À la nuit Serge Lutens 2000

This. is. The One. An absolutely swoon-worthy jasmine. A La Nuit is a pure, rich, fleshy and REAL jasmine scent. I literally feel like I just put my nose directly into a blooming jasmine flower and took a long deep breath. An incredibly sultry and seductive fragrance.

For jasmine lovers (raising my hand), this is the ultimate. Christopher Sheldrake is my hero.

At Night (à la nuit) is a rendition of Jasmine that immediately transports me to my garden on a summer night, peacefully sipping on a cocktail in the little gazebo there, surrounded by the lush and verdant scent of these tiny white flowers.

'Yasaneem' ('gift from God' via the arabic and latin) has to be one of the most widely used ingredients in perfumery, probably due to its versatility. This note is a firm favorite of mine, of late bringing the desire to experience it less adorned in a fragrance. This Sheldrake creation for Lutens succeeds at that!
With a little investigation into this note, however, its chemical composition reads less like a treatise on beauty than it does an odoriferous trip to the local knacker :).
It's common knowledge that Jasmine contains indoles (present in feces) but I recently discovered that it also contains a chemical called 'skatole' ... also belonging to the indole family and named from the Greek root 'skato' ... meaning dung!! In low concentrations these 'indoles' reportedly have a flowery smell and occur in other flowers like Lilac and Orange Blossom.
These chemicals are apparently very attractive to such insects as orchid bees and gravid mosquitoes ... not a pleasant thought on a summer evening outside :) ... as the latter of these little beasts lunge for me instinctively ... or so it seems!

All of that said I find à la Nuit to be a beautiful Jasmine soliflore. HOLD THE PHONE!!! Did I just say that a Lutens was beautiful ?!?!? I did :) ... and it is. My nose doesn't detect very much of the other listed notes here, but there is a certain 'heat' present, no doubt provided by the Clove. I'm sure the Musk in this fragrance plays a fixative role as I am relatively hyperosmic to it and it doesn't disturb me here.

I think I may have found my very first Lutens acquisition, having procured a generous sample (thanks L!!) and having been able to live with it some. Progress!!!

A la Nuit, love it or hate it, is held out as the definitive jasmine soliflor. It conjures jasmine just come into bloom. It's got indolic headiness, but it also has that dewy greenness of a jasmine vine just starting to hit its stride. It smells rich but crisp like jasmine flowers, not like jasmine essential oil.

A floral perfume is like a still life painting. It is a genre, an exercise, and a treatise on the complexities of representation in art. Perfume history holds Diorissimo as the the ultimate soliflor. It's been measured by the same criteria as a still life painting. Representation, demonstrated by proportion, depth of field, light and shadow, is a part. But something more is needed, both in the still life and the soliflor. Enhancement, point of view, surprise, commentary, misdirection---artist's choice. I've never smelled the original Diorissimo, but A la Nuit seems to create a floral perfume just as Diorissimo is said to have. Both start by creating the recognizable scent of a flower, A la Nuit's jasmine and Diorissimo's lily of the valley, and then doing the real work. The flower might be the subject of the work, but it's also just the start of the discussion in a well composed soliflor.

Perfumer Christopher Sheldrake presents his jasmine still life as a lean floriental. Combining floral and oriental categories can lead to large, rich but often bossy perfumes. A la Nuit with its 'young' jasmine and a musky, honeyed benzoin anchor gives a beautiful high/low balance. The opening notes of A la Nuit are manic (and a blast!) but once they settle, this perfume is hardly bossy. It has the fullness, but lacks the smothering hearnotes of some florientals.

I decided to try A La Nuit after reading various blogs and articles about Indolic perfumes. The name kept popping up and it piqued my curiosity since, though I've probably smelled indolic scents, I'm not sure I could identify which ones are or aren't. So, I bought a sample based on the name alone, without even knowing what was in this. I assumed it was either jasmine or other white florals of some kind - I just wanted to see what made this different from other white florals. If it truly was 'dirty' or 'fecal'...

Right off the bat, it's a very powerful scent. A sweet and smoky burst of jasmine, accompanied by pleasant green notes. I'm still not sure I understand indoles, but what I do get out of A La Nuit is a very believable, deep floral experience. It's like sniffing actual jasmine in a dewy, grassy field. But those green, grassy notes quickly dissipate and it develops into something much sultrier.

Whew, there's that smoke again! I can tell it's the cloves causing the back of my throat to tingle, because it's exactly the same sensation as being around second-hand smoke from clove cigarettes. (Which luckily reminds me of my late teens, hanging around in clovey smoke-filled concert venues). That smoky quality also dies down a little bit, and leaves just a lingering trail of smoke and spice, like an incense stick burning out. Ahh...

If this indeed features indoles, fear not - this isn't fecal at all. Is it 'dirty'? Well, maybe in the way that soil can have a rich, pleasing earthy scent. Also worth noting - various types of African/Indian jasmine were used in this composition, and it shows. It's absolutely exotic and fascinating.

Jasmine is a beautiful, seductive, and mysterious flower--let's face it. Jasmine serves as the floral centerpiece of many a perfume because it also blends so well with just about everything else--even purple goo, as in the case of Thierry Mugler ALIEN. In this case, Serge Lutens A LA NUIT is a jasmine soliflore with a bit of a twist, whose name is "clove".

The opening of A LA NUIT evoked immediate memories of a recent wearing of Molinard JASMIN, which I do believe may be my favorite soliflore--of any flower, not just jasmine--of all time. Both are strong, creamy, slightly dark--night-blooming!--and breathtakingly beautiful. Both smell very natural to my nose, and I suspect that both compositions do showcase the real thing, not hedione or some other synthetic substitute.

The difference between the Molinard and Le Grand Serge jasmine soliflore becomes more and more obvious as A LA NUIT dries down. A clove note not initially obvious to my nose begins to make its presence known until the point where I feel that clove has almost taken over the star role of this perfume. However, I am *very* sensitive to clove, so I'd encourage all jasmine lovers to try this perfume on for size, as it may well be your jasmine dream come true. Mine remains the Molinard soliflore.