The twelfth hour - a mysterious one?
Well, it cannot mean twelve o'clock noon - no 'High Noon', no sun at its zenith far and wide, quite the opposite: 'L´Heure Mysterieuse' is a dark fragrance, thoroughly. Aside from a few green and floral aspects that flash through the scent like lightning, it instantly spreads an aura of deep blackness. However, it is not a cool, dry blackness, but rather a damp, velvety one.
It's a bit like someone in dark robes has settled onto a pew for the midnight mass in a church clouded with incense and the scent veils of some floral bouquets, which has just been treated with fresh linseed oil varnish.
He will take these aromas clinging to his clothes into the darkness, and it is precisely these that characterize the fragrance: aromatic-spicy smoke, sweet-sticky resins, and timid floral nuances. They give the scent something almost rubbery, leaning a bit towards Bulgari's 'Black', just not quite as sweet. Yet there is some sweetness present right from the start: the sweetness of elemi resin, reminiscent of the smell of freshly stripped pine needles, only a bit more balsamic, warmer, less coniferous.
The scent of this resin forms a wonderful alliance with strong incense, whose harmony reveals an almost menthol-like facet. Amidst this dominant accord: a recurring hint of strangely non-indolic jasmine. The floral scent is indeed there, but somehow stripped of its often unbearable undertone that frequently associates with something sweetly decaying.
Perhaps this 'odour' is merely hidden behind a faint, aromatic-spicy accord of some nutmeg and a pinch of coriander - both almost inseparable. Only if one knows that they are supposed to be part of the composition could one think to faintly sense them.
Both facets of the fragrance, the floral and the spicy, are so well integrated into the smoky-resinous base tone that they at most play a subordinate role, namely to enrich and expand the scent in the background - at no point in the fragrance's development do they push themselves into the foreground.
The entire fragrance itself does not push itself into the foreground - there is nothing loud, fresh, or uplifting, only an unobtrusive, heavy melancholy, a shadowed state of mind. Thus, the scent also remains quite close to the wearer, and even when freshly sprayed, it does not develop room-filling powers. However, it remains recognizable for a long time and with a certain intensity in a closer radius.
Many hours after this resinous-smoky scent has spread its mysteriously sad aura, warm, more conciliatory tones increase, and a fine underlying sweetness, in harmony with soft patchouli notes, transforms it into a creamy skin scent that is always a pleasure to sniff, so delicate is it.
All in all, Mathilde Laurent has once again composed an exquisite, quite melancholic fragrance with 'L´Heure Mysterieuse', featuring a finely ambered base (her good old Guerlain school shines through once again), but one must be a serious type, prone to humorlessness and sadness, to find this scent suitable for oneself.
The fragrance does not correspond to my temperament and self-perception at any phase, and so I prefer to go with another creation, also dominated by incense and elemi resins, but vibrating with an underlying, frivolous-erotic vibe: Damien Bash's 'Parfum Lucifer 3'.
This is not only mysterious but also incredibly sanguine - devilishly so.
