Mandarine Mandarin

The latest creation by Serge Lutens and nose Chris Sheldrake is called Mandarine Mandarin. The lilting name given to the perfume reminds

one that the mandarine fruit originally meant "the orange of the mandarin"and originates in East Asia. The historical evocation of an official from the past eating delicious oranges conjures up all the more golden yellow images of Imperial China.

A sumptuous blue celestial Chinese dragon decorates the 30 copies of the limited edition of the perfume which will be available for 800 Euros from November 2006 at the Salons du Palais Royal. The price for a bell-shaped flacon of Mandarine Mandarin, without the blue engraving, is 100 Euros.

Notes are Chinese orange, nutmeg, candied orange, peels of mandarins of Sicilia, Black Mandarin, Cashmere musk, clove, honey, beeswax, smoked Chinese tea, thyme, labdanum, rock rose, Tonka bean, and ambergris.

The perfume evokes to me a slightly complicated atmosphere of both intellectual and sensual exoticism. The perfume wearer is invited to travel on the notes of crystallized Chinese orange peels, Lapsang Souchong (black smoked tea), and the drool of the dragon or ambergris, amongst others...