. The candied fruit accord along with usage of hazelnut reminds me a bit of fruitcake—and let it be known that I actually love fruitcake (spare me the jokes!). It slowly moves from rich and unctuous to dry and wistful over time. There is a tanned leather that includes a savory, phenolic styrax in the dry down. What I love about this and a number of releases from Les Indemodables is the 'in media res' approach—in the midst of its concept, inviting one into the setting, the action, magnetically drawing in the wearer.

My sample just arrived. Another banger from Les Indemodables. They consistently find ways to take my money. Licorice and dried fruits are clearly present against the syrupy, dry, herbaceous qualities of immortelle. Leathery, maybe smoky/gritty facet if I put my nose close. The patchouli in the base is quite nice in the drydown. Comes off quite aromatic and sweeter than I was expecting. It isn't TOO sweet though, certainly well balanced compared to other immortelle fragrances that lean into the syrupy qualities of it. Unisex leaning masculine in my opinion. It doesn't instantly remind me of any other fragrance at the moment. MAYBE a hint of Serge Lutens La Proie Pour L'Ombre purely because of the fairly fleeting licorice note I get in the opening.