Les Fleurs de la Pluie

The all-natural perfume is surely an acquired taste, eluding even the most astute of noses for their often morass-like quality, seemingly marred abstracts, soggy blocks of blurred botany. There are a few perfumers that do work within this economy and can illustrate textures that can rival those within the conventional framework. One such example is Thierry Bernard's Les Fleurs de Pluie, which boasts a sand accord, in a natural perfume no less. This brings to question that seductive power of suggestion. Were an accord of wet paper to appear, would I have smelled that? Yet, I must admit, Les Fleurs truly does evoke the granular quality of sand for me, and "la Pluie" has dampened the sand, among wild roses and herbaceous vegetation. It reminds me of a rainy day exploring Wellfleet Bay on Cape Cod, heralding the shortening days, the earlier sunsets, the advancing autumn. It starts with an obscure ensemble of citruses that seem destined to recede but nevertheless allow me to slow down and reflect on what begins to materialize. It's the smell of the rain beginning to fall "somewhere else," that liminal space between the rank and file of human life and that state of feeling outside oneself–an observer. Simply put, a sandy, wet rose is its kernel, so delicate it aches the heart and twists the soul. This rose eventually fades, like a mirage in the dunes, and the wisps of myrrh and olibanum is the final coda of this tone poem.