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Le Rivage des Syrtes Parfums MDCI 2009

7.7 / 10 134 Ratings

A popular perfume by Parfums MDCI for women, released in 2009. The scent is fruity-floral. It is still in production.
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Main accords

Fruity

Floral

Sweet

Fresh

Citrus

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Pineapple

Orange

Persian galbanum

Heart Notes

Somalian frankincense

Ylang-ylang

Orange blossom absolute

Tuberose

Base Notes

Ambergris

Bourbon vanilla Musk

Musk

Perfumer

Patricia de Nicolaï

Videos

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Ratings

Scent

7.7134 Ratings

Longevity

7.3104 Ratings

Sillage

6.5105 Ratings

Bottle

8.5102 Ratings

Submitted by Andi136 · last update on 01/01/2026.

Source-backed & verified

Interesting Facts

The fragrance is a homage to the novel of the same name by Julien Gracq, published in 1951.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Elle

1A-33 (2012)

Reviews

10 in-depth fragrance descriptions

01/11/2013

6Scent 7.5Longevity 7.5Sillage

Sherapop
1240 Reviews

Sherapop

Orange oil oriental?

Anyone who has cooked with orange or tangerine oil will recognize the pervasive orange oil scent in MDCI LE RIVAGE DES SYRTES. There is a clingy quality to orange oil which makes it infuse everything with which it comes in contact, and it persists on and on and on. I have used tangerine oil in chocolate desserts to tasty effect. But I must say that I'm not convinced that using such a powerful agent is the best idea in a haute niche perfume.

LE RIVAGE DES SYRTES opens with a lot of fruit, with both the pineapple and the orange very noticeable. There is a real succulence to the opening, and the characteristically high quality, the brightness of the ingredients which I have generally found in the other perfumes from MDCI is quite evident here as well.

However, rather than developing, LE RIVAGE DES SYRTES becomes stuck in orange oil mode. The pineapple fades away, while the orange actually seems to grow stronger, and the flowers are pretty much missing in action. I'd like to be able to say that this is a great orange perfume, but it just seems too one-sided to me. There probably is some significant development in here somewhere, but it's all covered up by the dominant orange oil note to the point where I cannot recommend this perfume to any but the most fanatical of orange lovers. Even then, I think that there are better orange perfume choices available, especially chez Hermès.

10/08/2013

10Scent 5Longevity 7.5Sillage

Tar
261 Reviews

Tar

Helpful Review 1

Not so elegant as the statue on the bottle cap

I was really afraid of smelling LE RIVAGE DES SYRTES, since I could barely find even one perfume from MDCI, which would be wearable for me. But I am the utmost grateful for the creator of this fragrance! When I first smelled it, I could not stop laughing and smiling. This is really an unclouded perfume, no philosophy, no deep thougths, no solemnity.

Personal chemistry has a big rule in this game. I siffed this scent on another skin, and there showed it the face of mossy stones in the heart, with much more blossoms than on me.
For me it was an enchanting, happy sea of fruits, especially pineapple, but before reading the notes of course I (miss)guessed: honeydew melon, banana and others. It is not easy to identify pineapple in the mixture, even if it is purring through all the other notes, but pineapple is for me mostly a watery scent, and LE RIVAGES is rather a creamy and opulent miracle. Its sweetness is also fruity, so not cloying at all.

I am not wholly satisfied with lasting power, however even 24 hours would not get maximum points, since I want to smell it constantly.
Now I have to treasure my tiny sample.

04/17/2015

ColinM
516 Reviews

ColinM

Barely pleasant & outrageously overpriced

Rivage des Syrtes opens with a pleasant, silky, fresh, slightly metallic-aldehydic breeze of citrus notes (more precisely on the “orange-floral” side) blended with a synthetic, cyclogalbanate-like fruity note which you smell in several cheap fruity scents (that annoying “pineapple” note, which *always* carries that annoying sort of moldy-metallic aftertaste - and by the way, is used to build galbanum too), all posed on a sheer layer of white clean flowers – I get ylang more than tuberose. Green tips and a sandalwood base with a warm resinous-ambery aftertaste. Yawn. A barely pleasant and conventional Oriental fruity-powdery scent which tries to play the “random metallic-moldy crap unrelatedly juxtaposed to flowers and fruits” card to look creative and justify its surreal price.

5/10

01/01/2026

7.5Scent 5Longevity 5Sillage

Raluko111
451 Reviews

Raluko111

Orange & Lemon Jujubes

If you came in search of pineapple here, you`ll have to look hard and maybe even employ suspension of disbelief. What stands out is the syrup from a pineapple can in which, instead of pineapple slices, you`ll find bits of orange and lemon jujubes floating around. The flowers are also barely audible back-up singers, leaving place for a dusty, powdery-soft orange essential oil with a hint of lemon and a gorgeous incense that weaves in and out. A pickled kind of lemony freshness that is oddly beautiful. I`m not a huge fan of Patricia de Nicolai`s citric repertoire; a lot of her fragrances that feature citrus are very harsh and masculinely abrasive, like an inconsiderate lover scratching your face raw while he kisses you with a bristly, unshaven face. In Le Rivage des Syrtes, however, she`s softened her touch to make this more appealingly unisex-feminine, by creating a marine base with vanilla vibes. Sunny, beautiful, different from your average summer-marine-citrus blends. My only pet-peeve: the soft silage and the speed with which it becomes a skin scent.

07/08/2025

Ganii
136 Reviews

Ganii

Odd smelling

Smells like those old wooden cabinets, the very dark brown ones that you can find in antique boutiques. I think it's the combinaison with the ylang ylang and the incense.
Like, i can't get the fruits... where is the pineaple or the orange? I was so happy to try this but got disappointed. I guess it can be a vibe to some, It's just not for me.

More reviews

Statements

20 short views on the fragrance

Kurai

1 year ago

4Scent 7Longevity 6Sillage

Citrus-floral with a green-resin edge. Sharp, near metallic, slowly warming up. Disaster on skin, but leaves an OK trail in the air somehow

Verbena

3 years ago

8Scent 8Longevity 7Sillage

Tropical flowers. Warm breezes. Nectar drips sweet from lips onto skin. Glassy. White-golden in lagoon turquoise. Cliché. I want this island.

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SchatzSucher

6 years ago

9Scent 8Longevity 7Sillage

A wonderfully beautiful composition of O-flower, tuberose, delicious fruits, and a hint of smoke, with a vanilla-spicy base. Absolutely fabulous!

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Ergoproxy

6 years ago

7Scent 7Longevity 5Sillage

Somehow I can't make much of it. Soapy incense with all sorts of sour fruit, a few flowers on a creamy base. Strange.

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Stanze

6 years ago

8Scent 6Longevity 6Sillage

Dreamlike filtered orange light falls on flowers + fruits. Aldo sees a tuberose lying next to a sliced pineapple.

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Phila

10 years ago

Zesty orange-pineapple with a smoky heart and a vanilla goodbye. So delicate, elegant, soft. BEAUTIFUL! But the price??

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Renata

6 years ago

7Scent 7Longevity 7Sillage

It starts off strongly fresh-fruity, becomes sweeter, and then stays that way for me, only losing its intensity over time. Unfortunately, for me, it doesn't last.

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Rieke2021

4 years ago

7Scent 8Longevity 6Sillage

Frankincense and vanilla in the DD are enchanting and elegant; however, the opening with sour fruits in a flower bed is disharmonious with a jarring note. What a shame.

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