L'Antimatière LesNez 2006

Sometimes you encounter happiness. Good, true happiness that announces itself very quietly. Happiness that you have to listen for when it only whispers, yet it remains when you give it as you receive it. It stays from the first happy moment when you place your hand on another heart and recognize each other, and then for a lifetime. Together with love. Rock solid.

Quiet yet rock solid. This is also how L’Antimatière from the small Swiss perfume manufacturer LesNez-Parfums d'Auteurs is, whose extraordinary, sometimes slightly avant-garde fragrances are hardly found in any of the exclusive perfumeries around the world. LesNez, just like its very special scent masterpieces, is not a loud, clattering house, but rather a small and unexcited yet very fine fragrance house that is run with heart. They do not want to be more than they are, do not make a big fuss about their perfumes, yet they offer not only very fine quality but also great artistry in fragrance, passion for the material, and authenticity in being and products. For this, they collaborate with renowned perfumers who, similar to the original approach at Frédéric Malle, are allowed to dedicate themselves not only as craftsmen but also as artists, composers, even as authors to the realization of their scent visions. There is a sense of connection at LesNez, where they appreciate each other, just as they are connected to their perfumes.

And L’Antimatière, this delicate, seemingly unremarkable and often underestimated yet truly extraordinary scent creation, reflects exactly all of that. A uniqueness that does not need to be loud, that works from within itself and has something magical about it, without wanting to be consciously so. It is what it is. And L’Antimatière is actually a "non-perfume." Antimatter, an airless space, intangible yet existent. A quasi scent experiment, created by Isabelle Doyen, the house perfumer of Goutal. It plays with the senses of the other, does not impose itself, but rather seeps into consciousness, "like traces of a script written with invisible ink. More felt than smelled, insistently whispered. Like the scent of the morning bed that hovers on the skin." Like happiness that comes whispered quietly, very unobtrusively yet equally unsustainably pushes into consciousness and then changes everything. Changes life and fills it.

Indeed, L’Antimatière initially comes across as artificial when first sprayed. A slight glue note that always reminds me of the chemical body of Molecule 01, of ISO E Super. But somehow not so angular, rather softer, fuller, even more subtle, more feminine. The first spray does not reveal this for a long time. And on paper, even less so. L’Antimatière is a skin scent, belongs there, and only unfolds its full warmth there. And while I often believe I need to reapply because L’Antimatière is only subtly perceptible to me as a wearer, it is nonetheless filling the space. Rarely have I received so many compliments for a scent, even when it only hovers very discreetly in the office and wafts over for the rest of the day. And yet, L’Antimatière is really not a complex fragrance that needs to be analyzed long and hard. The base is musk. One of the good kind. And Isabelle Doyen knows musk. The Goutal "Musc Nomade" also comes from her hand, and this musk is one of the most beautiful for me. Skin-like, creamy, perhaps a bit dirty but always also light and airy. And perhaps the musk note in L’Antimatière owes its initial slight glue impression to this, yet this musk is also one of the otherwise clean, very translucent, bright, warm, and soft kinds. Nothing stings or burns, but in combination with a completely unobtrusive amber note, this musk warms and protects. It connects with my skin as if it were my own scent. My body, my home, my image of myself. At most, a slightly medicinal-woody note can still be sensed, ensuring that the scent on my skin does not merge and flatten out. Whether there is a large portion of Ambroxan or the suspected ISO E Super or perhaps even both at play, I find it hard to distinguish. What is certain for me, however, is that it must be one or both, which, alongside all the warmth, also provides hold and a certain angularity. L’Antimatière retains its own body on my skin, alongside all warmth and softness, has contour and elegance, is entirely itself, just as I am allowed to be myself while wearing it.

And so this extraordinary perfume, which radiates its very own whispering magic, has now also become my signature. This perfume that is actually not a perfume. That plays with perception and sneaks in. That makes you question whether it really is as it seems. Whether you see what you believe you see. Hear what you only perceive quietly and feel what you dare not feel. Like happiness that quietly announces itself and that you must recognize. And just as the signature of such happiness is love, L’Antimatière has now become mine. My signature, my scent that expresses me, fits me, and accompanies me through the happy moments of my life:

I wore L’Antimatière when we kissed for the first time. And also when we got married. And soon our child will be born. The signature of our happiness.