Guerlain Royal Extract II Review – Thierry Wasser; 2020

Have we smelt this before? With Guerlain, you can never be certain. Other brands flog different perfumes under the same name, but Guerlain have been known to do the opposite: on more than one occasion, they’ve taken an old scent, repackaged it and marketed it under a new moniker. Perhaps the most famous example is the superb fragrance that started life as Guet-Apens and went through several iterations before appearing as Royal Extract. With this in mind, it seems reasonable to suppose that Royal Extract II (a Harrods exclusive composed by Thierry Wasser) can also trace its lineage to a creation from the brand’s past. But in the absence of any reliable online Guerlain-opedias, no firm conclusions can be drawn. So it must be assessed as a new creation, on its own terms. 

And what heavenly terms they are. Taking the wearer on a journey back to the green, floral tenderness of the house’s 60s-70s period, Royal Extract II balances galbanum with hyacinth, cedar and moss to create a retro delight: filled with just enough nostalgia to be heartbreaking, but not so much that it remains glued to the past. As though channeling the heartbreaking perfection of Chamade, it drifts up from the wearer’s skin on a bed of powdered plushness, filling the space around it with cottony gentleness. 

Simply put, it’s a dream. And I use the word not merely as a synonym of ‘good’, but as an attempt to convey the effect this composition creates. Like a vision encountered in a deep slumber – indistinct at the edges and yet all the more potent for that – it is haunting, poetic and resonant. Well done, Guerlain. Now all you need to do is make it available to a wider audience, preferably at a lower price tag.

Persolaise

[Guerlain Royal Extract II review based on a sample of extrait provided by the brand in 2021.]

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