01/23/2020

Duftsucht
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Duftsucht
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Hats & Scones, Strawberries & Cream
A fragrance can hardly be more British than "Bouquet de la Reine"! One thing I'll say right away: studying the fragrance pyramid - which is unavoidable in a blind purchase like this one - led me completely astray. It sounded to me like I had almost adjusted myself to something mitsouko-like inside. But Bouquet de la Reine is very British, indeed! Cool, reserved, disciplined, elegant, slim.
It is a real art to tame tuberose and ylang-ylang in such a way that they appear almost translucent, as if their radiant brilliance were trapped in a glass house through whose windows, which have not been cleaned for a long time, greenishly subdued light falls. And so the bouquet appears a little bit victorian - like some other Floris fragrances I have tested.
The bouquet starts for my nose almost completely without flowers, but with a lot of green and a lot of fruit - decidedly red, tart berries. Fruity is not my favourite scent in perfumes, but here it evokes a picture from long gone summer days: standing in the middle of the big old bush, picking red currants. When the small, fully ripe fruits are rubbed off, one or the other bursts open and spreads its characteristic sweet-sour-sour aroma in the air heated by the sunshine. From time to time a currant leaf is grated and a fresh green tone is added harmoniously.
Only gradually do the spiky, fruity green tones fade away, become softer and now the flower bouquet, which is delicately embedded underneath, also comes to the fore. I can smell tuberose and ylang-ylang when I concentrate my nose on it - and indeed, a peach breeze hovers over it too. And yet, as I described at the beginning, it remains an English garden, in which lilies of the valley and bluestones also bloom, not too neatly, but, like the fantastic English gardens, an incredible mixture of tamed profusion, formal elements and seemingly unintentional disorder.
Just as slowly and consciously pleasurable as the change from the top note to the heart note, it moves very gradually into the base. The most delicate light wood, a hint of vanilla, rounds off the bouquet perfectly towards the end.
I am thrilled with this fragrance - and I am glad that I ordered plenty of samples with my order - because I am almost certain that there are some other beauties to discover.
PS: And once again a (meanwhile a bit more cautious, you know, I think why) thanks to Susan, whose statement made me spontaneously add this royal bouquet to the long planned purchase of the wonderful "Lavender" from the same fragrance house!
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