La dompteuse encagée Serge Lutens 2021

As we Parfumos know from experience, no floral perfume is exactly identical to fresh flowers and plant parts. We can experience this most easily with roses, of which there are also endlessly many fragrant varieties. However, in my opinion, no perfume comes close to the scent of a blooming rose. Even dried petals are often much more intense and/or different from a fragrant rose in bloom.
Consequently, the search for a particular floral perfume is not easy.
We also often associate particular places, occasions, travel memories, experiences and distant memories with a certain scent.
Sometimes it helps to get the scent on its own, pure and well extracted, as a fragrance oil, to find out what you are looking for.
You learn and discover a lot along the way.
- For example, when testing blue lotus oil, CO²-extracted, I discovered that it is the main scent in Flower by Kenzo.
- In my search for the scent of mimosa, I wanted it to bring back memories of my time in Florence in spring, in March. I had bought a mimosa perfume there, but it was so strong and sharp that I couldn't bear the scent.
But I found it by chance in Mimosa Tanneron by Perris Monte Carlo, created by J-C. Elléna. That is exactly how it smelled everywhere in Florence back in March: this scent clearly evokes my memories of Florence-
For a similar reason, I have been looking for a frangipani perfume for several years. My husband and I travelled to Crete a few years ago. When we arrived at our booked holiday destination after a long and very uncomfortable bus ride from Heraklion, the perfectly beautiful, waxy frangipani flowers greeted me as I stepped off the bus.
I picked some straight away, because they smelled wonderful. The scent was especially bright and floral, slightly fresh, but not like heavy white flowers. I found it unique. It kept the usual culture shock I experience at the beginning of trips at bay. My mood immediately lifted. I even put flowers in my hair. I have only felt so euphoric a very few times since.
So we made our way, relaxed, to the apartment hotel we had booked.
Right by reception, the air was intoxicatingly and yet beautifully scented with frangipani. There were bowls of frangipani flowers all over the tables. Some, however, were apparently already past their prime, and a slight musty smell from the fading flowers mingled with the scent. They were clearly used to that there. Because it always smelled that way in that foyer.
In Crete, where we were staying, there were frangipani trees full of flowers everywhere, outside all the cafés and restaurants in particular, but they only smelled when you got close to them. Nowhere was there such an intense scent as in the foyer of our accommodation.
We put frangipani flowers in our apartment. Just a few at a time in a glass of water. The room was never filled with their scent. You had to bring your nose quite close to the flowers. I was always delighted, and the flowers and their scent gave me such a lift.
That trip also has a special personal significance for me.
And from then on, I searched for a frangipani perfume that would do justice, at least somewhat, to my memory. But even when frangipani was listed, I found everything from strong Monoi, Tiaré/Gardenia and coconut scents to Champaca, but never frangipani.
The perfume offered by L'Erbolario, for example, called Frangipani, is a pleasant scent. But apart from its name, it has nothing to do with the scent of frangipani, as far as I'm concerned.
So for about 8 years, I kept looking for a frangipani scent. A lot has changed in my life, so Parfumo has faded somewhat into the background for me, but not perfumes.
When I recently received the usual voucher from ALzD for my birthday and couldn't think of a scent I was currently longing to have, I returned to frangipani. I went to the website and used the chat. I was given the names of several scents. I ordered samples, and there was no sample available for the recommended "La Dompteuse encagée". I followed the chat's advice and got Milk Orchid by Commdity as a reference for the Lutens scent.
But good grief! No, I couldn't imagine Lutens having a scent like that in its range. The other scents either had no frangipani or only hinted at it in a brief, straw-like interlude.
I thought: Even if "the caged Tamer" didn't contain the promised frangipani as its main scent, I would still get a good perfume, especially since Ylang Ylang is listed.
And so I ordered the scent almost blind. I opened the bottle and smelled it cautiously: Frangipani, wonder of wonders! I unscrewed the spray head, sprayed cautiously onto my wrists and: I was immediately back at the reception of our accommodation in Crete.
I can't tell from the pyramid here, or from the ingredient list on the box, why or how exactly this scent smells like frangipani to me.
It smells uniquely of frangipani flowers, but also somewhat of flowers that have already begun to wilt.
At first, it's a powerful scent, almond? Almond itself has a mild, inconspicuous scent; it could take some of the sharpness and bitterness out of the scent.
Farnesol surely plays a part, too.
Ylang? It may be that it supports the scent. That remains the secret and the art of perfumers. In my experience, it seems difficult to create a perceptible frangipani scent on its own or alongside other notes in a perfume. In my opinion, they have succeeded here. Or is this scent simply appealing to my personal memories?
The scent remains perceptibly that of frangipani flowers from beginning to end, becoming milder, lighter, fresher and more transparent, more delicate. At the very end, I smell a hint of delicate, fine incense that absorbs the barely perceptible floral scent and wafts away with it.
However, "La Dompteuse encagée" lasts a very long time on me, including on clothing; you can still smell it in the room the next day.
Even though I bought the scent without testing it, I still recommend trying it first. Because of my rating and how much I enjoy it; this review is influenced by my personal memories.