Mal-Aimé

Iskander was Corticchiato’s citrus chypre, and one got the feeling he felt it was obligatory to have one as do most houses large and small. Mal-Aime is thus his prize fighter into the ring of green perfumes. I love nearly everything Corticchiato/d’Empire has done, and I have a soft spot for green perfumes that is not so much a soft spot as it is a blinding weakness for them. It was a foregone conclusion I was going to, at least, very much like Mal-Aime. I like it more than even I could anticipate, and that’s thanks largely to Corticchiato taking this tired old genre and giving it an invigorating shot in the arm. The star of this perfume is inula, also known as fleabane, and smelling it in Mal-Aime makes me (and a huge number of others for that matter) wonder why the hell we’ve never smelled this before. We’ve been missing out! Apparently it’s been available as an essential oil for donkey’s years but has never received any attention as a perfumer’s material. It just goes to show you that majorities - democratic, meritocratic, or kleptocratic (modern perfumery is a homogenous mix of all) - aren’t always right. The opening has that classic sharp galbanum-like green hiss we know and come to expect with green perfumes, but there is a lot more besides. Thanks to the inula, this sharp hiss has a deeply aromatic celery component to it - not cooked celery, rather celery pulverized by a blender. There is also a big salty and citrusy component. It’s the strangest combination of pungent weeds and weed-like grasses crushed under your feet plus the suave and proper aromatics of fine culinary herbs like oregano, tarragon, and bay. Some of this is, I’m sure, generously overlapped with a nettle accord, as anyone who has smelled a proper nettle soup will attest smells exquisite, but it is quite hard for me at least to tell where one ends and the other begins since I’m very unfamiliar with inula. Thanks to the floral aspect of inula, helped along by thistle and rose, there is a very pleasant sweet and pink floral thread weaving its way in and out and around the bracing greenness that becomes more apparent in the heart. The sweeter floralcy, which is almost a bit mimosa/cassie like, is far more present in the perfume’s sillage than on your skin in front of your nose; I spent about an hour in a room, vacated it for about five minutes, and could smell it quite a bit more clearly when I returned. A well-judged dry and rooty iris/orris note lurking in the base gives it enough depth to keep the whole picture nicely rounded but doesn’t take the perfume anywhere close to a descension into a dry and woody cliche. The summation of these notes and textures creates an overall effect that, to me, is just as profound as the smell of inula itself: there is a true and palpable feeling of a sun-scorched arid landscape, the aromatic greenery is parched but far from dry-nearing-death and their aromatics are concentrated, but then you catch the briefest but most tantalizing whiffs of flowers as their scents float on the misty and salty sea air that provides the parched landscape with a balm against the oppressive heat. This image, the textures, the smells, are perfectly in my mind’s eye. When Corticchiato is at his best, he is a master illusionist. He has this ability to firmly place me there with him in the times and places that inspired him to make a perfume. For this, for the exceptional technical care in this and all of his compositions, and for finally giving inula a much deserved and well overdue spotlight, it’s a standing-O from me.

MAL AIME', 2021 by parfumdempire Some people decide to be outcasts, rebels; society at large may call them mis-fit, but they possess true nobility, they stand still with their believes and they ask nothing to anyone. And so there are plants we do not want anywhere near our edenic gardens; we called them weeds, "erbacce", "mauvaises herbes". it is to those that Corticchiato pays homage in the beautiful Mal Aimé (bad soul). It is a green herbal scent that focuses on inula, aplant that grows spontaneously in Corsica as well as in Riviera Ligure (where I live); it presents yellow little florals. Inula when distilled smell herbal (obviously), camphoraceous, a little pungent, but it also possesses a certain sweetnes with honey undertones with hints of chamomille. It smells rosy as well. Mal Aimé opens green and bitter with an almost sharp galbanum or galbanum-like material; this is soon softened by the inula with its sweet undertones somehow accentuated. This constrast makes me roll my eyes every time I spray it. There is also a saline and slightly citrusy component that accompany the inula with musks in the background. It is pungent and herbal, but it is also deliciously aromatic! The bset part comes when nettle joins the show which i recognize because we use nettles a lot in Italy for culinary reasons: ravioli, soups, and digestif as well! It adds a certian unctuosity to the composition augmenting the herbal facets of Mal Aimé. The floral aspect of inula may have been amplified by rose material which counterbalance the greeness. But what srikes me the most is what I have read on Parfum d'Empire webpage. Mal Aimè is a tribute to a close friend of Monsier Corticchiato, an engineer specialized in botanical extraction equipment who shared a fondness for inula. Perfume as a way to remember! Consider following me on IG @alexolympia6

This is so special to me....... I connect to every part of this scent with all of my heart. The name the concept the smell it is so poetically cohesive and compelling. There’s a gorgeous review of this on parfumo that mentions how this scent is for people who have been overlooked and grow to learn that their differences are their strength and it deeply resonated with me I suggest everyone read it. Now to the smell.... Wow! I’ve been on the hunt for a non sweet herbal chamomile scent my whole life and many have tried and failed.. but this one is the one. It’s dry bitter and warm and the imagery it conjures up for me is kind of bleak I admit haha. I always feel like I’m dying when I wear it. Like the doctors told me I only have a day left to live and that I should inform those closest to me but I don’t. Instead I walk out and wander following a highway in a direction I couldn’t care less about. It’s the middle of summer one of the hottest days of the year and the sun is intoxicating me into a sense of delirium. My vision spotty my limbs weak but I go on until I spot a golden clearing of tall grass bleached by the sun and glittered with petals and pollen in the air. There.... I know it immediately that is where I want to rest my bones so I head off into the clearing passing dear and rabbits completely undisturbed by my presence. They know I’m harmless and dissipating from this earth soon. I find an old 70yo pick up truck rotten with rust but beautiful and I climb into the bed in the back and rest as the stars shine bright even in the day light just for me and I perish quietly. Calm melancholic and magical and immediately in my top 3 scents of all time. Lasts forever on me too I smell it all day.

A different kind of Green fragrance. That is how Mal-Aimé feels to me. It strikes me as a bone-dry, herbaceous, earthy perfume rather than your standard vegetal green. It feels like the juice dried up inside the shrubs. It also has this strong salty and musky aroma, which, alongside the earthiness, are most likely facets showcased by the main ingredient, the Fragrant Inula plant. The nettles come strongly in the opening, almost abrasive, but soon tame down. The blackberry accord is non-existent on my skin. It's just super dry and shrub-like, earthy, warm, salty, and musky for the whole time. I love it, but it's easy to see how it might be very challenging to wear and enjoy for most people. It might be Marc Antoine's most unique and most challenging perfume. Not the way Ruade, Tabac Tabou, or the cumin-loaded Oeilleres is, but in how vividly it evokes the aroma of sun-scorched meadows. For me, it is a deeply nostalgic scent, like all well-made agrestic perfumes. It makes me think of roaming the fields in Summer, napping and rolling in hay, and eating cooked baby nettles (an incredibly delicious local dish). Green? Not really. I think of it as herbaceous, earthy, arid, with zero sweetness. The salty and musky facets make it more alluring and interesting. Not only a highly unique and creative perfume but also a time portal in place and time for the right person. A must-try for agrestic perfume lovers. IG:@memory.of.scents

This is wondrously green and bitter straight out of the bottle. The bitter is so good but it doesn’t last long, it mellows into a smoother but very dry, vegetal and sun warmed fragrance with a noticeable undertone of fatty orris which supports all the stringent herb like smells. Some green fragrances have a blue quality to them as well, with cooling watery aspects that offset the green, but this doesn’t. If anything I would say it has yellow notes rich with intense dry heat and sunshine. How it smells in a field of long grass and weeds in very hot weather after a drought, when all the green aromatic smells are concentrated by lack of moisture and the heat is releasing them into the air. Instead of Geosmin which is released by imminent rain you have dust in this parched field. Mal-Aimé picks a direction and commits fully and I respect that. To me it is absolutely perfect. I just wish that it lasted a bit longer.

An original herbaceous aromatic with some novel twists. Mal-aimé has a mixed dried herbs feeling going on, a bit like bouquet garni, but is also tea-like at times. It's airy, dry, light and there's something extra. Something unique and a bit special sharpening it up. I'm unsure Fragrantica has correctly identified the main note here when they list hellebore. The Parfum d'Empire site refers to inula graveolens which is the appealingly-named stinkwort. I don't know the scents of hellebore or stinkwort, but there is a green, aromatic flower here, falling somewhere between musky sage, woody juniper and spearmint, that goes above and beyond the more familiar nettle and thistle in the note list. I love the name and the concept - taking these overlooked and unloved plants and making something beautiful from them. This is a great natural summer perfume. It would be perfect outdoors in July & August's mellow warm days

As an absolute lover of green or aromatic scents I couldn't wait to try this and Corsica Furiosa by the same house (f you are in Europe their discovery set it such a great deal. You can hand pick 5 scents from their collection for 22 euros including postage) I am so intrigued by this fragrance. Dark, sharp dank ultra green, like when you are deep in the undergrowth of your garden and you are pulling up weeds by the root and that almost wet earth smell comes up with the crushed nettle. And then, at the same time it isn't wet at all, it is dry powdery and earthy. I would want to bury my face into the neck of any person wearing this and inhale really long and hard. To me I can almost smell tomato stems and spinach too but they aren't listed as notes. I cannot tell which I like more... this or her twin sister Furiosa, but this to me feels more original and unique, but Furiosa more wearable?

Mal-Aimé opens with a piquant and bitter note that is somewhat startling because it is familiar but unclassifiable. It doesn't register as blackberry, rather more pungent and herbal. There is no sweetness or stickiness; it's all citric, aromatic, and bitter. Weeds, perhaps, as well as the juice of broken stems. It morphs into something like undergrowth and tea. I suspect everyone will have their own associations but this is one of those fragrances that reaches deep into memories or evolutionary biology. It becomes a dry nettle and chamomile tea, which may be the result of my own association with nettle than anything in the fragrance itself. Somehow, it all reminds me of summer. Dry, dusty, summer, with that startling bitter top note, tannic middle, powdery finish. I enjoy each stage and perhaps the concept most of all. The unloved, with its own strange beauty and comfort.

Can't wait to smell like "les mauvaises herbes". I blind bought a full bottle because I like to live on the edge and I might say I am not disappointed. It brings me back walking in the field near my house as a child, field full of thistles that stick to your pants and wild herbs. I don't really smell any conventional perfumery herb there. It's amazing. It does not smell like your typical green perfume. It small quite natural and it's actually quite long lasting for such a green scent. I find it wearable, unlike what some comments (and the notes) might suggest. It has a slightly sweet/fruity aspect (the berry I assume) that calms down the green monster in there. I will actually wear this one next spring, summer. Cannot go wrong smelling like a field of wild herbs and flowers in a big city right :)

Clean scent for the weird old woman who makes remedies with herbs, and who lives just outside the village. It smells like dry weeds, and in particular nettles that are left drying in the sun on a hot day. The opening is a bit prickly, which is fun for a fragrance with blackberry, thistle and nettle notes; it's also slightly bitter. It's not too strong and it left you smelling like a wild field in a hot summer day, no hay note : Mal-aimé really smells like weed in a subtle and almost elegant way. Someone says that it could be a perfume for people who don't like to wear perfume and in a way, yes, but that person would also need to have a bit of a weird taste for nettle tea. I like both the concept and the execution of Mal-aimé. I'm eager to smell the rest of Parfum d'Empire's line.

I ordered several samples of Parfum d'Empire I had not tried yet through the mail, and even though the name of this one translates as "Unpopular" or "Not Loved," this was the one I was most eager to try. The clever concept for this was to make this smell like the fragrant weeds (particularly erigeron, or fleabane) that grow over the island of Corsica, because really a weed is just a plant that is unwanted and thought to be out of place. I was hoping for something that smelled like I had been out gardening, and what I got was even better, because although it does have that nice dank sappy greenness I had wanted there's also something slightly minty in this that makes it quite refreshing. It doesn't last as long as I'd like, but it's so invigorating and winning.

Superb green fragrance, Mal-Aîmé remains nearly constant with thistle and nettle notes, as well as other weeds that I don't know the name of (or haven't smelled in a perfume before). This is unusual but surprisingly wearable, very green but not too pungent or bitter, you can smell some flowers that give balance to the whole mix. I wore it yesterday and it stayed the whole day on my skin, I really didn't expect this green fragrance to have this king of longevity, but this is a very nice surprise. This reminds me of days spent in fields or in the Alps when I was a kid, where the tall grass and weeds spread freely, it smells like nature and running in nature. Mal-Aîmé (unloved, in French) is one of my top fragrances right now, I absolutely love it.

Applies super brisk green and spicy! Warm and hot. Radiates leafy green with raw jalapeno and dusty peppercorns that's not gourmand. Dense and cozy. Similar to sunny grassy vetiver. Menthol streak probably from indolic floral even though it's not flowery. Soapiness adds heft and isn't powdery. On skin, it's warm with almost zero green. Clothes makes the sappy spicy green project far more I keep getting the best whiffs! Love its fresh take and unique notes that blend so intoxicatingly. Strength is fine. Could definitely see it in my collection. No one else is going to be wearing this while so attractive!

to me this is the scent of garrigue on a really hot summer day, one which comes following dry hot summer weeks. the frugal low lying bushes of this ecosystem are radiating their natural oils due to the excessive heat, grassy & greener flora is turning shades of dehydrated gold .. it smells like wild flower hay & aromatic herbs all around, it’s the height of the afternoon heat and the crickets are chirping rhythmically —a good fragrance for a heat wave & a beautiful impression of a mediterranean canicule. it’s slightly powdery in a really naturalistic way.

Right out of the bottle it is pungent, pickle-y and green and dirty. But my goodness is it nice once it has a chance to mingle with your skin and dry down. There is something so intensely nostalgia inducing about this fragrance, I know I have smelled this before somewhere. Its powdery and herbaceous and clean, perfect for spring and perfect to wear outdoors. I will be buying a full bottle as soon as I can.

Instant love for me: green, out-of-the-box and reminds me of the Mediterranean shrubs in Mallorca too. It is unusual, artistic and classy at the same time. I instantly smelled a warm immortelle facet which I love. It is not listed as a note, however, so either it’s there in disguise or I’m smelling this because erigeron and immortelle share a few mayor chemical components (I think the latter).

Strange to my nose. Herbacious and earthy. Like a bundle of dried and fresh wild weeds. Reminds me of the wasted garden of my childhood that's verdant with various wild grass, among which my beloved fig trees stood (I didn't mean that there is fig leaf in Mal-Aime). It's also nuanced with some spicy sweetness. One of my favs.

As an herbalist, I really love this fragrance. The 1st hour of this scent smells like I’ve been working with fresh herbs all day or rolling in the grass. The dry down gives more body with the Orris root. It goes from playful to a tad more mature. This a great scent for sunny, warmer days.

Easily one of the most original summer scents in modern perfumery. Uplifting, natural smelling, has a unique spiky green character, yet it’s smooth and comforting. Bonus points for the delicious blackberry nuance which adds nice depth, and the fact it’s soft and never loud. 11/10 scent.

Love this scent. Smells like a pile of dead, dry weeds that have been cooking in the hot summer sun for days. Artfully bitter, in a very wearable way. I can very clearly smell the nettle note. Also giving notes of wild chamomile and wild carrot.