Tebereuse Criminelle by Serge Lutens

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Image: AromaX

This perfume is not to be put on just a few moments before you leave. No – this one needs time to be tamed. You have to put it on just after the shower and go on with grooming and getting dressed. First you feel surrounded with a wintergreen mist as if you put on an antirheumatic ointment. Yes – the opening is really heavy and too medicinal. The prominent note is wintergreen, that comes probably from methyl salicilate. I have never smelled it in a real tuberose and I was very surprised when I found methyl salicilate as a component in several formulae of a tuberose floral base.

It’s difficult to smell through the harshness of the wintergreen note, but if you do it within first ten minutes after applying the fragrance you’ll find more surprises like chemical notes of rubber or asphalt. But soon the tuberose begins to break through. Desperately suppressed by the chemical notes at first it getting stronger and stronger. The nice combination of tender white petals and sultry opiating heavy smell of flesh of night tropical flower. Wintergreen remains contrasting against the tuberose for a while, but finally finds a point of balance and becomes a part of a tuberose accord. If you are lucky it happens before you have to go outside. Ready to spend at least 30 minutes on grooming after the shower and applying of Tubéreuse Criminelle? Otherwise you’ll get strange faces looking at you with compassions and thinking what harm did you try to relief with a rheumatic ointment.

But later you’ll be rewarded with an exotic heavy aura of a tuberose. It doesn’t have coconut note at the background or penetrating greenness like Carnal Flower. It’s less buttery than Tubereuse by L’Artisan, but just slightly creamy. The wintergreen at the background helps to keep a resemblance with a fresh flower. The tuberose is strong and long lasting and finally fades into vanilla dry down.