Fleurs d'oranger Serge Lutens 1995

Contrary to the claims of some other reviewers, I didn't find Fleurs d'Oranger to be much of a powerhouse at all. It opens with a flourish and struts around for about an hour—promising!—but from there things rapidly go downhill. By hour three, it's already fully in its death throes, at which point it tosses around a bit of nutmeg in a desperate bid to remain relevant. By hour four, the scent is almost completely undetectable. At no stage of this all-too-short journey do any rough edges or animalic elements make themselves known.

Fleurs d'Oranger is a beautiful scent, but also one that feels watered down and artificially restrained—at least in the iteration that I sampled.