Editions Collection

L'Air de Rien Miller Harris 2006

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7.6 / 10 262 Ratings

A popular perfume by Miller Harris for women, released in 2006. The scent is powdery-earthy. The longevity is above-average. It is still in production.
Pronunciation

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Main accords

Powdery

Earthy

Spicy

Animal

Sweet

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Neroli

Heart Notes

Oakmoss

Patchouli

Base Notes

Amber

Musk

Vanilla

Perfumer

Lyn Harris

Ratings

Scent

7.6262 Ratings

Longevity

8.0198 Ratings

Sillage

6.7196 Ratings

Bottle

7.6171 Ratings

Value for money

7.325 Ratings

Submitted by Seglein, last update on 09/21/2024.

Interesting Facts

The fragrance is part of the "Editions Collection" collection.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Un Petit Rien

Bright Neroli

Empireo

1826

Musc Eau de Parfum

Libertine Neroli

Statements

5 short views on the fragrance

Manonlescaut 3 years ago

10
Bottle 6
Sillage 7
Longevity 10
Scent

So uniquely beautiful!The sense that this "nothing"(rien)is everything...

2

Omardo 4 years ago

to me, tested only on paper, umbearable, but one of the most astonishing experience in perfumery. smells like my grandma sofa. time machine.

2

IrisElla 21 days ago

8
Bottle 8
Sillage 7
Longevity 9
Scent

An elegant, feminine musk brightened by the subtle floral oakmoss accord. Exudes a relaxed confident class.

1

Ch03np 5 months ago

A thick, dense molasses that sits close to the skin. Antique and “brown”. The sweet smell of old paper and dust. Your mother’s worn clothes.

1

Gavarrus 10 months ago

I remember this as smelling like sweet saliva. No dusty old books. Just saliva

1

Reviews

15 in-depth fragrance descriptions

09/20/2014

5
Bottle 5
Sillage 7.5
Longevity 9
Scent

MasterLi
375 Reviews

MasterLi

Top Review 9

The smell of Jane Birkin's favourite things...

So the story goes that Jane Birkin, 60's fashion icon, actress, muse, singer and sex idol never liked the smell of most perfumes, and for that reason, rarely wore fragrance. One day, she was introduced by a friend to Lyn Harris, creator and perfumer of Miller Harris, to see if she could make her a custom fragrance (in the 60's she wore Shalimar but never really liked it on her, preferring later to only carry small sachets of pot-pourri in pocket when she went out). What she told Lyn Harris that she hated the smells of hyacinth, tuberose and lilly-of-the-valley in female perfumes... and that she instead loved the smells of her brother's hair, her father's pipe, floor polish, an empty chest of drawers, and old forgotten houses. The result? A perfume called L'Air de Rien or "a hint of nothing", a perfume which wasn't meant to smell like perfume. An "anti-perfume" basically.

Here, Lyn Harris managed to (quite cleverly in my opinion) conjure up some of Jane Birkin's favourite smells by using notes such as Neroli, Patchouli Oakmoss, Amber, Musk & Vanilla. What I get from this is the Oakmoss smell, which was the perfume ingredient Jane Birkin loved the most. A lot of people say that the Musk is quite animalic in here, and what I would say is that, to my nose... there is a hint of something that smells a little like horses here... but I think that it comes from the combination between Patchoulli, Oakmoss and Labdanum (Vanilla & Amber) in the base.

I find this a very intriguing perfume, very unisex in fact. It smells like books and old paper, wood, warm human skin, even stables. But in a very good way! Not offensive at all... just very soft and warm and sensual. It's almost like the smell of a person's warm skin. I find this creation very clever. It's also very "adult" to me. I think you should be a little grown up and experienced to wear something like this. It is quite flexible, but I would suggest sampling first and testing on skin, not paper. It's warm, inviting and passionate. A real "love" fragrance. It reminds me of the smell of libraries and bedrooms... and clothes and warm people. Love it!

L'Air de Rien is definitely one to go out and try. A wonderfully "modern" creation from Lyn Harris, which doesn't smell like perfume but like life itself! full of warm, interesting, passionate people. Try it!

01/29/2015

Omni
70 Reviews

Omni

Very helpful Review 7

When nothing is everything

What’s got your face in a knot? Nothing, you say, but everything has lost its shine when your lover cuts you somehow. Rolling in the deep, the scent of his skin, the beat of patchouli, the astringent slap of oak moss, he should know, he should know.

When nothing is something you have L’Air de Rien, yeah, not pretty, what the fluck is pretty when you feel like this. You shout, the accusations are wrung out of you…what….an explanation. Oh, bruised lips, thighs, rumpled sheets, sleep. There’s amber, vanilla, rolling in the hay, sweet sweat and forgiveness in an oversized t shirt.

07/21/2012

jtd
484 Reviews

jtd

Very helpful Review 7

So many things, actually

L’Air de Rien is contemporary in that it is one of those super funky oddballs that fumies go for when retreating from the mainstream. Yet surprisingly its greatest virtues are quite old school. It has true top, middle and basenotes in the classical and grand manner.

What we’ve come to expect from current examples of extant perfumes of the old school, composed before 1972 or so, is 90-95% of what they were. But we’re not (I’m certainly not) experts in perfume production and we can’t quite pin down what is different. Even when the facts of the matter are pointed out to me, it doesn’t really help me to understand the qualitative differences. Synthetic civet, no more nitro musks, tree moss (the industry should just go the cream/’creme’ route and call it okemoss), ambergris analogues. If I focus, l’Air de Rien helps me to understand that one thing perhaps lost in the substitutions is a fuller evolution of a perfume over time. These currently produced, veteran perfumes (eg. Worth Je Reviens, Chanel 5, Miss Dior, Chanel Pour Monsieur, Piguet’s Bandit) all appear to have rich or at least strong openings that either simply soften over the course of wearing or change over time by stripping down. By stripping down I mean that the topnotes contain everything in the perfume and that the middle and basenotes are subsets of the top containing just the heavier notes left after the more volatile bits have flown away. I imagine a lot of older perfumes, in trying to conform to IFRA regulations have been forced to go this second route, the early 20th century Guerlains being good examples.
L’Air de Rien has that truly kaleidoscopic feel that vintage perfumes can still give. The top notes are full-bodied and are louder than the middle and base, but not really any richer per se. Like a three act play, each act may contain the same theatrical roles, but the script gives you more information about both the narrative and the characters over time. If the play is well-written, each act gives you elements critical to the whole that aren’t in the other acts.
L’Air is built of very durable materials and has a patient, meandering feel. It’s nothing like a well-built linear fragrance, Lutens’s Feminité du Bois for instance, where you catch different facets at different moments, probably depending on what you choose to pay attention to or tune in to. L’Air is not so capricious; it’s just very well composed. I’ve worn it many times and notice that it follows that same pattern over its 24 hours lifetime each time. Certain moments are dry, others are almost sour, still others are sweet and rich. And the whole experience is entirely coherent.

04/17/2015

ColinM
516 Reviews

ColinM

3

Grey air

L’air de rien is a pleasant and much astute galore of Iso E (incense, smoky cedar) and one of the ambroxide products on the market (musky-grey-ambery fixative), which are blended with stale nuances of evernyl (synthetic, pale oak moss) and an earthy note of patchouli. All smells transparent, restrained, dusty, somehow “cold” yet pleasant like a freezing winter sun, with a peculiar camphor aftertaste providing a creepy feel of gloomy dustiness. Or, if you want to see from another perspective, a patchouli scent transfigured in a greyish, refined, glossy blend. Smoky, airy, velvety and unisex, slightly reminiscent of some late-90’s scents (oddly, I thought of the drydown of Nemo by Cacharel). The only peculiar trait of this fragrance is the choice of blending the “grey” notes (musky-dusty-incensey stuff) with the stale-earthy notes of patchouli and oakmoss, which creates an overall dark ambiance, nostalgic and kind of creepy, as it smells as much dusty as you granny’s living room. Somehow even a bit moldy, although quite plain and clean. By “astute” I meant that it’s literally a small bunch of aromachemicals out of their bottles and put together as they are – therefore, not exactly the most “crafted” or creative scent around in my opinion... but it smells nice (an inoffensive, generic, yet undoubtedly elegant kind of nice), linear and hell persistent (given that half of the notes are theoretically built using fixatives...).

6/10

04/27/2014

7.5
Bottle 5
Sillage 7.5
Longevity 1
Scent

WRoth
154 Reviews

WRoth

3

L'Air de Rien

This fragrance opens with a sweet floral and animalistic accord: neroli, musk and the smell of horses mingle into an odd concoction that is both strangely appealing and repulsive at the same time. I noticed the horse smell is stronger near the skin; further away it is less pungent and adds an interesting facet to the neroli-musk composition. I could say it is Clair du Musk with an edge, but most of all it smells just like a circus. This is a very cloying fragrance and lasts for more than 6 hours on my skin.

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