I like all kinds of fragrances, even though the biggest chanse to find something I really like usually is among oriental, war, sweet, heavy, woody and gourmand scents. Beacause of that I surprised myself a little when I bought a bottle of Serge Lutens -almost- new Bas de Soie, unsniffed. Oh, well... not an entire bottle really, it was a bottle with little left on Ebay for quite a nice price, but still it was a large enough expence to be a little exciting.
For some reason Bas de Soie captured my attention. According to what I found out about it, it was a pure, clean, aquatic floral, not what usually get´s my attention. Well, my bottle arrived together with the little leftovers. I had to try it at once, and well, I do liked it. I liked it a lot and would love to have more of it, and unfortunatly I swapped away 5 ml of it for something that I didn´t liked as much also.
Anyway, Bas de Soie isn´t so clean. It even has some similarites with an infamous scent from Etat Libre d'Orange, namely Secretions Magnifique, but wearable. Bas de Soie makes me think about water nymphs, slippery, wet, pale, nude bodies in dark water with long hair meandering around the face, neck and body. A starngly erotic, but cold almost fish-like smell, that still manage to be alluring.
But wait for a second, that sounded a bit disgusting? It isn´t, I promise. It is good, interesting and complex in a way I ´ve missed with other "clean" scents from Serge Lutens.
The top note is a bouquet of hyacinths that slowly unfolds on my skin, hyacinths in pale nuances of ice pink, ivory white, piercing blue and cooling violet. It´s also the scent of stems, light green, crispy in a vase of cold, clear almost purling water... In this bouquet there is also a sharp, acrid note hidning, something that gives it an edge without being to much. When the notes warms up, the green dissapears and the floral notes gets warmer and this part of Bas de Soie is so good. Together with the strong flowers there is a note of lipstick, a shiny, creamy almost sticky lipstick in some cold icy pink color. Almost at the same time I discover a note of apples, and this is such delicious apples, crfips, tart, green apples with white and juicy pulp.
The notes of flowers (hyacinth that transforms to iris) are beautiful blended with lipstick and apple. I wonder if that could be any rose and violet in Bas de Soie, giving that lipstick note? In the end of this phase, the note that remind me of Secretions Magnifique become more and more prominent. It has some metallic elements as well, but avoid being uncomfortable. But I suspect this note can be hard to enjoy for some.
I certainly not regret that I bought my little part of Bas de Soie unsniffed, even though I would do fine without the basenote. The base isn´t that comfy on me, in the end that weird aquatic, metallic note is all that remains on me. It is discrete and stay close to skin, but when this is all that is left of Bas de Soie I just put another scent in top of it. This aquatic note does best hidning underneath a lot of other scents.
To me, Bas de Soie is more a springtime scent then an autumn scent, so I think I´ll save what´s left of it until next spring. Bas de Soie has great sillage, especially from start and medium longvity. I think of it as a scent for women, even though I don´t find it 100% feminine.
Have you tried Bas de Soie? How is it on you? And am I the only one curious about Boxeuse? Maybe some of you allready have tried it?
Pic: Draper, The Water Nymph
I bought a 5ml decant of Bas unsniffed. I loved the opening so much! Silky, smooth, iris-y and perfect. Then in the heart, as you described, the brighter-green florals rolled in and that made my eyebrows raise: not in a good way. Then my eyebrows fell to my bellybutton in the base because I was flatly disappointed. There was a 'perfumey' harshness in the drydown that I could not tolerate. Thankfully, though, I swapped it away and that wasn't difficult to do :-)
SvaraRaderaAs for Boxeuses, I'm waiting for an unsniffed decant as well....to be continued!