Pumpkin Patch: Etat Libre d’Orange Like This

By Tom Tilda Swinton is an actress that I adore; I've enjoyed her performances since "Orlando". When I read that she was going to have a celeb fragrance I wasn't sure. For every Jane Birkin/Miller Harris creation, there's, well too many to list of god-awful ones. I know that Etat Libre isn't exactly Parfums del Mattel, but still. Receiving the mass email from LuckyScent I stopped by on the way home. Listed notes are Yellow mandarin, ginger, pumpkin accord, immortelle, Moroccan neroli, rose de Grasse, vetiver, heliotrope, and musk (Notes from LuckyScent). The neroli and the mandarin open it on me. more peel than orange. Ginger drops in, more like powdered than fresh raw or candied. The pumpkin is discernible and fleshy and the immortelle is a whisper. About halfway through the musk comes out to play, adding in a delightfully disconcerting drrrtyness to the proceedings. I realise that the preceding sentences, list of notes and that fact that it's the kids that came up with the first perfume that smells like a sex crime might not lend itself to the idea that this is a very quiet scent. There's nothing foody about it, despite the pumpkin. The immortelle isn't the moist, maple syrup variety and the ginger and the orange are as effacing as the rose and vetiver. It's probably the best thing that's come out of Etat Libre, and perhaps the first thing of theirs that I really want to purchase. According to The Non-Blonde Ms. Swinton will be at Henri Bendel on 5th Avenue on June 17th to sign bottles and let us bask in her fabulousness. Would that I could be there... $99 for 50ML at Henri Bendel and LuckyScent