L'Innommable Serge Lutens 2018

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6.9 / 10 22 Ratings

A perfume by Serge Lutens for women and men, released in 2018. The scent is spicy-resinous. The longevity is above-average. It is being marketed by Shiseido Group / Beauté Prestige International.
Pronunciation

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Main accords

Spicy

Resinous

Oriental

Woody

Smoky

Fragrance Notes

Cumin

Benzoin Siam

Videos

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Ratings

Scent

6.922 Ratings

Longevity

8.415 Ratings

Sillage

7.515 Ratings

Bottle

7.626 Ratings

Submitted by DonVanVliet, last update on 11.02.2024.

Reviews

4 in-depth fragrance descriptions

12/07/2020

Intersport
62 Reviews

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Intersport

L'Innommable, Beckett, 1953

Cumin, fenugreek, and helichrysum will probably forever be doomed to be simplified in 'western' forums to curry, Indian cooking, and subcontinental grocery stores. I wonder if in appropriate forums in India Jicky et al are also mentioned in the same breath as Coq Au Vin and Rosemary Potato?! L'Innommable - based on a Beckett play, why not - is perhaps Luten's most distinctive Immortelle / Helichrysum / Strawflower perfume, which with its cumin proportions actually evokes memories of spice blends - specifically, of the complexity of Japanese 'Indira' Curry Powder: ostensibly simple-seeming but in truth, elaborate due to numerous ingredients, including unexpected ones like orange zest.

L'Innommable works similarly, there is certainly more at work than indicated. I'm Sables (1985) fan and whenever someone talks about 'curry' in perfumes I become alert, it could be something with Helichrysum. If you don't like this plant, L'Innommable will quickly turn you away, and Lutens has already presented more complex fragrances with strawflower notes with Arabie (2000), Chêne (2004) or most recently Le Participe Passé (2018), but never as reduced as here. L'Innommable is intense, I use it - for all its Helichrysum fascination - most sparingly, and the development is linear - meaning virtually no dynamics. Fenugreek and cumin are in the foreground, and below the benzoin note slumbers a barely sweet and only minimally bitter note of Immortelle Absolut. Why such a special interest fragrance was chosen as a prelude to the gratte ciel repackaging and the associated price development, which seems like a retirement plan for Lutens - is strange, L'Innommable if interested in Immortelle nevertheless worth a test.

04/20/2019

10
Bottle 10
Sillage 9
Longevity 10
Scent

Zago
1 Review

Zago

Helpful Review 4

Lutens is back

This is the Lutens I felt in love when I discovered Chêne, Fumerie Turque, Santal de Mysore.. years ago. A drop of it and you are sure to be taken in a journey.

L’Innommable is a really well made combo of spices, dried fruits and resins. Cumin is quite prominent and remember me the aura of Chêne and El Attarine, but this latest issue seems to be on steroids !
Drydown is all about rounded and caramelized benzoin.

10/26/2018

8
Bottle 9
Sillage 9
Longevity 3
Scent

Valrahmeh
19 Reviews

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Valrahmeh

Top Review 19

Indian smell of food

Smelly smells in hotel cupboards and stale pub smells that have settled into clothes regularly bring me to the brink of death. Recently on the train from Strasbourg to Paris I enjoyed 2 hours the olfactory remains of onions, Munster cheese, bacon and smoke, which clearly came from an Alsatian Flammkuchenbude. And now they were emanating from a denim jacket hanging on the hook directly behind my head. Since the train was full, I could not move and tied a silk cloth sprayed with Chanel 22 around my nose. Although face veiling is forbidden in France. But I would have had good arguments for it. Somehow I staggered out of the train after about 2 hours at the Gare de l'Est and even felt the dusty-sweet smell of the metro as a relief. That means something, because I actually hate him too. Fortunately my professional appointment went by faster than I expected and so I unexpectedly had the afternoon off. So nothing like going into the Palais Royal, into the garden, past the usual stupid Selfie tourists, under the arcades - to Lutens. We did it! We did it!
I wanted to buy El Attarine, no idea why, probably the subtle dried fruit notes had stuck in the synapses.
In the darkened Lutens shop, a beautiful saleswoman Madonna with flowing hair is always scurrying around and saying her usual saying: "Je peux vous aider?"
Yeah, sure, El Attarine. But first of all I had to try the novelty of the house, L'innomable, that which cannot be named, raved the Madonna. Sounded very promising.
Until I got a splash of it on my hand. And I almost vomited: A plate of saffron rice with curry chicken at the Indian restaurant, whose smell got stuck in a jeans jacket. I was finished, I was still smelling the train ride in my neck, I had to go to the door, such a dainty automatic iron door, the saleswoman Madonna got a fright, I breathed deeply outside and stared into the garden. I don't-want-no-smell-after-eat!! God damn it.
When I came back in, the Madonna taught me it was the Siam-Benzoe. I smiled nicely. It wouldn't have helped to tell her that it was more like the smell of a Siamese cat steamed in curry.
So I grabbed my El Attarine and escaped. I also found several samples in the black bag, including L'innomable. I think the Madonna wanted to convert me so badly.
A few days later and after overcoming the stale clothes I sprayed it bravely into the air. Nah, guys. Who wants to smell like an Indian restaurant? It doesn't work at all

08/13/2018

7
Bottle 4
Sillage 8
Longevity 7
Scent

StellaDiverF
213 Reviews

StellaDiverF

A Continuation of Lutens' Immortelle

After last year’s Bourreau des Fleurs, Serge Lutens seems to continue his olfactory exploration of immortelle with this year’s L’Innommable.

The fragrance opens with delicious dried stone fruits. Apricots, plums and peaches are carefully dried under the sun, then spiced up by cumin, piquant but not necessarily sweaty. A few drops of honey and caramel drip from the immortelle and benzoin onto the dried fruits, just enough to complement their sweet flavour without thickening the texture. Finally, a pinch of salt rounds everything up, amping up the gourmand sensation without leveling up the sweetness.

This kind of spicy dried fruits appearing rather frequently in Lutens’ compositions, it’s now widely regarded as one of his olfactory signatures. As a result, L’Innommable instantly pops a few names into my head: Arabie, El Attarine and the aforementioned Bourreau des Fleurs. I didn’t compare them side by side, but from my memory, I’d say the spices, especially the cumin, play a much stronger role and are overall sharper in Arabie than in L’Innommable, while Bourreau des Fleurs feels more caramel-y. El Attarine has the least fruity elements out of these four, but its emphasis on honeyed caramel-cumin duality of immortelle combined with a certain dense animalic muskiness makes it closer to L’Innommable in the dry down.

To be clear, L’Innommable doesn’t have the same muskiness as El Attarine, but it achieves a similar effect via the intermediate of something reminiscent of tuberose and sandalwood. The tuberose is not at all camphorated or diffusively sweet or creamy, but somehow is bent inward and rendered densely nutty by the sandalwood-like nuance. These two emerge from underneath about 1 hour in, lending the dried fruits a surprisingly leathery touch. The combined effect is not dissimilar to the leathery immortelle-tuberose of Histoires de Parfums Tubéreuse 3 Animale.

L’Innommable then stays more or less the same until the end, with occasion woody smokes sizzle through the musky tuberose and leathery dried fruits. The sillage is relatively close with an 8-hour longevity on a hot day.

Overall, I quite enjoy L’Innommable, especially its leathery and musky tuberose twist on the immortelle and his signature spicy dried fruits. However, the fact that it reminds me of several other fragrances does make me pause. Granted, its price, while high-end, is not the most outrageous in that category. But it doesn’t seem as efficient as other more reasonably priced immortelle or immortelle-tuberose fragrances, either. Personally, I’d be more excited if it was released in the regular range, but if you happen to be exploring immortelle in perfumery, it would be interesting to sample too.