8
Very helpful Review
Continuing the recent Lutens' style of clean aldehyde and abstract sweetness...
Dent de Lait opens on my skin with pristine almond and aldehyde. The almond here is at first slightly bitter, and mostly clean and blanched. The aldehyde doesn't appear overly metallic to my nose, but rather mineral, fizzy, even glassy, reminiscent of those in Laine de Verre. The whole is like white flaked almond in a crystal bowl.
A honeyed milkiness, and a sweet-tart rosy powder soon emerge like a swirl, slowly devouring the distinct characteristics of almond and aldehyde, until all parts of Dent de Lait merge into an abstract, clean, rosy almond milky musky powder in the dry down, and remain so until it entirely fades away.
The sillage is moderate to soft, and the longevity is around 8 hours on me.
Dent de Lait is very much in line with Lutens' style in recent years, with clean, cold, metallic/mineral aldehyde and an abstract, streamlined evolution. After reading Sophie's review on Fragrantica, the rosy almond powder does remind me of Rahat Loukoum and Louve, but Dent de Lait in relation to those two, are more like La Religieuse compared to A La Nuit and Sarrasins.
While the contrast between cold aldehyde, and suave almond and milky sweetness is genuinely intriguing to my nose, my main gripe towards Dent de Lait is its lack of depth and evolution in the dry down. Without any earthy, woody notes to keep up the intriguing dynamics of sharp and soft, the clean sweet powder appears monolithic and repetitive with time.
Regarding the somewhat strange theme, Dent de Lait only interprets it metaphorically. Personally, I don't detect any animalic or salty notes to evoke blood. Hell, I even wore it to the dentist's one day, and still can't make a literal link. And the aldehyde here is simply too crystalline; for a more violent metallic note contrasting with gourmand notes, I think L'Artisan Parfumeur Amour Nocturne and Deliria, and Lutens' own Baptême du Feu might fare better.
Therefore, if you enjoy the latest Lutens' style of clean, abstract, sweet musky powder and the glassy aldehyde, and would like a slightly more gourmand variation, I would encourage you to overlook the weird theme and give it a try. However, if you miss Lutens' previous dark, oriental style dearly, I'm afraid that Dent de Lait would probably not be able to bring any comfort.
A honeyed milkiness, and a sweet-tart rosy powder soon emerge like a swirl, slowly devouring the distinct characteristics of almond and aldehyde, until all parts of Dent de Lait merge into an abstract, clean, rosy almond milky musky powder in the dry down, and remain so until it entirely fades away.
The sillage is moderate to soft, and the longevity is around 8 hours on me.
Dent de Lait is very much in line with Lutens' style in recent years, with clean, cold, metallic/mineral aldehyde and an abstract, streamlined evolution. After reading Sophie's review on Fragrantica, the rosy almond powder does remind me of Rahat Loukoum and Louve, but Dent de Lait in relation to those two, are more like La Religieuse compared to A La Nuit and Sarrasins.
While the contrast between cold aldehyde, and suave almond and milky sweetness is genuinely intriguing to my nose, my main gripe towards Dent de Lait is its lack of depth and evolution in the dry down. Without any earthy, woody notes to keep up the intriguing dynamics of sharp and soft, the clean sweet powder appears monolithic and repetitive with time.
Regarding the somewhat strange theme, Dent de Lait only interprets it metaphorically. Personally, I don't detect any animalic or salty notes to evoke blood. Hell, I even wore it to the dentist's one day, and still can't make a literal link. And the aldehyde here is simply too crystalline; for a more violent metallic note contrasting with gourmand notes, I think L'Artisan Parfumeur Amour Nocturne and Deliria, and Lutens' own Baptême du Feu might fare better.
Therefore, if you enjoy the latest Lutens' style of clean, abstract, sweet musky powder and the glassy aldehyde, and would like a slightly more gourmand variation, I would encourage you to overlook the weird theme and give it a try. However, if you miss Lutens' previous dark, oriental style dearly, I'm afraid that Dent de Lait would probably not be able to bring any comfort.
5 Comments
StellaDiverF 8 years ago
@Luxifer On that front, I'm with you! It kind of feels like following my favourite singer in teenage years, and then he/she started to change his/hers musical style and I change my taste, too. I still admire him/her, but I no longer follow his/her new hits as closely as before.
StellaDiverF 8 years ago
@Anessa @DonVanVliet @ScentFan Thank you! My niche adventure also started with SL. This Dent de Lait is kind of like La Vierge de Fer, in the sense that the name is much much more weird/scary/morbid than the fragrance itself.
Anessa 8 years ago
Good to hear it doesn't contain any 'realistic' associations--from your description it seems, apart from the bottle and the one non-existent 'bold' note listed, rather be based on the image of a 'baby tooth' with the stress on the "baby" part. Thank you for giving the all-clear in that point as well :-)
DonVanVliet 8 years ago
My niche fragrance adventures started with SL. Dent de Lait is a must for my next test session ;-) Thanks for the great review!
ScentFan 8 years ago
1
A great review. Thanks from an SL fan.