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Empire des Indes Oriza L. Legrand 2021

8.1 / 10 126 Ratings

A popular perfume by Oriza L. Legrand for women and men, released in 2021. The scent is sweet-resinous. The longevity is above-average. It is still in production.
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Main accords

Sweet

Resinous

Spicy

Powdery

Oriental

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Musk

Ginger

Heart Notes

Heliotrope

Nag Champa

Peru balsam

Base Notes

Benzoin

Opoponax

Tonka bean

Ratings

Scent

8.1126 Ratings

Longevity

8.2107 Ratings

Sillage

7.7106 Ratings

Bottle

8.594 Ratings

Value for money

7.657 Ratings

Submitted by OPomone · last update on 12/29/2025.

Source-backed & verified

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Shalimar Eau de Parfum

Extreme Amber

PHI - Une Rose de Kandahar

Reviews

5 in-depth fragrance descriptions

06/16/2022

9Scent 9Longevity 8Sillage

VTrancoso
34 Reviews

VTrancoso

6

The glorious days of the Maharajas

An addictive delight: floral, oriental with a sweet and spicy vanilla with a woody resinous and smoky amber accords. Silage is moderate and has a longevity that exceeds 12 hours. The price is affordable for the size and quality.
It opens with an exuberant floral champaca vibe imbued with spicy, sweet, ambery and softly smoky nuances.
After a while rises a sweet, smoky and golden base of amber and resinous benzoin mixed with incense smoke of sweet myrrh and dry sandalwood. Then comes the heliotrope and the balm of Tolu to give it a “powdery” facet.
The sweet (benzoin) and spicy side gains prominence while the champaca moves to a more distant plane. The smoky opoponax has a slight molasses vibe, is slightly woody and has a very resinous scent too. The “powdery” facet disappears and after 2 hours the amber takes the lead side by side with a “Guerlain” vanilla.
In the final hours Empire des Indes oscillates between spicy and smoky woody coated with vanilla and amber, and creamy and silky vanilla with a hint of wood sprinkled with vanilla poder, incense and cloves.
A beautiful blend of smoky, woody, spicy, resinous and gourmand amber with incense. A Tolu balm that attracts, because the sweetness is not cloying and because it is counterbalanced by contrasting dark elements, particularly spice and smoke.
Definitely a (alternative) cousin of the vintage Musc Ravageur. I think it will have an auspicious future with many laudatory reviews. Recommended.

02/12/2025

9Scent 8Longevity 7Sillage

Ninamariah
311 Reviews

Ninamariah

2

Vintage, powder, resinous Almond liquor

Empire des Indes is all about Heliotrope and Nag Champa but as well beautiful resinous base. Heliotrope feels almost liquor like, even almondy with Cherry like aroma. It's deep, intoxicating and a tad vintage like, which is understandable of course because we are talking about Legrand's perfume. The texture is powdery but not too dry and the scent is sweet in an utterly natural way. There is something very special in this scent and it makes me feel so damn gorgeous! By the way, did you know that Heliotrope is also called Cherry Pie Flower?

I have started to love scents where Cherry is not one of the actual notes but where the scent of Cherry is coming from Heliotrope and/or Almond. In that kind of way it's not synthetic nor overly, sickly sweet. And with Nag Champa and other balsams and resins it's so amazing - beautiful and very unique scent.

I hadn't seen Nag Champa until I bought this perfume so I wanted to find some information about it to understand Empire des Indes better.

Nag Champa belongs into balsams and resins. It's hypnotic and calming. This aromatic Indian incense has sweet floral notes and an earthy base. That all you can smell in Empire des Indes.
Nag champa has a mild floral fragrance with a hint of earthly scent from the Mysore sandalwood. They provide a tranquil ambience that will help to lift your spirits. This maybe makes you think some cold fragrance but Empire des Indes maintains the warmth until the dry down. Because of their sacred fragrance, Champa flowers are usually used in prayers and religious rituals.

The aroma of this flower is rich, fruity and intensely floral with slightly musky undertones. The name "Nag Champa" comes from two words in Sanskrit: "nag," meaning "snake," and "champa," meaning "flower." The name is thought to refer to the Nagara tree, also known as the Indian Champaca tree. So Nag champa is a natural fragrance of Indian origin. It is made from a combination of sandalwood and either champak or frangipani. When frangipani is used, the fragrance is usually referred to simply as champa.

If you love Heliotrope and Almond liquor like Cherry, you will love this perfume. The longevity is great.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked my review and it was helpful.

I would appreciate if you follow me on my
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It gives me a lot of motivation to write more.

05/23/2025

ClaireV
969 Reviews

ClaireV

1

Soft, gingery opoponax

An opoponax wonder. But there are some really nice, interesting things happening in Empire des Indes that make it more than just that. Ginger adds a savory, mealy texture to the cinnamony topnotes, creating a briefly musky, almost urinous twang that some will invariably interpret as Musc Ravageur-lite (ginger does something similar in Shams Oud by Memo). Sandalwood adds a gently peanutty milkiness that fades too quickly for my liking.

Once the spicy-herbal flash flare of the opoponax dies back a little, the scent breathes and stretches its limbs into that golden, toffee-ed resinousness (splashed here and there by Old Spice) that one expects from opoponax in general. But where Empire des Indes innovates is in its earthy shading of this ambery accord with the cocoa-ish dust of patchouli and what smells to me like the curried maple leaf richness of immortelle. (Neither of those notes are listed). These accents, coupled with the dusty nag champa, give the perfume a witchy, leaf-blown tenor that feels like something out of the Solstice Scents catalogue (Foxcroft, Inquisitor, or Manor Fire, for example, some of which feature a similarly indie ‘burning autumn leaves’ accord). Not headshop territory, exactly, but heading in that direction.

Or would be headed, I should say, had Empire des Indes lasted any longer than it does. The trajectory from top to bottom is regrettably short. At least those last tendrils of dusty nag champa seem to be standing in for what otherwise might be a white musk or something abrasive, like Iso E Super, i.e., it carries the perfume across the last mile without compromising any of its delicacy. Still, this is not a terribly rich or deep perfume. It floats in wisps and tendrils and drafts. Indeed, you might say that the only downside to Empire des Indes is its softness. But you know what? Like Fêtes Persanes, that is possibly what I like the most about it.

11/27/2025

scentghost
62 Reviews

scentghost

1

not a fan

A tad headache-inducing. While I like the unique mixture of notes, there isn't enough floral strength for me. I love old-fashioned fragrances but this one is a bit too "old" for me. And it reminds me of aging makeup that should have been thrown out at least 20 years before. I think it might be sweeter on the skin, though.

03/09/2023

7.5Scent 10Longevity 8Sillage

Floyd
594 Reviews

Translated · Show original

Floyd

Top Review 56

Excelsior Regina Palace, 1886

Whenever Queen Victoria visited, elephants floated in the Regina Palace, the lavishly adorned ones from British India, shimmering in spicy-warm cinnamon brown, shaking their sandy ginger cloaks over cloud-like flowers made of marzipan. A few saris buzzed on a sitar and rotating flowers of champaka sang the old song of dense Nag Champa in plumes of incense, which then wafted through the grand halls in mists of memory. In this, lush clouds formed, raining down the old times from the sandalwood ceilings in sticky threads, the carpets soon soaked with benzoin and black vanilla. Thus, Legrand painted a picture of India in the thoughts of the sorrowful queen.
**
The tradition of the house Oriza L. Legrand dates back to 1720. The founder of the house Oriza, Jean-Louis Fargeon, was both the court supplier of King Louis XV and the personal perfumer of Queen Marie Antoinette. Later, they also supplied the royal court of England, among others. In 1886, when the house Oriza L. Legrand was also the owner of the Excelsior Regina Palace Hotel in Nice, the then Queen Victoria regularly resided there. In her honor, the Empress of India, Oriza L. Legrand created "Empire des Indes" at that time to remind her 'of the India of the Maharajas'. From today's perspective, a glorification of this time seems at least questionable, but the reissue also allows the fragrance to be viewed as a historical document or entirely in isolation.
The opening reminds me of the scent of the brown wood powder of certain incense sticks, a mix of sandalwood powder, cinnamon bark (Peru balsam), and spicy ginger. Soon, the marzipan-like notes of the heliotrope flowers come to the forefront, carried by balsamic resins (Peru balsam, benzoin) and the typical Nag Champa accord of sandalwood and champaka. This feels very dense, heavy, and at times a bit powdery-incense-like. Gradually, the nuances shift more towards black vanilla (benzoin, heliotrope), warm wood, and balsamic resins (benzoin, opoponax). Underneath, the Nag Champa incense sticks continue to glow for several hours. This is definitely made with high quality, but for me, it is too heavy and somewhat too sweet over time.

(With thanks to MarMoo)