Supercritique Les Eaux Primordiales

If you're set on trying the Supercritique Les Eaux Primordiales collection, here's a cheat sheet from someone who's been researching these fragrances for years. And yes, Supercritique isn't a perfume for supercritics, but a process for creating exceptionally authentic raw materials that most closely capture a living scent.

One of my favorites is Champaca. Indian jasmine with a sweet banana-yellow core, its sweetness melting in the poisonous milky sap of some tropical tree. The texture is more like whipped egg whites on a tiny cake. You want to lick them with the tip of your tongue.

Champaca Les Eaux Primordiales,

Aldehydes, grapefruit, bergamot, jasmine, champaca, cyclamen, plum, labdanum, cedar

In the courtyard of the house in Milan where I stayed during the Esxence exhibition, a gardenia bush with a single white flower huddled. It greeted me at dusk with a cool, slightly mushroomy aroma, and even after a day of scents, it stopped me in my tracks. Gardenia Les Eaux Primordiales is exactly that: dusk, the radiant whiteness of a single flower, and the slightly tart note of pear pastille.

Gardenia Les Eaux Primordiales,

Bergamot, pepper, rose, jasmine, gardenia, raspberry, patchouli, saffron, sandalwood

Magnolia is the frosty and soapy scent of a living flower with its thick, slightly waxy petals veined with pink and green. It has the naive freshness of apple blossom and the decay of a dying lily, but overall, it's a photographically accurate portrait of magnolia.

Magnolia Les Eaux Primordiales,

osmanthus, orange blossom, apricot, fig, frangipani flower, ylang-ylang, vanilla

Rose is a rose without a rose. The illusion of a raspberry rose, created by pink peppercorn, geranium, and currant leaf. It's more landscape than botany, the freshness of greenery and cold stones than stamens and petals.

Rose Les Eaux Primordiales,

Pink pepper, bergamot, rose, blackcurrant, cardamom, myrrh, incense, ambroxan

Neroli Les Eaux Primordiales – a gentle breeze through orange tree branches, lush night-blooming jasmine and white daffodils, sweet mimosa and delicate pink carnation. There are more petals, pollen, and color here than in any other fragrance in the collection, and if I had to choose one, it would be Neroli. It sounds complex and therefore somehow outdated. A fragile boutonniere. A postcard from the past, smelling of Jean Patou perfume.

Neroli Les Eaux Primordiales,

Aldehydes, mandarin, bergamot, neroli, jasmine, orange blossom, tuberose, petitgrain, white musk, guaiac wood, vanilla

Mimosa, on the other hand, is a modern and realistic picture of a gray city, gray March days, with ankle-deep gray snow and meltwater beneath, and the only reminders of spring are the skinny mimosas and freesias in the flower shop windows. Very March, very mimosa.

Mimosa Les Eaux Primordiales,

Aldehydes, cyclamen, bergamot, neroli, jasmine, tuberose, orange blossom, mimosa, white musk, ambroxan.

Tubrose Supercritique Les Eaux Primordiales is actually a gardenia ice cream. Pretty and light, unlike the trendy vegetable-green tuberoses, it will appeal more to those who fell in love with tuberoses in the early 2000s.

Tuberose Les Eaux Primordiales,

Aldehydes, bigarade, bergamot, almond milk accord, jasmine, tuberose, ylang-ylang, sandalwood, patchouli, white musk, amber.

Crocus Les Eaux Primordiales. The strangest in the Supercritique collection.

It truly is a crocus, its petals delicately scented with spring, and its stigmas (the reproductive organ) are used to make one of the most expensive spices – saffron. This duality is immediately apparent. The milky, fresh scent of petals, reminiscent of a pink tulip, suddenly fills with the scorching pungency of saffron in the empty spring air, thickening and acquiring the velvety texture of soft suede. The aftertaste reveals a touch of incense, woody warmth, and the green of dried aromatic herbs.

Crocus Les Eaux Primordiales,

Ginger, thyme, rosemary, saffron, orange blossom, tolu, benzoin, Atlas cedar, suede, patchouli, leatherette, labdanum

Plumeria Supercritique Les Eaux Primordiales promises to be a bestseller, but immediately forget everything you knew about the real flower. On the blotter: cherry blossoms, thick cherry syrup with cherry pits (labdanum); on the skin, a cherry dessert is topped with orange jelly, whipped cream, and powder. A mountain of powder. But the sum total isn't food, but a living, evolving perfume.

Plumeria Les Eaux Primordiales,

Almond, red berries, bergamot, heliotrope, iris, tonka bean, vanilla, patchouli