Orson Carine Roitfeld 2019

Orson Welles!
Who doesn’t like to adorn themselves with this giant of acting, this great director and storyteller, whose radio play of War of the Worlds Carine Roitfeld listened to with her whole family as a young girl, captivated.
Just that voice!
And she loves New York (who doesn’t?). The lush floral arrangements of the Carlyle Hotel in Uptown, which could come straight from an Orson Welles film. “But my lover is an artist living downtown, which is a city of its own. So, it's a complex mix of two cities,” says the Frenchwoman in an interview.

Aha.

In her fragrance “Orson,” I recognize neither Orson Welles nor does the image of an artist living in Downtown (or anywhere else) pop up in my mind.
The lush floral arrangements do fit, although these could just as easily adorn any random hotel lobby in the middle of nowhere rather than a New Yorker one.

So much for the marketing blah-blah, but that’s just how it is.

The fragrance is still good, but hello!
Aurélien Guichard composed it, and the man is known for his talent. He has proven this not only with all the new Piguet fragrances.
Here, he places a flower at the center that is unfortunately not often encountered in modern, contemporary perfumery: the flower of the hawthorn.
Usually, it comes along with mimosa and vanilla flower (also known as heliotrope), but here it’s paired with tuberose for a change.
However, anyone who believes that the notorious loudspeaker tuberose will overpower everything, namely the hawthorn, is mistaken.
Guichard has subtly harnessed the temperamental diva. She lightly accentuates the hawthorn, giving it a floral, brighter touch. The flower of the hawthorn tends to lean towards a more muted tone, almost paper-like-powdery, lightly woody (and here meets mimosa and heliotrope). So that fits well. However, the mood is neither airy nor fresh; it simply doesn’t correspond to the character of the hawthorn. No, it is rather sultry and humid, like after a heavy rain shower in midsummer. Or as one would say in France: Après l’ondée.

Which brings me to the fragrance of the same name that “Orson” reminds me of.
“Orson” is in a way a modern “Après l’Ondée,” but that doesn’t mean that the Guerlain fragrance is even remotely old-fashioned, not at all. “Orson” is more of a reinterpretation of the old classic. A very independent one, as the fragrance develops quite differently in the heart and base, aside from the central hawthorn theme (probably represented by an aldehyde called ‘4-methoxybenzaldehyde’).
Here, increasingly pronounced indoles come into play. Whether they come from the hawthorn, I don’t know; that would be new to me since I’ve never associated its scent with indolic notes. Perhaps from the tuberose, which does carry indolic nuances - but so many?
Well, I don’t know. Maybe Guichard simply added a few indoles. It’s quite easy nowadays, where everything can be extracted and synthesized down to the smallest detail.
So, who knows.

In any case, “Orson” increasingly reveals this delicate facet throughout its scent development. But not only do the indolic nuances become more pronounced; there’s also an underlying urine note, like one might find in the scent spectrum of sage. Yes, I even suspect that a homeopathic drop of Animalis (or civetone) might have flowed into the formulation - it sometimes smells faintly of that.
Just imagination, perhaps.

At least the precarious indolic note doesn’t seem to be imagination, as a Fragrantica commentator describes it: “A bit like the smell of a homeless person, but not as repulsive.”
Repulsive?
Not at all, on the contrary: for me, the fragrance unfolds a distinctly erotic flair here, developing an underlying lasciviousness, playfully flirting with the promise of voluptuous sensuality - temporarily only barely concealed by the remnants of the floral bouquet.
I find that more than stimulating; I find it exciting!
Thank the god of olfaction that after all these years of ozonically clean fragrances, sweet gourmands, and synthetic woody ambers, ‘skank’ seems to be becoming somewhat socially acceptable again!

Despite all the indolic notes, “Orson” is not a veritable stinker, no worries.
A few balsams, but above all the nutty-vanilla-like scent of tonka bean keeps the lustfulness in check before it gets completely out of control.
Although I’m not a fan of the bean, I must admit that I like it very much here. It picks up the powdery-bright floral hawthorn theme and leads it into a darker, woodier tone, as if an eggshell white slowly flows into beige and finally into light brown. Here, the fragrance also increasingly loses its sweetness.
What ultimately remains on the skin after many hours is a dry-woody, minimally balsamic-sweet aroma, with the distant echo of an erotically scented flower.

Doesn’t that sound good?
It is good.
By the way, it’s absolutely unisex, at least in my impression.

After “George,” “Orson” is now the second ‘lover’ to take up residence with me.
I’ve never been scent-monogamous anyway.