Daim Blond
Serge Lutens (2004)

Daim Blond starts as a mood. It seems to begin cool, dry, aloof, sort of like unrequited love, something just out of reach, squeezing out the yearning in the wearer. It's all distant pastels and grey pebbles, starched skies, and the persistence of unembraceable beauty.

It's a study in from what my nose detects as Suederal (judiciously dosed, not pummeling like TF's leathers), heliotropin, and anisaldehyde (have I mentioned before that I love a hawthorn note? I want to create a hawthorn-centered scent one day). Of course, we have in the opening cardamom accompanied by this plush apricot, which is the point of interest, as it were. As the cardamom slowly recedes, the apricot goes from voluptuous to desiccated as it embeds in the florals and suede.

As time passes, Daim Blond becomes hazier, sort of the like that sensation where you drift in and out of sleep, and you're at your calmest and most still. The iris and musks swaddle you and the realization comes that it was never out of reach after all, it was right there with you all this time, you just had some opening up of your own to do.

Stripped of the usual curlicues Daim Blond is an oxymoron, a spartan oriental; more understated than Arabie and Ambre Sultan, and - I would say - more ground breaking.
This hot sand that smells of pale suede and apricot is beautiful, but it's a hard beauty to find.
Daim Blond doesn't work on paper, this bitter-sweet fruit of the desert only ripens on skin, and then not for long.

I enjoy Hawthorn as a note. Here with cardamom, it has a slight but fleeting gasoline-mist accord. I find that fascinating and beautiful. Iris and suede, I smell next. There's a slight fruity, almost creamy feel. Musk begins to pervade.

I find Daim Blond to be soothing and delicate. It has a different take on iris and leather, that I've not experienced before. It is evocative for me. Inspiring. The suede-leather lasts and lasts.

Ostensibly, this is a mix of ionones (violets over suede) and iris, but there's so much else happening here that it feels unfair to lump it in with the rest of that genre.

Sniffed up close on skin, the smell is puzzling but captivating, a mix of fresh laundry, kheer (the Indian rice pudding flavored with cardamom), and vague fruity tea. There's something in there that combines all of these disparate elements and makes them all smell like some sort of alcoholic beverage, perhaps a yeasty French champagne or the fermenting rice smell of a sake factory. I know this all sounds strange, but it all has the smooth texture of musky suede, so it works.

But then there's the sillage, a gorgeous cloud of violets, plum, and sandalwood that's kind of like Feminite du Bois reimagined as an aperitif, which hovers nicely but that doesn't register when smelled up close (I think this may be why so many people write this off as "weak").

The drydown is the suede and iris you'd expect from something like this, but deepened with that greasepaint makeup smell you get from the drydown of peach aldehydes, as well as a pinch of Serge's signature honeyed base.

This is quite good, and I'll echo the other reviewers who suggest picking this up while it's cheap and plentiful. It may be a bit weird for a blind buy, but if you're a confident fan of iris/suede perfumes, this is definitely one of the more interesting ones.

Portrait of Lunia Czechowska by Amedeo Modigliani 1919

A beautiful fragrance that is very wearable. So light, but with enough body to transport your positive emotions on it's soft, sweet, suede wafts of powder. I'm not a lover of powdery scents, but Daim Blonde isn't just a powdery scent, it has it's own understated but desirable quality that speaks for itself. I've only worn it once, but I already love it. Another bottle worthy Lutens to be sure.

Lutens is responsible for the best iris suede on the market, his Iris Silver Mist. Daim Blond (Golden Suede) is a much quieter take on this suede note. More center stage is the dried apricot/peach vibe with the suede quietly in the back ground.

It is one of the lightest of the Lutens scents (at this point I have reviewed exactly half of the 62 listed on Basenotes), almost undetectable on my skin despite many applications. I find it to be too subtle for my enjoyment. Had the oils been denser, I might have enjoyed this more.

As it is, it is a pleasant light peach/apricot suede, neither bad nor outstanding.

This delicate little number is kind of a strange one, from a house that has produced so many enchanted woods and flying carpets. But magic comes in many forms. Here we have an ethereal blend featuring iris and (I think) osmanthus, given weight in its concentration--the formula Lutens produced for this has more oil than a typical EdP, which adds an extra sense of luxury to the blend. It feels great on your skin, somehow as rich and soft as the scent it produces.

The pencil shavings and dust other reviewers mention are lost on me, as is the musk--guess I'm anosmic to this one. I get sweet iris here, and apricot, especially on my pulse points. This one wears very close to the skin, so it's a private pleasure at best, something I indulge in when I need a reminder that I really only wear perfume for myself.

Edit: As I wear this, I detect the musk mostly my sense of this perfume's texture. It seems to stay moist long after it dries. The iris also seems sweeter than it usually would--possibly amplified by the musk.


Second Edit: Years later, I'm still learning things about this seemingly obvious little number. I don't find powder here in the usual sense of billowing talcum mirages; rather, it's the gradual soft-focus diffusion of fruit and suede and just a hint of melancholy heliotrope--in other words, a spell cast by orris butter, which gives you the sensation of smelling an exquisite dust made from all the perfume's elements as it dries down on your skin.

I also find myself thinking, again, that if you long to smell the thousand-dollar unicorn that is now Iris Gris (clearly not made for the sad likes of me) but probably can't/won't/etc., isn't Daim Blond more than an adequate consolation? It may not have lept out of the Lutens lineup back in the day, especially next to Iris Silver Mist; but, now that ISM has seens reformulation, and especially now that 2943430437439420 other niche houses have tried and mostly failed at doing an iris scent that comes anywhere close to Daim Blond, I think it's time the Daim Blond got its due. This stuff is magnificent, fine for anyone of any gender (Aventus is sweeter than Daim Blond, if you're worried about something as silly as that); and--trust me--you will miss it when it's gone. Someday, DB is gonna be what Iris Gris is now--a Grail if there ever was one. Snap it up while it's still half the price of most mainstream designer nonsense. I'll take yours if (for some reason) you still don't like it.

Daim Blond is a simple pleasure done right. It is a dry, dusty suede lightly decorated with the scent of apricots – not the juicy, sweet flesh of ripe apricots but the desiccated husk of skin when shriveled up to almost nothing. Iris provides the bitter, gray powder, and osmanthus the delicate tannin of apricots and black tea.

It is not in the least bit animalic but there is a lightly musky undertone that conjures up a ghostly image of female skin. When I wear Daim Blond, I imagine Newland Archer peeling back the fine-grained Italian leather glove from Countess Olenska's wrist and pressing his mouth to her quivering flesh. She's on the cusp of allowing herself to be ruined. It's a moment of sensuality written on a such a tiny scale so as not to register to anyone but them, but somehow the restrained, pulled-in nature of the moment and its capacity to unleash the hounds of hell is far sexier than anything more explicit.

Daim Blond smells like a woman's wrist and the tipping point of desire.

This is a soft leather, accented by apricot and musk, with light florals (iris) in the background. Absolutely cozy! Extremely well constructed. The opening blast is memorable, but sadly, for me, this dries down quickly and remains a skin scent from beginning to end. Thumb neutral on this one from SL.

This is one of the most simplistic but at the same time high quality and extremely well balanced creations of master Christopher Sheldrake.
The opening of this fragrance is a semi fresh and semi sweet very natural apricot smell plus very bright and light floral notes in the background. the iris note here isn't powdery that much. it's just a pleasant and relaxing floral note to add more natural feeling to the scent. the opening may look feminine but just wait for a couple of minutes and let it settle down on your skin.

After about 10 minutes Suede kicks in and gives the scent a soft leathery and personally I would say a mellow dirty kind of aura to the fruity and floral base of the scent.
The mid is a semi sweet musky, fruity and a little floral scent followed by slightly dirty and kind of smoky Suede and very soft spices completely in the background. the mid is perfectly unisex but a little more toward feminine side.
Projection is soft and always close to the skin and longevity is around 3 hours on my skin.
Not as complex and exciting as other creations by this house but definitely something high quality, safe, pleasant, charming and very easy to wear.

Daim Blond is a lovely, lightly leathered apricot scent. While I can't tell you what "suede" smells like compared to leather, I can say that the leather note here is timid and mostly present in the top & heart notes. Once the drydown arrives, it gets a bit too sweet and uninteresting.

The only reason to get this over Boxeuse is availability/price. I still like DB, but it's definitely a 3/5 while Boxeuse would be a 4/5.