Persolaise Review: George from Jardins D’Ecrivains (perfumer unknown; 2012)

The marketing of perfume tends to be an intensely gender-specific business, so it’s always interesting to think about which materials and accords signify ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ at any given moment in time, within a specific culture. I wonder if this subject was on the mind of George‘s creator. As you might hope from a scent named after one of history’s most well-known challengers of gender codes, this intriguing piece of work combines elements from both ends of the ‘sexual stereotype’ spectrum – neroli with tobacco, tomato leaf with incense, vanilla with patchouli – to make a coherent statement about the fluid nature of personal identities. When its rough-hewn, fleshy, heavily indolic jasmine heart leads to a drydown of near-tangible leather (a la Knize Ten) the final message seems to be clear: we’re all made of the same stuff… but some of us are better than others at inhabiting our skin.

[Review based on a sample of eau de parfum provided by Bloom in 2013.]

Persolaise.