A La Nuit

Oh my God I looooove this. This is the jasmine I’ve been missing in my life. This is almost euphoric it’s so sunshine fresh and uplifting like a perfect summer day. It’s like standing in front of a jasmine bush and inhaling the natural beautiful green from the flower to the leaves. This is demure and angelic. I read that this fragrance is a combination of all the different types of jasmine and the use of the jasmine flower from the bud all the way to it’s demise. It’s giving you the whole life of the jasmine flower from it’s budding first minutes to it’s animalic death. Such innocence here like a little fawn nuzzling the dewy soft jasmine petals on a forest floor. There is a gentle quality to SL fragrances that I’ve experienced that lull me into a quiet mood. My 5 year old smelled this on me rolled his eyes up and sighed. Then he said, “I want to go outside.” Yeah....so good it makes you dizzy and want a walk in nature. Anyway, this fragrance is definitely a jasmine lover’s dream. If you truly love jasmine but not too indolic and spicy like you find in Lust this is a nice option for you. I love both fragrances that celebrate the jasmine flower. This fragrance has a sort of flower on the vine quality that I’m very much digging. This jasmine is delicate, soft, heavy on the stem, and dripping with dew and very green like it’s alive. In fact I’m surprised that Dew isn’t among the notes listed. It just smells that way naturally. Must be those green notes that are sharp at first like the stem of the flower snapped in half right under your nose then it dies down and lingers just adding a tiny bit of freshness. The honey in this isn’t syrupy or thick like it is in Elie Saab or even that noticeable. It’s INCREDIBLY light. I feel like the description is missing the word “Fresh.” But not in an aquatic way, this smells like fresh cut narcotic jasmine. There is also an animalic twinge there. This jasmine seems to go though all the stages from fresh all the way to it’s demise. Now that I have a more developed notes I recognize just how animalic this fragrance is it’s got a musky quality of jasmine that the green note and the menthol like clove slices through with a vaporous knife. All the other notes in this fragrance just support that beautiful jasmine note so smoothly and brilliantly and are basically creating a jasmine soliflore. All this creates a photorealistic fresh realistic jasmine. So far I’m very impressed with Serge Lutens. I can’t wait to add more from this house to my collection. Monsieur Lutens is a poet with scent. Like any great artist he takes me to a visceral place. But his art is a place of beauty, positivity, nostalgia, a zen like meditation. I’m gives me a rush of dopamine. I know I sound a bit overboard but I feel this fragrance. It has a soul.

I have now resumed my relationship with Serge Lutens perfume house . In the past, the samples I had tried adorned the fragrances with way too many spices, hard hitting or resinous notes or edgy , quirky notes for faint hearted me . I just couldn’t pull them off despite appreciating their complexity , craftsmanship and uniqueness . I , then found in the Serge Lutens perfume house, a group of simpler and less in your face florals to which I have now amassed 8 bottles . I believe there is a market for those who love his workmanship and quality ingredients but prefer more wearable perfumes. Simplicity done perfectly is outstanding in itself . 💓 Anyway, now here I am , trying the original samples that put me off years ago. I am giving A La Nuit another go. I am trying not to let the benzoin, grenadine and cloves notes hinder a positive decision. Besides, I am a-white floral lover and A La Nuit has always been talked about . I’m just hoping I don’t get indolic, cat piss, fecal or baby’s nappy kind of Jasmine that some reviewers have complained of . A La Nuit , starts with intensive Jasmine notes, mixed with the benzoin base. The Jasmine is very heady and indolic but not overblown as the green notes keep it fresh and light . The combination of the honey and the faint musk give the green notes a soapier feel. After 30 mins , the Jasmine softens . I’m glad I didn’t get cloves or the grenadine notes. This does reminds me a touch of Clair Obscur by Keiko Mecheri in the opening notes . I own but rarely use due to its linear , indolic Jasmine . However , A La Nuit is sweeter, soapier and fresher after the initial heady blast and that is so my cup of tea. I like and appreciate A La Nuit after the heady Jasmine notes have subsided. As with a lot SL’s fragrances I own , the initial opening notes are explosive in intensity - sometimes all notes all at once . Quite deceiving when first sampling . With A La Nuit , I’m glad I waited after the indoles merged and dissipated , this is the stage of the perfume that I like especially with the soapy , green notes . Being in the bell jar bottle range it is pricier and very hard to purchase in Australia so I’ll have to buy it in Paris next year . Yes , it’s bottle worthy .

So this is what night-blooming Jasmine is! A la Nuit has been a great education in perfumery for me :-D I had long ago written off the entire Lutens line, based upon a generous free sampling of ~ 30 SL perfumed wax domes, provided directly by the House itself- Nearly all of the 30 frags. sampled seemed heavily laden w/ Cumin, Pot, Cigarettes / Beer-spilled Ashtray, Cigar Tobacco, Leather Jackets, Stale Bong Water, Patchouli, Smoke, anything & everything that smells either very masculine, &/or like the 80's head shops we frequented as teens, + endless all night partying... Someone always ended up spilling the bong water (usually me :) - An odour one never forgets. However, A la Nuit was not among the above samples. Based on glowing reviews, & seeing A la Nuit on sale @ FragranceNet, I blind-bought a bottle. The reviews are all true- The Jasmine is pure & intense. One caveat: The blend contains just the itsy-bitsy-est amount of stanky, cursed Cumin! Or, is it possible that this is what's meant by "indolic"? Rank Stank. Is that the "animalic" component? I HATE that note. It's quiet (and brief) enough, and the Jasmine is so sublimely supreme, that most won't be bothered by it- In fact, no other reviews detect it at all :) I guess I'm hypersensitive to even the slightest inclusion of cumin (or indoles?). Monster sillage & longevivity. Thankfully, SL packages this w/ both an atomizer & a splash/dab-on (screw on) cap- Owner's choice. Beware risk of over-application. POTENT! I've learned to dab very sparingly (vs. spray, which dispenses much too much)... Too much of this immensely intense 'fume left me suffocating in my own wake. PS: "Sarassins" is SL's "other Jasmine" less indolic, airier, softened, blended Jasmine- Yet still a powerhouse in itself. Ammended- I gifted my bottle to a friend. Though I dig Jasmine blended in small amounts in so many other 'fumes, this intense Jasmine was just too indolic/overwhelming for me, even 8-10 hours after application. Furthermore, it smelled just like Jasmine CPO (ie, Al Rehab "Full"). Hopefully its being better-loved by its new owner

A La Nuit arrived in the market in 2000 and its name means, in English, "to the night". Serge Lutens compares its fragrance to a ladder with rungs of silk, in which the perfume exudes until it reaches heaven to explode like fireworks. A La Nuit has notes of white honey (considered one of the most valuable in the market, because of its sweet content, its purity, and its color), benzoin, cloves, musk, green shoots and three types of Jasmine: Moroccan, Egyptian and Indian (also known as star Jasmine). Obviously, this is a perfume dominated by jasmine. For this reason, is one of the few perfumes of the House that is classified as feminine. If you don't like fragrances with jasmine very present, so don't even think about meeting A La Nuit. However, even if it is the case, I'm sure you will admire the quality of this creation. A La Nuit touches the skin showing all possible facets of jasmine. In the first phase of evolution, it is possible to feel the indolic jasmine, the sensual and the fruity, as well as the dirty jasmine, the carnal and the green. It's like diving into an absolute of jasmine that exhales with perfection. Then, about 2 hours after application, the floral aspect becomes calmer and you can notice nuances that are greener and vegetable, so to speak. I believe it is the smell of green shoots. At the same time, a slight sweetness lards the base of the fragrance and the musk also becomes more vivid. At this stage, I find myself intrigued by the distinctive aroma and I wonder if I would have the courage to buy a bottle for my own use. So, the reason speaks louder than the emotion and I remember that A La Nuit is not a perfume made for men, according to Serge's option. It worths saying that in addition to project very well, it also remained for more than 10 hours on my skin. I can see several women wearing this perfume: the single, the engaged, the innocent, the naughty, the naive, the smart, the simple or the elegant. As well as all the nuances of jasmine were bottled in a fragrance, with A La Nuit all women can be one.

I'm enjoying something of a jasmine-fest this evening - wearing A la Nuit and in another room burning a beautiful Indian jasmine incense. (Thanks to @Galya for generous decant!) Reading the reviews and comparisons between A La Nuit and Sarassins it's obvious that one of the dividers is indolic jasmine - i.e fecal notes. I have absolutely no issue with fecal notes in A La Nuit because they seem to be there, naturally, but haven't been ramped up deliberately, which usually annoys me because it stands out as fake (I've used pure absolute of jasmine as bath oil and A La Nuit feels very authentic) I can see why people would prefer Sarassins to A La Nuit in as much as Sarassins is more complex. But this evening I'm just enjoying jasmine. A La Nuit reminds me a little of my very first perfume, when I was about 13, which was the Body Shop's Jasmine. It's simple in that sense, but A La Nuit has much more depth. And yes, you could buy a very high quality jasmine absolute, but that would set you back about as much as the perfume! What Lutens seems to have done is add a fruity note which (reminds me of pear-drops at first, a bit like acetone) which combined with Jasmine's natural banana/green quality makes this really project an aroma (as Jasmine flowers do in real life). The fruit and clove notes also cut through and lift jasmine's viscous heavy quality (it's viscous and heavy in absolute). The dry down seems to suddenly drop off after two hours into a mild benzoin/jasmine skin scent, though it lingers longer on clothes Indole notes have been compared to a horse-sweat smell,and I spent many a day in my youth brushing down sweaty horses and ponies while working in horse stables - maybe that's where my tolerance for sweaty perfume notes stems from! The upshot is, I love jasmine, and will happily wear this on sunnier days, or perhaps layered with other perfumes. Sillage (on my skin anyway) - powerful for 15 minutes then calms and fades to skin scnt after 1 hour. Longevity - around three hours but lingers longer on clothes