Daphne Bouquet

Oh my freshness.. this is a blooming beautiful bouquet!! To understand this perfume, you firstly need to understand what the flower of a Daphne plant smells like. This semi-evergreen shrub flowers in late winter/early spring and has a beautiful intoxicating aroma that can scent an entire garden. I have a compact Daphne Blafra in my garden that’s native to the UK and Ireland. It’s small, with white, pink flushed flowers and smells amazing. If you’ve never smelt Daphne before, these intensely fragrant blooms draw your nose is as you try to identify the aroma. It’s easier to say “Well, Daphne smells like Daphne”, but to try and describe it; well, it’s a unique and unforgettable fragrance but it also has a familiarity about it as your nose identifies different profiles that remind you of other flowers. It’s like a sweet but bright floral mix of rose, jasmine, honeysuckle and orange blossom but with a spicy hint of zesty ginger, white sugar and creamy lemon. And it’s captured beautifully in this perfume with Penhaligon’s Daphne flower accord. It opens with a bright, zesty, floral fresh announcement. To my nose, the cassis is more noticeable here and keeps the Daphne vibrant and super fresh. As it settles into the middle the sweetness of the Daphne becomes more noticeable as the cassis settles. Just like the Daphne flower, your nose starts to think “rose, no jasmine, no orange blossom”. But it’s not a heady mix, it really is so fresh and bright. The moss is perfectly used to keep the freshness ongoing. This isn’t oakmoss with an earthy, woody and almost smoky fragrance. Penhaligon’s have selected fresh moss that has just received an April shower. This is clean, reviving, crisp and green and settles into a dry down of a high quality Daphne bouquet of fresh cut flowers of sweet, but not too sweet, bright, ever so slightly spicy, green floral, a tiny hint of powder and creaminess.. but it is fresh, fresh, fresh, it makes my eyes pop! This is beautiful and I really like it. It is a super fresh summer floral, beautifully and artfully blended and it’s Daphne done really, really well. The timing of the release of this perfume is also perfect, as the UK struggles with the heatwave and humidity, this fragrance is the polar opposite of the heady, edible gourmands and a welcome bright beauty to my nose.

Daphne Bouquet is the first perfume in ages that made me stop mid-errand and think: oh. You. It opens like a cool hand to the forehead, a respite in evergreen air, a hush of shade. Blackcurrant flickers, but not the catty cassis of leaf-bud thiols, more fruit than fang sporting a damascenone glow with a most elegant brush of verdancy. Juicy, but equally green, equally clean. The daphne appears as a soft white flare, like honeysuckle except rewritten in silver ink rather than gold. Sporting a hyacinth-y twinkle, the whole bouquet is kept translucent, almost dewy. A soft rose leans forward and someone—bless them—slips in a pinch of ginger. Amazing. Underneath, the “evergreen” at the top returns as breath rather than bark, terpenic vitality smoothed by pale woods and soft moss. Nothing powdery, nothing thick; more the cool of shaded stems after rain. The whole thing stays crystalline, never congeals. The balance, that's what I love about it. Cassis without sulfur, white florals without the haze, lift over lush. A warm thumbprint into a chilled glass. I tested it on two separate occasions, just to end up circling the mall twice each time to ponder going back for more. Rain-washed greens and soft pinks. Mmph. If you need me, I’ll be the person pausing at corners, sniffing my sleeve, wrist, sleeve, then that ridiculous move where you smell your hair for any remaining sliver. All whilst smiling like an idiot. For Daphne, I might break the no-buy detox. Just sayin'!

This is an absolutely gorgeous green chypre. It’s not as floral as one might think given the name, although some floral facets do make an appearance a bit later in the drydown. The black currant note is slight, playing second fiddle to the green mossy freshness of this composition. To me it brings to mind vivid images of walking through a lush unmanicured English garden or an old park that is rich in shrubbery, just after the rain. There is almost an earthy petrichor note just in the background, making the whole moss-green effect very vivid and lifelike. In my opinion this is absolutely unisex and quite a delight to wear any time of day. Because walks in the park or in lush gardens are activities that bring me instant joy and pleasureis, Daphne Bouquet is to me, quite literally a scent of happiness.

Such a refreshing, sparkling, fresh green scent that has a wonderful balance of tartness, tea-like scent, which I gathered is basically how daphne can smell like. Orange blossom and jasmine mix is definitely a good description - not overly sweet, and keeps one awake without becoming sharp in any sense (at least to me). The longevity is amazing on me (lasts from day to night without respraying), projection is also incredible. Even after an evening shower, I could still smell wafts of it from an arm's length. I live in hot and humid weather though (and it's perfect for that), so I wonder if this helped. I know it has no tea notes of any sort but that comes to my nose, and I would use this over The Yulong, Wu Long Cha etc. Love it so much I got a backup bottle (since it's a limited production).

I have tried this perfume from a free sample. The opening is very green and sparkling. As the perfume dries, it becomes more aromatic and earthy. It has that herby and citrussy freshness that you can smell in Goutal perfumes, like Eau du Sud or Eau d'Hadrien. Within 20 minutes I can smell flowers and some sweetness but it is still green and sparkling and fresh. And very, very elegant. Absolutely stunning. The drydown is earthy, fresh spicy and slightly sweet. 💐💖