Fragrance Review: En Passant by Frederic Malle

Attempts to capture rain often result in limpid and pallid quality of the composition. Worse yet, some perfumers employ ozonic notes to create a lift, which in most cases creates an artificial result. Water smells of nothing, yet rain is not mere water. Falling onto the soil and leaves, it leads scents to intertwine together and to share their unique qualities. Garden after the rain smells of soil, roots, flowers, and leaves, with individual scents blurring into a somewhat abstract olfactory vision. Created by Olivia Giacobetti in 2000, En Passant is one of the most successful "rain" scent, after enchanting Guerlain Après l'Ondée (1906). Giacobetti captures the Impressionist vision of the scent of raindrops trembling on the lilac bushes. All notes reveal themselves at once conjuring a vision of passing a lilac bush in full bloom, dropping a confetti of tiny blossoms into the puddles on the pavement.

When selecting a painting to accompany my discussion of this particular fragrance, it is not accidental that I selected a dark and somewhat ambivalent painting by Vrubel, depicting a dark figure against a large lilac bush, with the dusky shadows slowly creeping from the corners. Contrary to the expectations, En Passant is not a sunny heady lilac, but rather a scent of air still bearing traces of the rainstorm that ravaged the lilacs, tearing off their blossoms and leaving the ground covered with a haze of flowers. Although the rainstorm is over, En Passant hints at its distant rumblings.

Notes: white lilac, rain accord, cucumber, wheat, orange tree leaves.

Painting: Lilac by Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910), one of the greatest Russian painters, founder of Russian Art Nouveau.

Comments

[Tania]

My favorite of the Editions de Parfums. I've never thought of it as rain, but close: I compared it to a very white cloud. (It's all meteorological phenomena, isn't it?) I don't know if I'm right, but I detect a soft pale sweetness, like the faintest touch of vanilla, in the drydown, which, for me at least, lends the whole composition an aching, nostalgic feeling.

[mreenymo]

I love that painting! Very moody, almost foreboding.

Hugs!

[Robin]

V, another lovely post, thank you! And one of my very favorite perfumes. It is part of the reason that I find the IUNX boutique such an odd choice -- she could be doing more little "stories" like En Passant -- so interesting & unusual.

Saw the comment yesterday about FM perhaps cancelling the leather scent by OG, and wondering if that is because she is now doing one for Bottega Veneta? Just a hopeful thought :-)

[Joytika]

Hmm, this scent sounds very interesting. It is difficult for me to imagine the scent, of being rain-like (which to me is light, clean) and yet dark. I will have to try it.