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Bourreau des Fleurs Serge Lutens 2017

8.3 / 10 36 Ratings

A popular perfume by Serge Lutens for women and men, released in 2017. The scent is woody-spicy. The longevity is above-average. It was last marketed by Shiseido Group / Beauté Prestige International.
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Main accords

Woody

Spicy

Sweet

Resinous

Earthy

Fragrance Notes

Immortelle

Liquorice

Charred wood

Perfumers

Christopher Sheldrake, Serge Lutens

Ratings

Scent

8.336 Ratings

Longevity

8.432 Ratings

Sillage

7.733 Ratings

Bottle

8.342 Ratings

Value for money

6.418 Ratings

Submitted by OPomone · last update on 09/26/2025.

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Reviews

6 in-depth fragrance descriptions

09/13/2017

6.5Scent 8Longevity 7Sillage

StellaDiverF
213 Reviews

StellaDiverF

Top Review 9

Expensive Immortelle Soliflore

Bourreau des Fleurs is advertised as heavily revolving around immortelle, and that's exactly what I got from this new Section d'Or offering. Upon spraying, the immortelle immediately jumps out with its sweet, maple syrup-related aspects. Decadent dried fruits are drenched in unctuous, golden honey, then get reduced and caramelised, until the dried fruits look like being preserved in amber.

This might sound like a nightmare of gooey molasses, but that's not the case on my skin, as the sweetness feels ambered and are in a lower octave than pure sugar fest. Moreover, if inspected closely, there's a subtle, underlying woody bitterness effectively anchoring the rich sweetness, which might be the doing of licorice and the smoky woody elements.

Bourreau des Fleurs behaves largely in a linear manner and is dominated by this lavish sweetness of immortelle. At around 90 minutes in, the spicy cumin aspect of immortelle suddenly makes a surge and then looms at the periphery, completing the olfactory profile of immortelle. Towards the later dry down, Bourreau des Fleurs sometimes makes me think of an almost resinous honey tobacco, but it eventually feels more like an illusion of immortelle.

The fragrance has a heavy to moderate projection, and lasts comfortably for 9 hours.

I quite enjoy Bourreau des Fleurs for its many facets of immortelle, especially its rich, ambered sweetness. However, the elephant in the room is, without surprise, its price and limited distribution. Personally, I'm not more impressed by Bourreau des Fleurs than other wonderful immortelle-centric fragrances such as Annick Goutal Sables, Lutens' own El Attarine, or Pierre Guillaume Fareb, etc. I would recommend it to those who are looking for an immortelle soliflore, or a generally resinous honey tobacco fragrance, but there are surely other ineresting and more affordable choices out there.

04/02/2023

8.5Scent 9Longevity 8Sillage

DenisGrails
6 Reviews

DenisGrails

3

LOVE AND HATE Relationship

The first perfume that i've bought from SECTION D'OR Line , and definitely NOT the last !
I think to believe , that this line is aimed to attract people , that are looking for something else , different , artistic and unique ! Creativity to the maximum , and as already metioned from the brand "taking an idea to its very limits"....
I get a lot of Immortelle with this one , a hint of something sweet and syrupy , but at the same time ,also something bitter and resiness ! Indeed , there are some smoky facets ,that i get too , although , on my skin they feel quite light and transparent ! It ain't something dark and mysterious (of how i personally get with Serge Noire ) , but more of that love and hate relationship between Serge and his mother , that feels very nostalgic and sentimental , pleasent in kind of way , but painful in another !

09/29/2024

10Scent 10Longevity 6Sillage

PerfumeUser2
42 Reviews

PerfumeUser2

2

Perfume macceration, and opinion evolution

This is the story, in which I try to describe my time and journey with this Perfume, from Serge Lutens.
Mind you, although some claim this type of notes and opening are specific for this house, this is the only Perfume from them that I have, and indeed, the thick sweet openings attracted me to them (so basically 'I donno if it's that original to be deemed worthy of praising' ) .

I managed to snatch the perfume from a Perfume shop foreclosing, back in Spring/ Summer. All original, well stored and factory sealed.
Now, in the region I tried to purchase it, people were asking 500$ + for 50ml SH bottles. Worth it? Up to you.

So, here' s the journey:

I immediately noticed it was quality, and it had character uniqueness. I could then smell it with a heavily stuffed nose.
First note, I couldn' t even describe it. After less than one minute, something bitter let itself be recognized, burnt like, like the burnt ends of a cake/ pastry, or licorice, and I dislike licorice- smells and tastes medicinal for me and added to that, these for me are Christmas pastry/ times smells, thus the wrong weather.
It was nothing like I imagined or hoped, based on the reviews and the wiff I got from smelling Bois du Vanille in a shop.
I've kept testing it, so I wouldn't just flip it.

After a few days, air getting into the bottle, there was a very hidden and thick sweet note lingering behind the (still dominant) licorice one (nose not stuffed anymore) . I hoped it will become stronger with time, otherwise I' d have to sell it.

After another month of sitting, it started being sweet, thick, nice and heavy. The bitterness of the licorice was gone from the opening; it stayed only in the drydown. However, the drydown started rather fast and lingered until the (bitter) end.
The smell in the opening became that of a heavily smelling flower bouquet, sweet and thick, but was quickly gone. Selling really wasn't a thought anymore, as I couldn't accept that such a praised nieche Perfume house would only let you smell such a well crafted introduction for a few seconds, and then make a liniar perfume. So, I' ve let it sit.

Now that the weather is cold: yeah, this is top notch. This is the kind of complexity and punch I like in a perfume. I don't know if it's from sitting longer, or just that the air is colder (or both) , but the opening is not licorice anymore (burnt ends) , but thick, sweet, mapley (almost with a hint of fruitiness that tricks my nose into thinking it's sour also) in front row, and in second row, letting themselves be carried, the burnt ends (licorice) .

It leans feminine - the sweetness in it, I can see it only as a small hint on a man, on his winter scarf, or a jacket, that stays close, to 'mark' the teritory, subtly announcing 'he' is there.

Projection, is at a normal distance (half an arm' s length, or a little bit above it) , and considering its target audience- I think it is done not to be vulgar, but enough to be noticed.
It holds well on my skin-
strong for around 2 hours, and up until the next day the (unfortunately) burnt ends/ licorice- faintly.
Atomizer spray although really wide and good, because of the strength of the juice, it makes a focused hot spot of (strong) smell.

So, the perfumes that are seen by me as above 'average' , do it so cause of the emotions they generate, or (re)invoke.
This perfume was smelled in the wrong season, and whilst it didn't have enough time to mature.

This is the type of perfume you might miss on if tested (freshly opened) on a paper strip.
Time improved it, and synchronized my memories and feelings with the notes. It became 'my perfume'- not gonna be sold category, cause of the memories it brings back, and like all in this category, I hope it stays around whilst I make other pleasant memories, for me to fondly remember.

This for me, is definitely a cold weather perfume, sophisticated and complex.
I find it a masterpiece, and although the smell doesn't fully resonate with me (not my type of notes) , I truly have to say, it's art form level. I read most SL are like this, maybe, I couldn't tell one way or the other, as I only have this one.

And to this rollercoaster of a journey, I have to say: great craftmanship.

L.E. : September 2025, after close to 1 year from my original review, my God, did this perfume blossom. Sweetness takes front row main stage, from the beginning. In the cold humid weather, your nose feels drowned in thick, flowery and maple syrupy smell. It's as thick as Fall Into Stars from StrangeloveaNYC. You feel like a bee in nectar.
Gorgeous. This is what I imagine 'niche' or 'artisan' perfumery being- quality over quantity.

Updated on 09/26/2025

01/30/2021

8.5Scent 10Longevity 9Sillage

Gold
726 Reviews

Translated · Show original

Gold

Top Review 53

Serge Lutens' eternal search

For this comment, I will use a text written by Serge Lutens himself as a foundation and explanation. It is titled "Monde arabe" and can be found in the book "Les Parfumeurs: Dans l'intimité de grands créateurs de parfum" (Harper-Collins, 2018).
Since there is unfortunately no German translation available yet, I will do the job myself. I will refrain from using the original quotes in French (except for the conclusion) as this would make the comment unnecessarily cumbersome. Anyone who understands French and is interested in perfume should get the aforementioned book. It is a fantastic source of firsthand information. For in this work, it is not a blogger who is rambling or a perfume critic who is speculating, but the perfumer themselves who speaks.

I do not know which facts from Lutens' life are already known to you, so forgive me if I bore you with some biographical information that was new to me personally. For I did not actually know that Lutens grew up in Lille in northern France and made his first experiences in the world of cosmetics in a hair salon, where he picked up and swept hairpins from the floor. How he then came to Dior in 1968 as a makeup developer from Lille is not revealed in his text. In 1980, he switched to Shiseido as a stylist and makeup director. There, he designed bottles, and later he was sent to Firmenich for further training, where he received a perfumery education that still enables him to create perfumes today. In the 90s, there were tensions between Shiseido and Lutens. He left the company.
In 2000, he opened his own perfume house, the Palais-Royal in Paris.

"Today we count 80 different scents in our collection, most of which, but not all, were developed by me together with Christopher Sheldrake, with whom I collaborate at every single stage of production... sometimes for years. For example, we took 12 years for 'Chene'." (p. 135)

How long Sheldrake and Lutens worked on "Bourreau des Fleurs," I do not know.
The pyramid initially suggests a simple scent. Only three ingredients are mentioned.
Good! I like it when perfume houses refrain from presenting extensive information about the ingredients, because that way we, the critics (whether professionals or hobby critics like me), cannot just work through and repeat the pyramid, but must orient our texts differently.

"Bourreau des Fleurs" is a multifaceted, spicy scent that leads back to the roots, which Lutens himself describes as "an imaginary landscape in which he spins in circles." At the center of his work is the engagement with "the woman" par excellence:
"All these women are the woman, my invented woman, magical, with magical powers. One might think that my imaginary landscape spins in circles. I take revenge on contempt. I take revenge on women. I take revenge on the woman herself. My life is a story of revenge. I am the mistake. I make it up and I worsen it. For one cannot make up for anything without worsening it. I love, I seduce, and at the same time, I hate and destroy. Without this violence, there is no creation." (p. 130)

In "BdF," one initially senses an almost magical herbal witch aura, a brew of various spices that one already knows from other creations of the Lutens/Sheldrake duo.
A hint of "Ambre Sultan" flashes through, a small piece of Marrakech, a place that holds great significance for Lutens, as his ethnic roots lie there, even though he grew up in Lille.

"When I discovered Morocco, I knew that the Arab world had not yet been accepted by French society. Hence my choice. To return. To stay.
I was in permanent contradiction to French society, and the violence of this new world that I discovered suited me. And I have not changed. I am still in contradiction. So I am still here. This justifies my loneliness, first in Paris, then here, in Marrakech." (p. 132)

The licorice herbal spice drink gives way in the heart to a note that I personally usually find problematic in perfumes, but which appears to be masterfully processed in "BdF." It is the straw flower.
"If you manage to overcome your initial disgust, then it becomes very interesting. Disgust plays a large role in my way of conceiving the story of a scent. Disgust and words." (p. 131)
"A perfume is not a single smell, it is not a vanilla cake, it is a whole cosmos. That is already literature!"

Just as one sees a literary text, Lutens also views perfume as a fundamental means of artistic expression.
"My intention is to touch people. If perfumery did not touch anyone, it would be completely uninteresting." (p. 136)

"I am not interested in happiness. When I open a book about happiness, I close it very quickly again. It bores me. Happiness does not interest me. What interests me is the process of creation. To create something." (p. 137).

The straw flower is called "Immortelle" in French, meaning the immortal. It possibly points to Lutens' mother, whose first name was Fleurisse. For him, the mother remains a person he could never grasp.
"The psychoanalysts... they have all gone crazy because I cannot get well. It is impossible. I need this image of a woman who initially replaced my mother... without a woman, I perish."
Perhaps that is why the straw flower seems so soft and comforting to me, so fitting in "BdF."
But in the end, it weakens, giving way to a slight kitchen smell that does not remind me of charred wood, but of an oriental stew with herbs.
The flowers, in my perception, were not trampled or broken (as the name suggests), but slowly cooked down.

"I need this permanent image of a woman, and I reinvent it with every perfume and with every name I choose. The names of the perfumes from my house continue a dialogue with this woman... Death is very present in our conversation, but it never has a sad aspect."

Lutens ends his text with a poem, which I quote in the original French text:

La mort, c'est gai, la mort,
c'est aussi une femme.
Une femme qui vient me dire bonjour.
Elle est tres élégante.
Elle est immortelle.
Elle a de beaux jours devant elle.

And now a discussion from a feminist perspective would certainly not be uninteresting... - rarely has a perfumer so clearly and openly acknowledged their central theme: "Cherchez la femme!"

Updated on 01/31/2021

10/29/2020

9.5Scent 9Longevity 8Sillage

Shaking
20 Reviews

Translated · Show original

Shaking

Top Review 17

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

First of all, the famous disclaimer:
It will be long, it will be exhausting, whether it will be worthwhile, please let everyone decide for themselves.
The comment only has a tangential connection (the basic mood) to my favorite book "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter"... so please don’t be surprised.

A fragrance about age, pain, loneliness, and the impossibility of love...
and yet loving...

What? Quite a tough nut to crack, the inclined reader might say... why should I spray something like that on my neck?

Hold on, hold on...
Why, how, why?

Mr. Lutens' late work "Bourreau des Fleurs" cannot be viewed without "Dent de Lait". (There might also be a comment to follow... time will tell)

These 2 fragrances, both launched in 2017, are, in my eyes, inseparably linked.
"Bourreau des Fleurs" has, as 'Jersey' wrote in her previous comments, various meanings:
“Charmer of love,” “heartbreaker,” “flower breaker,” and “executioner of flowers”... now it gets interesting.

As Serge Lutens once mentioned, his relationship with his mother is a conflicted one... a love-hate relationship, one could say.
The fragrance text of "Bourreau des Fleurs" in German has been slightly altered and shifts the context, although it already gives a very good insight into Lutens' feelings.

It reads as follows:
A nocturnal sun... violence, soaked with love.
Complimentary, sensual, calming, and mystical at the same time

In English, it sounds a bit different:
"The condemned: - Persecutor you slice, but in my blood you're the sap. Executioner: - And you, from my heart, you're the wood."

Lutens wants and has always wanted to convey certain emotions in specific situations with his fragrances, and for me, this one clearly revolves around love...

But not the innocent, pure love or the love between man and woman...
It’s about the exhausting devotion, the severance, but still about being eternally connected... love becomes something painful and transcendent, something that goes far beyond a clichéd "I love you" declaration!

It’s about the love between son and mother...

Does Lutens want to lead his mother olfactorily to the scaffold? Does he recognize in the moment of her end the inevitable connection of their souls?

Interestingly, there is an excerpt from a written interview from 2014 with Mr. Lutens, which for me can be seen as a blueprint for "Bourreau des Fleurs" and "Dent de Lait". It deals with early childhood memories from the Nazi era and beyond.

Serge Lutens:
The image of Berlin is very present in my story: the war, Pétain’s laws, the German Occupation… My imaginings around this woman who is my mother. What is this? Who is my father? What is this about? Who is she? Who is this woman, who kept quiet all her life? Who died in silence… without telling me anything…
I don’t know who my father is, but I don’t know who my mother is… I know who my father is, since I didn’t love him, but actually, there’s a turnaround. Things aren’t that simple.

If "Bourreau des Fleurs" represents the end of this process, then "Dent de Lait" is the beginning... The hubris of birth, of childhood... the "being thrown into the world"!

Dent de Lait is described in English as follows:
Now weary of the tongue’s games which have for weeks on end been loosening its tooth, a young wolf is anxious to move from milk to blood. I have loved you for so long I will never forget you."

For me, this clearly concerns the painful severance process from his mother.

Serge Lutens:
At seven years old, a girl will usually go towards her father… A boy will naturally gravitate towards his mother, that’s more or less how the world establishes itself. Now, when you choose the mother as strongly as I did, of course it’s extremely dangerous, because it’s an incredible imbalance… The fact of having an adulterous mother, the fact of being a bastard, the fact that my father didn’t recognize me, refused to recognize me initially, that he married my mother two years later: she experienced all that, of course, and I experienced it even though I wasn’t fully aware of it.
Because an anxious mother, that’s an anxious child. So this choice, if you will, that we make of one being or another at the outset of our lives, because deep down there’s only one choice, though we don’t know it’s a choice… Because you’re a child, you don’t understand you’re choosing. You don’t call it a choice. What’s a choice, anyway? I’ll tell you: in fact, you’re being stalked by wild beasts, there’s a flooded river in front of you and on the other side, there’s a quiet shore. What do you do? You cross the flooded river anyway.

Lutens, a driven soul, restless but with an incredible will and a sense for the moment, whether it is painful or beautiful.

"Bourreau des Fleurs" is for me Lutens' reconciliatory end of a long journey... towards forgiveness and accepting oneself.
That’s why the fragrance feels like a "Best of" from Lutens.

It allows us to partake once more in the stations of his life.
The fragrance contains traces of ripe plums like in "Bois et fruits," a base spice like in "Arabie," and a smoky component, intertwined with sweetness like from "Fille en aiguilles"

Above all, the immortelle reigns, blending with all the ingredients into an almost viscous syrup.

This fragrance has something loving, reconciling... memories of a time of warming sun and coziness... but also something resinous, charred that occasionally bubbles up from beneath the surface.

A warning shadow - smoky licorice.

Harmony and disharmony lie very close together here, always in conflict with each other.
Who will gain the upper hand?
I don’t know...

What I believe I know is that with this fragrance, you get a part of "Lutens' self."
It is the artistic attempt of a processing, a "scented catharsis"

Whether this is worth €450 is, like with art in general, unnecessary to answer.

From a sober perspective, the price for a "Best of" fragrance is certainly too much.
Here, there are no surprises, there’s no sensational fragrance development (there’s much to discover, no question)
The sillage and longevity are phenomenal for me, which is certainly due to the immortelle, which, no matter what fragrance I wear, always reacts very well with my skin.

This fragrance is and will always remain a matter of the heart for me.
As it is with the muse of art...

Art is a "possessive lover"... who doesn’t always please everyone... but doesn’t have to.

Updated on 09/04/2023

More reviews

Statements

11 short views on the fragrance

Japarfumo21

4 years ago

9.5Scent 8Longevity 5Sillage

1

Deep Oriental, avant-garde, artistic, nostalgic

BoBoChamp

4 years ago

7.5Scent 9Longevity 8Sillage

1

After a salty spicy-sweet opening, this challenging and smoky spicy-floral Winter fragrance, settles to a meaty, smoky earthy-woody base.

Edda32

4 years ago

9.5Scent

31

22

Sweet cracks in ancient wood, fragile sun glow, thorny thickets so gentle, so resilient, so comforting like my barefoot solitude. La Garigue

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Gold

5 years ago

8.5Scent 10Longevity 9Sillage

18

9

An extremely intriguing essence of the Sheldrake/Lutens works. It keeps the mind & heart engaged for a long time. I don’t wear it often, but I do enjoy it!

Translated · Show original