Cèdre Serge Lutens (2005)

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7.6 / 10 282 Ratings

Cèdre is a popular perfume by Serge Lutens for women and men and was released in 2005. The scent is woody-spicy. The longevity is above-average. It is being marketed by Shiseido Group / Beauté Prestige International.

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Perfumers

Christopher Sheldrake, Serge Lutens

Fragrance Notes

Amber, Clove, Musk, Tuberose, Cedarwood, Cinnamon

Ratings

Scent

7.6 (282 Ratings)

Longevity

8.2 (214 Ratings)

Sillage

7.4 (198 Ratings)

Bottle

7.7 (195 Ratings)

Submitted by Kankuro, last update on 18.01.2019

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Reviews

07/20/2015

8.0/10

ScentFan

Shy Cedar

Easy to imagine what this one might be, but on first sniff I smell civet and orange. That can’t be right. Actually, the real notes do simulate that impression at first: amber, clove, cinnamon, musk, tuberose and cedarwood. What I can’t find is the cedar. Overall, for me, this is an intriguing come-hither perfume. An accomplishment. As it dries, the cedar unobtrusively appears. Another SL delight.

09/14/2012

10.0 7.5 10.0 7.0/10

Ysbrand

Very helpful Review 7

Crouching tiger, hidden cedar.

Cédre is deceiving. As others have noticed, there is lack of an obvious take on cedar wood.

You wont find it in the opening. Cèdre starts with clove and more, very camphoraceous and medicinal , like a herbal remedy for cough, and this harsh opening might put some off. It is not pretty, but i find it tonic and invigorating. From the menthol-rub rise some white petals. The tuberose is so indolic i hardly recognize it, but it will evolve and bloom into a more distinctive one, but never up to the point you say "this is a tuberose perfume" Cèdre´s floral nuance is dark and deep. Mora a baritone than a tenor. Cèdre is a low key Tubereuse Criminelle.

Slightly the cedar appears, in the background, dusty, smoky and a bit sombre, in contrast to the waxy, animal tuberose. And i like it despite i am not in the mood of this moody tree. A sweet cinnamon makes Cèdre kinder. Then a rather dirty musk makes it sexy. Cèdre is shadowy and dense. And raunchy.

I understand when Serge Lutens refers himself to Cèdre as a patisserie de bois, because it has a baked quality. Like out of a wood-fired oven... in between the thin dry layers of this croissant´s puffed pastry the butter is made with emulsioned and thickened tuberose petals and cedar sawdust. And under the toasted surface, the core is tender and soft and warm. Is not gourmand like Jeux de Peau, but the butteriness is there.

When i am already think "I got you", after a couple hours, i smell other flower. Violet? nah...impossible... and now a familiar plumy fruitiness, where have i smelled this and why i dint´t notice it before? The perfume is changing suddenly, fast, and i am in a dèja vú state... and then, out of the blue, ta-dah, i am wearing Feminité de Bois. Like if an unnoticed perfume pixie had scrubbed Cèdre from my wrist and hand and sprayed it with FdB. I start to believe that many Serge Lutens perfumes are different combinations of the same ingredients. The woody drydown on my skin is exactly the same cedar of Feminité de Bois, but ashier (radiant, overripe, autumnal, flowery) which i love, so i am pleased.

But not everybody was pleased that day: my beloved wrinkled his nose and said "whatever you are wearing smells like asscrack sprayed with expensive perfume" So i underlined "animalic" in my notebook.

4 Replies

07/25/2012

jtd

jtd

Helpful Review 5

overlooked

Looking over the reviews of Cèdre I realize I’m one of only a handful who actually like it. Yes, the name’s a bit odd, but only a bit. If you’re looking for the airy, crystalline cedar of the Lutens Bois perfumes you won’t find it here. What’s here is the oily, dusty cedar like straight-up cedar essential oil. The oily quality mixes with the syrup of the amber and the booze of the camphorous tuberose.

Floriental usually implies the hybrid friendliness of amber fragrances and prettiness of florals. Cèdre subverts the genre, being more melancholic than affable, alluring rather than pretty. Lutens is considered to have reinvented the oriental. Maybe this is his reinvented floriental.

01/24/2012

7.5 5.0 10.0 9.0/10

Callas

Helpful Review 2

Wonderful cross-border

Cross-border, because sweet wouldn't have more been allowed to be.
But I was calmed fast - it is wonderfully coherent.

At first one breath menthol, it then will take soft, creamy and the spices on the wood place. But no dominance enters.

Dreary winter's days get alive! And for this reason my list of things desired gets longer.

01/20/2012

7.5 7.5 7.0/10

Sherapop

Very helpful Review 3

Ode to (not of) Cedar

With the veritable flood of cedar-rich perfumes and colognes on the market--many of which appear to feature iso-E-super--it will likely surprise many to find that Serge Lutens CEDRE is nearly (if not completely...) devoid of that note! I'm sure that many gentlemen were probably expecting Serge's take on the cedar cologne. But no, nothing of the sort is found in CEDRE!

Instead, CEDRE appears to be a metaphorically named tribute or ode to cedar. It is sometimes suggested that the most important part of a text is the blank space--what is not said--and that's my best guess of the explanation for the near (or total...) absence of cedar from this composition. I seriously doubt that the perfumer somehow "forgot" to include cedar, so there has to be another explanation.

CEDRE is a fairly sweet floriental perfume which is very tame and almost mainstream relative to the typical offerings of this house. The tuberose is not loud enough to warrant calling this a tuberose perfume, it seems to me. There is a gentle florality along with a measured spiciness (nothing like most of Serge's orientals...) all of which is tinged with a likeable sweetness.

This perfume seems more feminine than masculine to me. To pay tribute to cedar, which figures in many, many masculine colognes, this creation offers a counterbalancing feminine collection of complementary notes.

01/13/2012

7.5 2.5 7.5 7.0/10

Flaconneur

Helpful Review 4

CÈDRE by Serge Lutens

Serge Lutens' Cèdre can easily be described with one word, confusing. If you are a serious Serge Lutens fan, you might know that cedar is Serge's favorite tree. With that in mind, Cèdre should be a clearly focused, intensely woodsy scent. Not so, Cèdre has a twist.

The opening of Cèdre is a very soft, like a whisper. The cedar note makes its entrance very quietly and almost unnoticed. There is a floral note that appears but it is muddled at this point. As we wave a quick goodbye to the uneventful opening, the movement towards the heart notes are served with a heaping of dried fruit and lots of sweetness. This fragrance's namesake seems to be taking a back seat to a syrup-laden cinnamon and amber duet. Where is the tuberose you ask? It appears, like a child running in and out of the room completely ignorant of its place in this fragrance. Maybe because the tuberose is being smothered by the overly sweet ambitious duet is the reason why it's hardly noticed. The tuberose is subtle and nothing terribly distinct. The base of Cèdre gives us just a bit more cedar but also another generous helping of even more sweetness. There is also a animalistic note in Cèdre in the form of musk. This may give the fragrance a more substantial base but doesn't really improve its overall linear performance. One of the problems with this fragrance is its simplistic construction of notes. Sometimes a simple assembly can prove to be an interesting fragrance, but Cèdre is muted, vague and extremely linear.

Most Serge Lutens fragrances have great longevity and sillage. Usually, that is the desired effect, and Cèdre is no different. If you're looking for a light floral that's syrupy-sweet with a hint of cedar, you might give Cèdre a try. Considering the show-stopping performances of most of the other fragrances in the Serge Lutens collection, Cèdre might leave you disappointed.