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272 reviews
Warm Bulb opens with a subtle but singular blend of fuzzed salinity combined with the scent of a heating element, evoking the imagined aroma of a Himalayan salt lamp covered in a fine patina of dust. I have several of these lamps, and mine don't smell like much of anything in particular, but this opening is always how I thought they would smell. It's the essence of warm, mineralized air, like you could smell the soft, pinky-orange glow emanating from rough-hewn salt crystals beneath a thin veil of settled particles. The fragrance makes me think of the lamp's alleged ability to ionize the air, creating an olfactory impression of a purified, slightly electric atmosphere tinged with a hint of neglect. As it develops, the scent undergoes an unexpected transition, as if a forgotten offering has been left near the lamp's warm glow: a small dried bouquet and a marshmallow, both altered by proximity to the salt lamp's warmth and accumulated residue. Imagine pressed flowers; their colors faded but still discernible, mingled with the powdery sweetness of a marshmallow slowly desiccating in the lamp's ambient heat, all covered by a ghostly layer of time's passage. Though not a scent that wildly excited me, Warm Bulb's quiet journey from dusty, electrified minerals to withered floral sweetness proved to be an interesting olfactory experience, even just to think about and write about, if not to wear.
Crushed Fruits from Regime des Fleurs shimmers and unfurls like an overripe reverie, fruit flesh and flowers awakening from brandy-soaked slumber; an ultraviolet tumble of plums, an infrared rush of raspberries, a kaleidoscopic cascade woven through the fold of a forgotten black velvet painting, glossy and dripping and beckoning with the urgency of a thousand hummingbird hearts. That 1970s canvas time-shifts into a 1990s dress, empire-waisted, bell-sleeved, phantom filigree choker at the throat, echoes of stompy boots, an ambery oxblood slash of Spice or Black Honey staining ghost-lips. A current of boozy bitterness and dusky incense, a smoky scent of hazy late neon nights bleeding into dawn, of kisses that taste like vintage lipstick from a dream you haven't had yet but always remember the moment before waking.