Fourreau noir Serge Lutens 2009

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8.0 / 10 221 Ratings

Fourreau noir is a popular perfume by Serge Lutens for women and men and was released in 2009. The scent is spicy-smoky. The longevity is above-average. It is still in production. Pronunciation

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Main accords

Spicy

Smoky

Sweet

Woody

Gourmand

Fragrance Notes

Tonka bean

Lavender

Smoky notes

Almond

Musk

Perfumers

Christopher Sheldrake, Serge Lutens

Ratings

Scent

8.0221 Ratings

Longevity

8.0162 Ratings

Sillage

7.0155 Ratings

Bottle

8.3138 Ratings

Value for money

6.710 Ratings

Submitted by Kankuro, last update on 15.10.2023.

Reviews

6 in-depth fragrance descriptions

10/10/2020

8
Bottle 8
Sillage 9
Longevity 8.5
Scent

Augusto
163 Reviews

Translated Show original

Augusto

Top Review 11

Smoked lavender molasses

Dark, syrupy scent. Reminds me of licorice, but then turns towards a kind of spicy molasses. Not sweet, sugar doesn't smell sweet either, for example when you smell brown sugar. At the same time, the smell appears velvety and silky. It also never slips into the fruity. Otherwise we would have the well-known Lutensschen dried fruit tone. (Also very nice.) However, some of it can also be found here. Dried fruit without fruit. Sugar without sweetness. It's fascinating how SL does it.

In terms of colour, the fragrance remains reddish-brown for me from beginning to end. Lavender adds its bluish-purple aromatic signature. FN reminds me a little of the second half of Gris Clair. But more powerful.

So: Smoked lavender molasses. And impressively also the tart part of a strongly fermented Oolong. This tender bitterness.
Compared to Gris Clair, Fourreau Noir is very dense and a whole trail of gloom. This kind of gloom is something you can easily get into for an evening, AugustA thinks.

11/04/2012

10
Longevity 8
Scent

Ysbrand
84 Reviews

Ysbrand

Very helpful Review 7

Purring fougere

Fourreau Noir´s limited edition bottle (that sadly i don´t own) was decorated with a crouching cat watching the moon, and how appropriate is the image of the cat to describe this scent! I cannot be more against the use of furs, as clothes and as names, so i was happy to know the fourreau in question was still on its legitimate owner and that this one is no other than a feline.

To be honest, Fourreau Noir didn´t trigger my curiosity from the beginning since it features a very traditional tonka bean-lavender. Of course, being a Lutens it couldn´t be in the expected, conventional, fougere way. Nevertheless, let me tell you, Fourreau Noir is one of this Lutens that are not difficult to wear at all, and many of the Lutens-skepticals will find it pleasant and lovable.

So this fawn fluid smell first and foremost to tonka. Picture an elastic body covered of the smoothest hair, moving with a wild elegance. Sweet, warm and balsamic, full of nuances as tonka is. Then the most important modifyer is a truly invisible lavender, just as a subtle herb/camphor fresh overlay that brings vivacity to the tonka. This incognito lavender is a drop of full awaken grey that balances the warmth of the fragance: the crystalline cat eyes, the spark of a fang or a claw breaking the sweet/smoky evenness of the fur. This is not a decorative dead skin, it has well-tempered muscles and nerves of steel underneath.

This seamless blend, the way lavender is there but it is not, and the smokiness, is what makes this perfume IMHO remarkable in its category.

The evolution is pretty linear. In any case, it starts slightly sweeter and it gets more balsamic, after a while... but its a perfect ratio of sweet, aromatic and smoky, with master touches of spice, resin and seductive animalic musk. Noir? probably not, dark, yes. Dun fur.

Fourreau Noir is not an attention seeker, but captivates unintentionally instead; like we admire the cat graciously running with swift feet along the balcony´s railing: defying gravity, totally in control of his furry body, careless of being noticed or not, leaving us in awe.

05/19/2013

jtd
484 Reviews

jtd

Helpful Review 6

flanker?

Fourreau Noir makes me consider the possibilities of copying and repetition. Part of a series, variation on a theme? Uninventive, deliberate, derivative? Sequel, flanker, gender counterpart, homage?

However it’s come about, Fourreau Noir smells remarkably similar to Chergui. A little less raspy and a bit cooler and herbal from the lavender. It’s syrupy, sweet and woody. It’s a spin on the coumarin accord of Chergui, a range that Sheldrake and Lutens do very well. Sadly, it holds no surprise here, but then again, I’m not a great fan of Chergui.

Worse luck, Fourreau Noir has a large helping of the same masculine contemporary notes linking ‘freshness’ (I can’t quite use that word without qualifier) and wood that Chergui has. This capitulation is what turned Chergui for me, and it does the same to Fourreau Noir. It fact, this is where the similarity of the two is to be found. Sheldrake and Lutens manage to make many distinctive perfumes in what might seem a small range of spicy syrup (see Arabie, Cedre, Cuir Mauresque). But in both Chergui and here in Fourreau Noir, the perfume makers cede the middle ground to convention and, despite Fourreau Noir’s lavender, which could be a logical entree to the world of the contempo-homo (my stage name for the state of current perfumery for men), Fourreau Noir winds up fairly faceless and undistinguished like Chergui.

Clearly, I’m not hiding my preferences, but to take a step back, how are we to view Fourreau Noir? Lutens don’t group it with Chergui in their “Sudden Sweetness” series where Chergui is found, but the composition is similar. The generous thing to do would be to paint the two as a Bernard Chant/Estee Lauder gender pairing such as Azuree/Aramis or Aromatics Elixir /Aramis 900. Less generous would be to call Fourreau Noir a retread.

from scent hurdle.com

02/25/2014

8
Scent

Kxnaiades
50 Reviews

Kxnaiades

Helpful Review 6

a smoky, sweet, dark lavender

With one stroke, this satisfied my hunger for a lavender based scent as well as a tonka dominant scent, hence knocking Guerlain's Tonka Imperial off my want list and saving me wads of cash. After an almost futile search of finding a lavender perfect for me in a Goldilocks fashion of none too herbal, none too sweet, this is my perfect lavender over L'erbolario (too herbal, too sleep aid but a true lavender) and also from the same house, Gris Clair, which a very very kind member here sent me samples of. This is a smoky, sweet and dark lavender on me and fits its colour very well. I smell everything all at once and yet I would not describe it as a linear scent. All the ingredients just seem to dance around each other in perfect step. Sillage and longevity are very good, but I have not had an issue regarding both when it comes to Lutens, to my great benefit!

06/07/2014

2.5
Bottle 5
Sillage 5
Longevity 5
Scent

WRoth
154 Reviews

WRoth

3

Fourreau Noir

This fragrance opens with almond and tonka bean notes. A subtle smokey accent counterbalances the two top notes and heralds the arrival of the principal note: lavender. The highly aromatic herb gradually reveals itself, not to overwhelm the sweeter notes and to change the scent's direction, but to enhance the best features of the composition. I now see a rich, sensual oriental fragrance that is easy to wear and pleasant to smell on others. Compared to Louve and Rahat Loukum, Fourreau Noir is - in my opinion - the superior scent, for its depth and compelling presence put it in a league of its own. The intoxicating tonka-vanilla-lavender blend lasts for several hours until the opening notes slowly start to retreat - the fragrance enters its final stage. What remains is an earthy-smokey lavender note with a pale vanillic halo.

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