Benzoin
Woody notes
Musk
Labdanum
Cedar
Iris
Vetiver
06/20/2025
ClaireV
731 Reviews
ClaireV
1
Low frequency Zen deliciousness
Nature Millénaire is one of those fragrances that makes me wish I'd been more aware of perfume when I had started my first serious job and could afford it. As it was, when this was launched, I was still so slavishly faithful to Burberry for Women, Bvlgari Black, and the Bvlgari tea fragrances (Au Thé Rouge in particular) that really cool perfumes like Nature Millénaire, Gloria Cacherel, and Alexander McQueen My Queen came and went without me noticing them.
Nature Millénaire starts off with one of the most natural-smelling cedar accords I have ever smelled - soft, waxen, and 'golden', it has none of the abrasive bitterness or steel-wire radiance I've come to expect and what's more, cleverly pulls down on the expensive buttery facets of iris to make it smell even smoother. It smells lightly incensey too, in that late 1990s, early 2000 style that saw its zenith in 10 Corso Como - a kind of hazy, supermodel-bland mélange of pale woods, incense, and gentle spices whose attractiveness is hard to define but genuine, nonetheless.
Nature Millénaire is soft to the point of being boneless. Its lack of definite character is a pro, not a con. It's just an easy-going, good-smelling fug of incensey cedar and orris powder that hangs around like a good mood. I can see this working in the way that Annayake Miyako does - or used to, until that one also got discontinued, i.e., capable of bathing you in a Zen cloud of woody-amberiness while transmitting at such a low frequency that nobody at the proper social distance will pick up on it.
Nature Millénaire starts off with one of the most natural-smelling cedar accords I have ever smelled - soft, waxen, and 'golden', it has none of the abrasive bitterness or steel-wire radiance I've come to expect and what's more, cleverly pulls down on the expensive buttery facets of iris to make it smell even smoother. It smells lightly incensey too, in that late 1990s, early 2000 style that saw its zenith in 10 Corso Como - a kind of hazy, supermodel-bland mélange of pale woods, incense, and gentle spices whose attractiveness is hard to define but genuine, nonetheless.
Nature Millénaire is soft to the point of being boneless. Its lack of definite character is a pro, not a con. It's just an easy-going, good-smelling fug of incensey cedar and orris powder that hangs around like a good mood. I can see this working in the way that Annayake Miyako does - or used to, until that one also got discontinued, i.e., capable of bathing you in a Zen cloud of woody-amberiness while transmitting at such a low frequency that nobody at the proper social distance will pick up on it.
