Portrait of a Lady Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle 2010

Portrait of a Lady by Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle

Shop now

Search on

We may earn a commission when you buy from links on our site, including the eBay Partner Network.

Shop now

Top 87 in Women's Perfume

8.2 / 10 902 Ratings

Portrait of a Lady is a popular perfume by Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle for women and was released in 2010. The scent is floral-spicy. Projection and longevity are above-average. It is being marketed by Estēe Lauder Companies. Pronunciation

Goes well with Oud Wood (Eau de Parfum)

Search on

We may earn a commission when you buy from links on our site, including the eBay Partner Network.

Main accords

Floral

Spicy

Woody

Smoky

Oriental

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Rose

Blackcurrant

Clove

Raspberry

Cinnamon

Heart Notes

Frankincense

Patchouli

Sandalwood

Base Notes

Amber

Benzoin

Musk

Perfumer

Dominique Ropion

Videos

Watch video

Ratings

Scent

8.2902 Ratings

Longevity

8.8760 Ratings

Sillage

8.4746 Ratings

Bottle

7.9678 Ratings

Value for money

6.7310 Ratings

Submitted by Fran, last update on 09.06.2023.

Rate
Collection
Classify
Notes

Reviews

22 in-depth fragrance descriptions

Popular
Latest
Oldest
Positive
Negative
Comments

04/22/2018

6
Bottle 10
Sillage 10
Longevity 10
Scent

Valrahmeh

Translated Show original

Valrahmeh

Top Review 28

Baroque painting

A terribly beautiful masterpiece. The light-dark billowing Caravaggio under the fragrances, simply magnificent. Baroque, but with class. Not fat and lavishly overloaded, but majestic and austere - just as one danced pavane at the court of Versailles.
They had fun, but always in style, they murdered, but behind the thick silk curtain. Eventually, however, the thick, already stagnant blood began to gush from underneath.
Wipe it away, says the King. And may it be hushed up, do you understand me? C'est une ordonnance
Mon Dieu, it's the little marquise who has been gossiping too much, quick, where is my rose scent...my heavy, deafening rose scent, otherwise I can't stand it...

I resisted it for a long time, I'm not at all the type for heavy wood patchouli rose fragrances, at some point it just hit me, I needed something against the daily banality of being. I rarely use it, but it's good that I have it. "Take it, it will help you", said the lady at my favourite perfumery. The only time I smelled it on someone was in Milan, in Via della Spiga. I think it was a man. Turkish rose, wood and patchouli. It was probably Prince Tancredi

07/01/2021

8
Pricing 10
Bottle 9
Sillage 9
Longevity 9
Scent

Lilye

Translated Show original

Lilye

Helpful Review 21

Actually

Actually, I am not so the fan of rose perfumes. Hidden in there somewhere like, the mixture makes it, but usually I always give samples of rose perfumes to my mom. Actually.

Actually, the rose is still my favorite flower, I even wear it as a tattoo. Weird, I know, but the scent of the fresh rose is just a different one for me than in most perfumes. Actually.

And actually I had ordered the bottling for my mom, I like to do that sometimes, like L'eau À la Rose or Crystal Flowers , two of her favorites. Actually.

You can probably already guess how this review ends.

Before I give the bottlings to my mom, I always treat myself to a sample sniff. Portrait of a Lady so, my first associations with it are ladies from the time Baroque, sitting still to be painted. Portrait of a Lady just.
And so I sprayed me the good piece on.

Actually, now would come the part where I think to myself, "Yes, typical rose perfume, just right for Mom".
But it didn't come.

Portrait of a Lady is for me just not the normal classic rose fragrance, but much more. An adult rose that was broken off and once beautifully bathed in incense and breaded with pepper, clove and patchouli. Adult and mysterious, floral but with a certain punch.

Actually, a rose scent nonetheless.
Actually.

04/23/2021

10
Pricing 10
Bottle 8
Sillage 10
Longevity 9.5
Scent

SinLaurent

Translated Show original

SinLaurent

Helpful Review 21

Rebirth in the wrong age

There are stories about some people remembering their past lives. I don't believe it. I know I don't. Whereas, know is a strong word, but I intend to know what I'm talking about when I talk about perfumes and my life.

First of all, you may not get along with this lady. I may look very different from her, but we are a spitting image on the inside. If you're planning on hitting the clubs with us and dancing the night away with "Alien" until 9am, then we're sorry to disappoint you. We're also not going to be the kind of women that guys talk about after the weekend about how the night was with us and how black opium felt on our skin. We're also not the kind of women who recklessly explore the world alone with a backpack and occasionally spray up the courage with "Black Afghano."

Why we're so boring?

Because we have seen all this before.

Portrait of a Lady can already count off all her fingers on one hand to show how many decades she has behind her. She wears her pearl necklace around her neck, inherited from her grandmother, and drinks the same black tea every morning at exactly 9 o'clock. With the same light pastry. One may hand her new confectionery, new delicacies from the world's best pastry shop, but she will refuse. Because she has already found what she likes (some call her "dull", "boring" and "stuffy" for this reason). For her birthday she gets her favorite roses from her husband, he can not make a mistake, because the lady has always had the same taste. Something about her seems as if she's been wintering together with her clothes in the closet and just crawled out five minutes ago. Still quickly patting herself over her clothes, something about it reminds me of chalk dust.... Yes, wet chalk.

She doesn't wear herself out or rage. She stays but does not force herself on, she leaves a trace but only certain she will be remembered. That one calls her prude, is equal to her. She has seen the world through different eyes, and this time she knows that she has no reason to hurry to discover herself. She is already at the end, even though it may only be the beginning.

11/14/2018

6
Bottle 7
Sillage 9
Longevity 6
Scent

Rosie88

Translated Show original

Rosie88

X-Mas in a bottle

When I sniffed the scent on a scent strip for the first time, I was as if enchanted. It smelled like fruity spicy roses with lots of green and some musk - delicious !

So I took a sample home with me and tested it extensively:

First, I can clearly see the clove. slightly prickly, but not biting... I can catch a whiff of roses and cinnamon... the prelude for me is very spicy and slightly green-pink...

After a short while (approx. 15 minutes) the woody-smoky is added... My skin absorbs woody and smoky things enormously well, which usually throws the other components mercilessly out of the game..

So also here... The prelude was very interesting, but after 15 minutes the smell on my skin is overrun by wood and smoke...

On my skin it smells like fresh green and slightly resinous fir forest with lots of smoke and spice...
It kind of reminds me of Christmas... Such a winter walk through the fir forest, in the hand a hot spicy tea, past moss, and firs, where the resin drips from the tree bark ..... Yes, it's Christmas for me...

So the fragrance stays with me for hours!
A little bit of musk sometimes pushes a little bit through, but that's it...

With a shelf life of well over 9 hours, I consider it to be quite good. The Sillage is also quite good, depending on the dose :)

All in all I don't find the fragrance bad, but it's a pity that the two notes "wood" and "frankincense" are absorbed too strongly by my skin and almost completely exclude the remaining notes...

12/21/2012

7.5
Bottle 10
Sillage 10
Longevity 10
Scent

Drseid
819 Reviews

Drseid

Top Review 12

My Favorite Scent...

Portrait of a Lady starts with a sublime mixture of rose, incense, wood and a hint of raspberry in the background to support the rose and incense, with patchouli growing through the dry down to mix with the incense as the rose recedes. It is rather linear, but when the scent smells this good, that is a very good thing, IMO. The sillage and longevity here are absolutely spectacular (my one spray lasted well over 30 hours at near full strength and sillage on skin) and the scent smells even better from a distance. As for classification, I don't know why this is marketed as a feminine scent, as I definitely think it is unisex and if someone said it was targeted as a men's scent I would have been far from surprised.

The only drawback is the cost... I went on a top recommended fragrance testing binge in Vegas, and only put a couple favorites on skin. Portrait of a Lady won out overall, but when I came back to Barney's to make the purchase it turned out to be $210 for a 50 ml and $300 for 100 ml (now it costs even more). Ouch! I ended up still buying the 50 ml after thinking it over some more, because it really is that good and unique. Finally, as people have mentioned in other reviews, this one is potent and one spray will almost assuredly get the job done... Go easy on the trigger folks! A BIG thumbs up for this five star winner from Ropion that is my new favorite scent overall.

More reviews