Tubereuse Criminelle

This is a tuberose... with fangs. When I smell this, I just imagine a vampire with a wicked grin, showing his/her teeth. While Carnal Flower gives us a natural representation of the tuberose, this is a wicked and distorted interpretation of it. The camphorous and mentholated opening is quite the statement and quite prominent, and while it does subside, the menthol aspects stays with the tuberose scent during its duration. As it dries down, you get a very silky, smooth and luscious chilly and beautiful tuberose. It is very classy and very elegant. The vampire has closed its mouth now and you can see it from a farther distance, and recognize its elegance and grace despite the graveness, wickedness and coldness that it showed you in the beginning. But you can still sense the coldness that surrounds it as it walks. In Carnal Flower (the other cold tuberose fragrance), we do get that slightly cool, eucalyptus opening. But it is greener, more refreshing and natural. The whole fragrance feels more green and more botanical, remembering us of the real tuberose. Here, those aspects are amplified and made a bit more severe and grotesque, as the opening is not as much green as it is medicinal and bitter. Carnal Flower remains green and fresh and realistic, while this one, despite the natural smelling tuberose, remains strangely cold. Carnal Flower is a tad headier, while Tubereuse Criminelle is a bit smoother on the tuberose dry down. Carnal Flower is the natural, sophisticated one, while Tubereuse Criminelle is the strange, enigmatic one. The opening didn’t bother me one bit, as I love mentholated and camphorous scents. I found it quite nice and different. But I will say this, and I am sorry if I ruin the fragrance for you by saying this, but it really smells like denorex and bengay in the opening. It just does. I don’t mind it but we don’t necessarily want to smell like we are flaky or sore. Nevertheless, as it dries and calms down, this perfume shines. It is one of the nicest tuberose fragrances I’ve smelled thus far. It smells very real. The tuberose isn’t overly indolic nor heady. It is more smooth and silky. It has echoes of Fleurs d’Oranger, but less indolic and heavy, and more classy and mysterious. Longevity and silage are adequate, since I feel that if this fragrance was any stronger it would venture in the headache department. Would I get a full bottle of this? At the moment, I don’t think so. I think I am more than good with my decant, since this is not an everyday perfume for me or something I’d wear constantly, especially considering my climate. But eventually I’d like to have it in my collection, since I am sure it will stand out. If you’re a fan of tuberose and don’t mind mentholated and camphorous scents, give this a try. But you must like both since both are very pronounced.

Heart achingly beautiful. Words really cant describe my love for this fragrance. I set out to find a signature fragrance around 8 months ago, and tubereuse criminelle was among the first batch of samples I ordered. I was completely oblivious to anything fragrance related, so its somewhat of a miracle that I even stumbled upon it in the first place. Over the next 7-ish months I mourned for this fragrance, obsessing over the 1 mL vial I had of it, cursing its lack of presence on discount sites and its high pricepoint, until I managed to parse through the dredges of online perfume vendors and find a single bottle for less than $300. What a steal. Regardless, this fragrance is worth every penny of its pricetag. It begins with a blast of something that seems almost the opposite of perfume. Its cold and piercing, like a platter of petals smeared with a thick, glassy mixture of, napalm, wintergreen gum, and Vapo-Rub. That is not to say this perfume smells bad at first, in fact its controversial opening is my favorite part, its refreshing, unique, and bone-chillingly pretty. The opening is indelibly impressive, the numbing fog of ice it creates almost obscures the petals delicate scent, which sits comfortably at the bottom of this whole icy atmosphere, almost like a handful of flower petals were strewn haphazardly on the concrete of a street cloaked in a midnight mist. The chilling aspect of the perfume is rather delicate, the shards of ice eventually melt. The perfume shifts from artic to being just above freezing. The cold still lingers, piercing and painful, but not so obtrusive. A moment of thaw, rivulets of water run from once ice-bound leaves, beads of water fall from foliage and frames of homes like artificial, crystal rain in the chilly dawn, and the petals forgotten under the stiflingly glacial mist have a chance to leach their intoxicating scent into the streams of pristine meltwater. The silver filigree covered tuberose emerges at this moment, its petals crushed and bloodied, but still unendingly beautiful. Its narcotic vapors waft intoxicatingly from its bruised petals, a scent equally sensuous as it is brutal. The macerated meristem of the plant sends dainty spirals of green through the blinding white of its blooms. Emergent from the achingly icy clutches of permafrost, the tuberose is all at once full of grandeur, grace, beauty, innocence, violence, and evil. Overall, Oncle Serge did a fantastic job executing the desired concept of giving the flowers back to evil. The sleek black bottle and otherworldly fragrance just exude a certain playful evil derived from something that was once innocent and pure. This fragrance makes me feel powerful and cold, evil and sharp, like I am the tuberose, mangled and divine under the pale moonlight of a winters night.

First, a huge blast of...what? When I close my eyes I can almost believe I'm in the midst of a tropical night garden with big juicy clumps of flowers hanging all around me. But behind those flowers there is a hint of nasty. It reminds me of public rest rooms in Thailand. Not the piss and shit part but they use these little camphor smelling tablets to repel insects that live in the pipes, mostly roaches and silverfish. The smell of those tablets is lingering in the background. And there is gasoline, I repeatedly caught myself thinking: "I really shouldn't be inhaling this". As the scent develops the flower part turns more toward jasmine and hyacinth. I'm also getting mothballs and lots of menthol. And orange flowers. Normally I hate orange blossoms. On me they smell dirty and remind me of tooth decay and unwashed bodies. But in Tubereuse Criminelle they fit in, making their contribution both to the flowery part and to the skanky underbelly. Some hours later things have calmed down. There is a strong note of generic "white flower" that sometimes turns into Juicy Fruit Chewing Gum. There is also a note of mint intertwined. The mint has an interesting physical effect. As I'm not used to smell it in a setting like this I sometimes get a cold little shiver down my spine, or feel slightly unsettled by the cool sensation of it. Like I'm smelling all this flowery sweetness but I know somehow that there is something very very wrong with it. I love how the play with hot/cold adds an extra dimension to the scent. Some associate this scent with vampires, some with a blond bombshell out of a 30ies movie. Impeccable dressed up in a black tight dress, shiny red lipstick on but just wait for a while and out comes the machine gun. For me, I think of Snow White in her glass casket. When you come closer she opens her eyes and beckons you to open the lid. When you do, you realise there is no girl there but just a mass of crawling maggots reaching towards you. An olfactory representation of a beautiful shell with very nasty things going on on the inside. To be honest, even if I was looking forward to trying this one, I didn't think I'd like it. There are white flowers, which I'm not to happy about, and orange blossoms that I seriously dislike. But I love it. Somehow the ugliness of each one (as I perceive it) comes together and builds a very unique and interesting whole. This is not a scent for everyday wear, it's a scent that tells a different story to every wearer.

Criminal? Hardly. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’ve never equated tuberose with the sharp-claws-out, no-holds-barred, “I’m here!”, give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death persona. I don’t equate such strong personalities, strong confidences, rough edges but also smooth contours with a garish egotisticalness. My cat has sharp claws but she’s soft and pillowy, and she certainly purrs when she’s scratched the right way. This isn’t Fracas or Poison with their Beethoven baroque-ness or symphonic loudness, either. Perhaps that’s an effect of my age and generation. My foot down, here’s what you should expect: First is that TC needs humidity. With the correct high amount of moisture in the air a wintergreen note sings for a very long time. This can be a very green tuberose. In low humidity and low heat the green-minty-ness is muted and has significantly less longevity. In normal presentations it gives the whole of the perfume a starkly cold effect - supposedly cold and apathetic like a criminal? Not so, I feel. Geranium is afoot and is distorting proceedings. This tuberose has brushed its teeth with a pleasantly minty and baking soda-based toothpaste; it is clean and presentable and amorous, ready for a kiss with a lot of tongue. In the correct environmental conditions this lasts for a strikingly long time, but in low humidity conditions the creamy, heady, white rose and unctuous facets shine earlier as opposed to later. Do not confuse my assertion of environmental timing as a defect to what you could experience with Tubereuse Criminelle. While the stages might have varying timespans depending upon your environment, every stage is gorgeous and will make you purr just like my cat. Minty and green and bracing, to cool-customer creamy floral rose, to languid and suave vanilla. The last part, suave. Tubereuse Criminelle is like Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. It’s pop, funk, and rock all shoved into one tightly knit package of suave sexuality and confidence done by a master musical artist with an incredible backing band. Though TC may lack some of the foot-loose dynamism of Michael, the hip swinging is there. I wear TC and I want to grind against my next smooth criminal.

Tubéreuse Criminelle is an extraordinary tuberose scent. Where Frédéric Malle Carnal Flower (the tuberose gold standard for many, myself included) focuses on the bloom itself, TC considers the whole, multifaceted plant, warts and all. It is a challenging scent, sure, harder to wear than Carnal Flower or Fracas, but it is to be appreciated and admired. I adore tuberose scents, and Serge Lutens is one of my favourite houses, and I'm happy to report that TC lives up to my expectations. TC is tuberose-dominant from initial spray, with a strong camphorous opening. More minty than green initially, it is very bold and heady, with the more floral facets of tuberose unfurling in its wake. It becomes creamy and sweet, with the bubblegum quality associated with tuberose evident here. Jasmine rounds it out, lush, powdery and slightly indolic. Vanilla keeps things sweet, but is not syrupy or cloying - instead, it is dry and powdery, present in just the right quantity. After some time, I get orange blossom, uncharacteristically subdued, but adding sweetness to the white floral bouquet. I get some lily-like hyacinth later on, but tuberose is king throughout, with jasmine playing second fiddle. The amber base grows steadily in the background as this scent progresses, sweetly balsamic with an animalic muskiness that becomes more evident as it dries down. There is a warm spiciness to the drydown, complementing the amber accord beautifully, not to mention the tuberose that remains until the end. It fades to an animalic musky skin scent with tuberose. Sillage is strong and longevity is long-lasting. It is a transeasonal evening scent, and is unisex, but certainly is not for everyone. An unapologetic, challenging yet utterly captivating tuberose, TC showcases the multifaceted nature of the entire tuberose plant, enhanced to perfection by other notes that here solely serve to complement the tuberose. At face value, this is a tuberose bookended by camphor and musk, but it is in fact a masterfully-composed, high-quality composition that aims to please no-one, yet is utterly compelling. Carnal Flower is an easier wear, but this is art. Glorious. 5/5.