Poivre Noir

L'Orpheline's less melancholy cousin, Poivre Noir shares that other perfume's deceptive simplicity and subtlety. Like L'Orpheline's treatment of its incense note, Poivre Noir's black pepper is not punchy and sharp, but restrained. Compared to L'Orpheline, Poivre Noir is a little more masculine, a little less long-lasting, and just slightly sweeter (though this is by no means a sweet fragrance). I should stress, it doesn't really smell like L'Orpheline. But it wears similarly and my guess is that if you like one, you'd like the other. And if you do like it, Poivre Noir can be very versatile. Though it's not crowd pleasing or really blind-buy safe (it's far too specific), it's often available for under $60 at discounters. And at that price it's an absolute steal.

It's Black Pepper alright! At first smell from the bottle, you get full pepper: slightly bitter, spicy and a little old-school. After spraying, it unravels with something green and then something sweet. Compared to other Lutens, it doesn't develop or evolve too much, or deviate from the initial concept of black pepper. It never goes too sweet but stays fairly masculine and gives off my father's aftershave in the 80s vibes... It has its place... for me, mainly when I want something more linear and less complex than other Lutens and that's cool. I have mediterranean ollive skin and those spicy scents work well with it. The drydown lasts a fairly long time.

I LOVE THIS FRAGRANCE SO MUCH that I wish I never smelled it bc I am not in the tax bracket for shit like this 😭😭 Love the pepper, it’s not too masculine smelling... on my skin it has almost sweet undertones. My sample spray definitely lasted 8+ hrs no problem. Have genuinely never loved a fragrance as much as this one.

This fragrance is gorgeous. Simple and masculine–it combines cedar and pepper to create a signature worthy masculine scent. It performers well and is unique enough to provoke unsolicited comments from women whenever I wear it.

a timeless fresh masculine scent, nothing unique about it, but its does justice in this category. so underrated, hard to love yet easy to hate.

@Eastport lol I’m broke, the store I was at only had full sized bottles but I’ve seen a few travel size ones on mercari that I’m eyeing :3

As a lover of black pepper; this is tremendous. Absolutely perfect in my opinion.

Spicy black pepper on a bed of musky synthetic calones. Only Serge Lutens can pull off these linear "anti perfume" beauties like this and my favorite Eau Froide. Theres not much going on here but let it settle on your skin, then the subtle transitions happen over the 8 plus hours of its wear. The unisex scent has moderate sillage and excellent longevity. It is simple and mysterious. Some may argue the emperors not wearing any clothes. But for those initiated into this venerable brands minimalist aesthetics, the ride will be exciting. Enjoy!

A very nice and a simple scent, not very complex (the scent) - pure pepper with a small undertone of some kind of a citrus, not sure that it’s even citrus or twist of geranium or ginger or something green like vetiver/moss !!!! Really can’t explain. it has some a little of leathery/oud feel. Not very strong but either week Long lasting and not in your face like comme des garçons kind of pepper I like it, very masculine not for everyday use, day or signature scent. Those who don’t like it give it some time.

Right after spraying, my nose was tickled by a blast of pepper. However, the pepper calmed down quickly and was joined by a fresh ginger note, along with some citrus. Only once dried down, I started to perceive some warmth together with a pleasant and fresh spiciness that smelled like an infusion of fresh ginger, lemon and black pepper. The interesting combination of fresh and warm notes makes me think that this could be a lovely fragrance to wear in fall.

I disagree with the negative reviews, I can say yes it s simple non changing or linear perfume yet very nice and safe with a good quality; ok in one fact that it s a bit far from Mr Lutens creations which are more original and which used to be a more complex game of layers . furthermore i dont know if it s really formulated of 2 ingredients. Myself i can easily buy such a masculine decent and elegant perfume. Merci Mr.Lutens

70% woody amber, 10% pepper, 20% something missing. It doesn't smell bad exactly, but it seems lazy, especially for such a prestigious brand. There are hundreds of similar basic synthetic-smelling perfumes like this, it's just boring.

If you like Molton Brown Black Pepper Bath I guarantee you'll like this perfume. Near exact match.

Despite the brand being known for their heady, Arabesque compositions, the much subtler "Mohairs" of Lutens include some of the greatest achievements in recent fragrance history such as Iris Silver Mist and Serge Noire. Poivre Noir now joins the collection, but I think ultimately isn't for me. Poivre Noir opens with an unusually stereotypically masculine synthetic blast which recalls to me the mood (though not the smell) of the brand's own L'Eau de Paille (which incidentally I prefer). Yes, the first few moments of Poivre Noir take me to a drugstore masculine scent shelf, replete with names like "steel", "blue" and "sport". After a couple of minutes on skin the scent opens up and a strong, pungent black pepper note emerges but while the scent of black pepper is absolutely present the texture, seemingly, is not. To me, black pepper implies cracking, milling, grinding, and calls for a "snappy" texture, but Poivre Noir is persistently watery, cloud-like and reminds me of mist or fog. However, rather than water this fog is made of black pepper-infused tea, if that's even possible to imagine... It's not as bad as it sounds but I also don't mean to imply it's somehow good either. I do admire the brand's continued pushing of boundaries but I'm afraid that as far as the "cooling spicy" category goes (to which Poivre Noir undoubtedly belongs) Lutens' own Serge Noire has this beat a hundred times over. It is definitely an intriguing scent and longevity on me is okay (6 hours). Extremely conventionally masculine (which is unusual for a Lutens and will be part of why it's not doing much for me) but on a woman this might somehow work better given the contrast? Not sure what to make of this one, but I encourage fans of the Mohair sub-collection to give it a try and see if they can find whatever it is I'm missing here.

Am I crazy or is this just a "spicier" version of L'orpheline? And by spicier, I really only mean a puff of "pepper" for a few minutes and then nothing else... Because, let's face it, spicey isn't really a thing that's happening here. Woody, yes, but pepper? Only if you've never encountered pepper in your life before. L'orpheline at least has this airy feel to it, whereas Black Pepper feels constrained, trapped in a cedar box filled with pencil shavings that suffocates and dims whatever potential this perfume pretends it wants to have. Get this it you really want a spicey/woody Lutens and you don't already have L'orpheline. Otherwise, you can find much better elsewhere.

Smells very linear at first, but SL never does linear things. At every whiff I find a new layer. Very fresh, "sporty" fragrance, I get the disappointment of all those who expect a deeper experience from a SL creation, also because an untrained nose will easily mistake it for a far more commercial scent - from the 90s. As the initial green notes fade away I smell something more fruity, like grapefruit maybe? The pepper comes out stronger in the drydown. Definitely not my cup of tea, but I would not say it's bad.

Aside from the usual high quality of blending and ingredients, there is little i can praise here. Black pepper and nutmeg, that's it. Safe and mass appealing - sure, but rather uninspired and one note as well. What a drop off from SL as of late, i guess all the good ones are reserved for the bell jar line now. Another one bites the dust.

Poivre Noir smells... like pepper. In the background, a small, undefined green note, perhaps aromatic, arrives much later, but the star is indeed the pepper. In short, a disappointment. Edit: this green/aromatic side ends up mixing perfectly with the pepper smell, which makes it more pleasant, but I'm far from convinced.

Pleasant fragrance, but not the quality I expect from the revered Serge Lutens, whom I admire very much. I had wished for a little more punch and spice that keeps going on for hours. Instead it’s quite mainstream and average. I’m hoping for more power and creativity next time they launch something new.

I’m a hugeeee fan of peppery perfumes, but this is soo so weak on me. L’orpheline from the same house sticks to my skin and develops very well, this unfortunately doesn’t. Still, definitely worth checking out for spicy perfumes fans, I just wish I could experience this properly

Upon sniffing this in store, this one didn't move me, but somehow I ended up with a sample from one of the Paris stores anyway, so I made my spouse wear it yesterday. A very cold (low 30s F), bright spring day. At first the black pepper is very strong, along with some cold, blond woods. Something in the blend it a bit sour. The scent actually matched the atmosphere of the day very well, but I wouldn't say it was pleasant. It dried down to a very dull cedar smell and burned off almost entirely by hour 5.

Don’t know if there is something wrong with my sample. I don’t get any pepper except from the five/ten first seconds; a lovely short lived experience. After that just a synthetic blast! Nope!

Serge Lutens #20 - Moldy pepper, an illusion of incense resins. My expectations from Poivre Noir was a scent similar to L’Orpheline and that is mostly because of the reviews. Now that i got to smell it, i believe they only share a common theme or atmosphere, that of relative simplicity and grey-ness. Other then that, they are standalone fragrances and i see no redundancy with them. If anything, its a cousin of Serge Noire because i can tell that they are kin. They both aproach spices in a bold manner, only Poivre Noir has a slightly less heavy and complex nature. To my nose, the peppery accord is very peculiar in this composition and im glad for that because i expect nothing less from Serge Lutens. Together with the nutmeg, they create a resinous illusion and a realistic, authentic churcy one at that. Just days ago i said about La Couche du Diable that in the drydown i get churchy resins and it was the first time i trully felt that with a Serge Lutens. Poivre Noir also has such inclinations, atleast to my nose. Label me crazy but viewed from this angle it reminds me of Sorcinelli’s Reliqvia, but a far milder and simplified version. They share the note of nutmeg so i don’t know... Its not difficult for me to sepparate the pepper from the resinous impression, yet even so, the peculiar nature of it still stands. The pepper in Poivre Noir is...well...not very peppery, meaning, it lacks the nose tingling, sneeze inducing qualities real black pepper has. From this point of view, its a “romanticized” pepper accord. To be fair tho, reducing the pepperyness to a “romanticized” version is not right eighter because it does have other qualities real black pepper has. Pepper is one of those spices that goes bad more easily then others and when that happens, it smells stale and almost moldy. I get that in Poivre Noir to a degree. Technically it is a dusty, dry-spicy perfume, not to be mistaken with fresh-spicy as Fragrantica describes it because there are no aromatic or airy qualities present here that to me signify “fresh-spicyness”. As the perfume dries down it softens to a point where i almost sense hints of sweetness and that might be an influence from the nutmeg yet again. I don’t speak French but my mother tongue is also of latin origins and i know that French words also have genders, the nouns and adjectives do too. The adjective “Noir” has a masculine gender (Noire being the feminine) and so is Poivre Noir as a perfume. Its far more masculine then unisex in my opinion. I find Poivre Noir an interesting aproach to realising a heavily pepper oriented perfume and its trully a niche creation. Only niche perfumery is willing to narrow down on a particular ingredient with such purpose and play around with it. For that i respect this creation even if olfactively it doesn't please me.

This is less basic than people give it credit for and i dont think theyve tested it properly- which is to my dismay because unlike everybody else who wanted something interesting from serge, i actually love a pepper forward fragrance and wish this was as boring and simple as everybody thinks it is. I see in certain lights, spraying this lightly on clothes, this is just a simple cool pepper with way too much of some certain modern aromachemical as the backbone (is it ambroxan? Not sure but it leaves my clothes smelling like aromachemicals more than it does pepper) My issue is that this turns into the most repugnant thing ever- and if this had ELDO type marketing as something intentionally gimmick-ly awful then people’s impressions of the scent would be much different. I would just blame my skin chemistry but i get the same thing on most fabrics too- this starts out as a straightforward pepper- fresh, old school, a little too heavy on the aromachemicals like i said but still great. Then this aspect that starts as a subtle hum- a light lime that isnt that complemetary to the pepper but still acceptable- becomes louder and louder in the fragrance. It takes on a life of its own and envelops everything, it is sour and repulsive and ends up morphing into a photorealistic soured milk accord on top of some pepper as an afterthought. On certain fabrics this really does act like you think it would- a simple pepper, and that lime accord in the back. And on others its the most abhorrent thing in my collection, seemingly intentionally so? I cant believe this would be a mistake, but what i will say is this is far from serge losing their edge or putting out something basic like many people are suggesting. And honestly something basic would have been better than this. It really feels awful in a gimmicky way but wasnt marketed as that and then no one really picked up on it because this wasnt a popular release? Strange

really love the first few hours. it has this very attractive, airy, mildy fruity spiciness that has a lot of dimension yet feels wrapped in a minimalist aesthetic. I love that nutmeg note. The aroma is sophisticated and warming in the base, where cedar comes forward with a set of other spices that feel a bit savory like possibly cumin, something curry-like...something I can't specifically point out which gives it a fuller spice-mix effect and characteristic body odor vibe (that I have no issue with). In the end remnants of citrus from the pepper and that sharp glowing cedar aroma are the last things standing and feel a little...unspectacular....less inspiring? But it's still pretty great. I find that it takes up a space similar to French Lover for me though- pepper freshness, mild sweaty nuance, incense, fairly typical cedar-y warmth that finds it's way into many men's scents....FL is much more musky and ambery but it's given me pause on picking up a bottle as I'm trying to avoid too much overlap. Still, I've been attracted to some of these other similar pepper perfumes recently like Le Labo's Poivre 23, Noir Encens by Coty, Max Richter's perfume with CDG, and this one is easily near the top of the list now. I always found blackpepper by CDG to be a bit too big and imposing. edit: I bought a bottle and unfortunately that generic warm-cedary ambered drydown feels both overdone and uninteresting for the majority of the experience. Where I once smelled subtlety and dimension and an airy, ethereal kind of calm I now sense...mundanity? a bridge to a world of predictable, long lasting ambered perfumes that share a certain warm-woody aromachem

Classy, fresh and crisp. Starts with the signature Sege Lutens industrial cleaner blast opening and quickly becomes a nice smooth refreshing scent. Lasts longer than most fresh scents I own though. It's not nuclear, but it has pretty good performance, and anyways with something this refined it probably shouldn't scream "look at me!". Probably suitable for any occasion other than laying around watching TV. I guess I get the pepper, spices and cedar but they combine to form something unique, there is almost an unfruity citrus thing going on? Similar to Uncut Gem from Frederic Malle because to me they seem so mass appealing to everyone except for big mean bad-review-leavin niche frag snobs. I would definitely recommend this to someone who wears lots of designer perfume to maybe initiate them into a higher realm; same with Uncut Gem. However, if you like the more challenging aspects of niche perfumery you might want to steer clear. Can definitely picture someone who never played hackey-sack in their 65K dollar Benz wearing it.

Freshly-milled black pepper on top of metallic woody-amber aromachemicals. The pepper note is reminiscent of Serge Noire - black pepper with anise inflections and onion funkiness. Way more likable and less gross, though. I can see the comparison to Comme des Garçons' Blackpepper. They both consist of tenacious pepper note on top of a woody base. Serge's pepper is more fantasical than CDG, which the latter I find too realistic and sneezy. The drydown is where Serge lost me. Poivre Noire feels very lazy. It does smell like an entry-level masculine perfumes 10 hours in. In comparison, go smell CDG and marvel at its smoky, sweet-balsamic cedar base. Serge has been exploring new aesthetics and I think Poivre Noire would fit right in besides L'Orphelline, but I don't think that's necessarily a compliment. I will take this loss. Serge has been producing my recent favourites such as Le Participe Passe and Fils de Joie.

this is easily one of the most attractive scents ive ever had the pleasures of testing. all i can think of is being in secluded a wellness retreat and the person you love sits right besides you in the lobby and this is what they smell of. airiness from the mountain air drifting swiftly into the lobby via the veranda, and the perfume on them smells of pepper and woodiness. mixed in with a hint of an expensive subtle lotion the hotel room has. to be honest, i dont know why or how im imagining all of this but this fragrance made me long for someone i never had but i could vividly paint a picture of. it kind of made me sad a bit. nonetheless im getting a bottle lmao

Spicy woody? The exact description of this perfume. Two words versus three notes. It's basically a combination of black pepper and cedarwood warmed slightly with nutmeg. It also seems a little ambery, but I think it's just a ghostly accord created by combining cedar with nutmeg. It's a perfume with a modern scent, some carpings would say that it leans towards the so-called blue perfumes, again , one more... Maybe, but it's a true Lutens: high quality ingredients, elegance, style , natural scent... So no chemical-ambrox-blue hotchpotch. It's clear that it's unisex, but it seems like it would look better on a man... in my opinion

First impression: A niche Royal Oud (I consider Creed luxury vs niche). Mainly due to the strong cedar, incense and clove; albeit this has nutmeg. Definitely no oud in this. In fact, you can appreciate the oud in Royal Oud better after comparing them side by side. It’s not a 1:1, but unless you’re into this scent profile i would compare and get one or the other. The Creed is more posh vs Poivre Noir’s outgoingness. I find that after you own a good lot of really good, well established, scent profiles, anything thereafter is just going to be a variation. Bottom line: awesome scent.

A really dainty black pepper -- there's a HEAP of gentle woods in the background, also, unlisted of course, and this carries the black pepper forward, but by and large, I found this largely forgettable. Disappointing. It's not bad, in fact, it smells nice, but it's INCREDIBLY safe -- like, I'd expect a MASSIVE mainstream designer to pump this out. I expect to smell this from Zara or Ralph Lauren. I wasn't shocked that SL put this out, moreso a little disappointed, and if I'm being 100% honest, confused. It's not simple, it's not basic, it's just incredibly normal.

Blind buy disaster. I love pepper but this doesnt smell like pepper. Like Serge Noir & Feminite du Bois there is a spice, warm spice like cooking that just does me in. I love Uncle Serge and have gone through several bottles of cool/cold incense and always think I love spice. Do I? This is confusing. I can't seem to get past the food smell. ugh. I waitied so long for this to arrive. - update. on him it smells fantastic. This is all very annoying. Serge Lutens, Never Boring.

Just what it says: a tamed, perfumed black pepper up front, and the shadow of that Serge Noire spicy balsamic base humming in the distant background. I was quite surprised to be also reminded of the green-dark Aramis Havana spices, devoid of their 80's vibes. There are hints of incense and ashes from different woods. It's a Noire scent, no doubt, but the plain, slightly sour cedar base in the end seems like a compromise.

Picked up a bottle of Ecrin de Fumee the other day at Myer, got a generous 10ml bottle of this as a bonus. Definitely a safe scent, but still divine nonetheless, probably not full bottle worthy, but this 10ml will be definitively used. I was going to pick up Poivre Samarcande, but this will be a great substitute.

Quoth the raven, nevermore! A showstopper fragrance worth every single penny. Photorealistic freshly grounded black pepper with a touch of lime. For London folks this can be tested at Libery. Update: Pair this with Aesop's black pepper body cream for an unforgettable sensory experience!

This SL smells the most fresh and masculine to me. I appreciate vintage upscale gentlemen with seductive undertones, embottled here in Serges 2022 release. I really dig pepper as a note, not sure why it isnt more popular in mens designers. It was in the 90s

Ingredients look simple but it is very mysterious fragrance, it confuse me twice I smell it and then smell it again after a two month, then I bought 100ml without hesitations Unique difficult to find a match I will use it in winter

Quite an energising peppery fresh opening but wow did not expect Serge Lutens to put out something so generic. Especially disappointing when you get to the base which is all designer-level cedar and so soo much ambroxan.

Poivre Noir flew under the radar with, surprisingly, no reviews from YT dedicated to it so far. Why? Lack of buzz or substance? Too bad I haven't had a chance to try it yet, be it an overly safe scent or not.

I am chomping at the bit to try this one. I love L'Eau Froide (cold water) but can't find it in oz anymore. I love pepper. fingers crossed as it will be a blind buy.

Similar to Commes des garçons black pepper but more earthy and naturalistic. Really fantastic simple dumb reach type vibe if you just wanna smell dark and masculine

@isa.orgz You can get a 100ml bottle for around $95 through a number of the online retailers. How much were YOU expecting to pay for it?

This smell like any church from Latin America , Brought me some memories when I sniff it for the first time . Really a nostalgic Smell

Looking to sell an almost brand new 100 ml bottle - doesn’t work on me. Dm me if interested :)

It smells like ketchup. Worst Serge so far.