De Profundis
Serge Lutens (2011)

Floral with pollen and stem, subtle warm undertones like amber incense resin. I get Frankincense and daisies, mostly. If Marousia in all it's pollen dusted florals was mixed with Auric Blends Amber Paste, I think this might be the result. The flowers smell real. Nice smooth skin scent on full dry down ten hours later. I really like this resin-incense-real-flowers vibe though it won't be an everyday thing because it does wear a bit heavily vintage on me. Call it a special occasion scent.

I really want to love this one. I love the house, and I love the aesthetic of this release. I want all the gloom and incense and funerals and soil. But in reality, mostly what I get are fairly bright and sweet florals -- and this is from the original formulation. Le sigh...

The scent of accomplishment. The kind of accomplishment that affords a woman the space to be cold, impatient. She is the boss. She is going undercover at a nursing home to investigate a murder. She uncovers a trio of lesbians who are rubbing and murdering their elderly reseidents. Angie Dickinson in police woman (Flowers of Evil).

Classic, plush, beautiful bitter grassy, and a realistic tart smell of chrysanthemums. It is a scent for mature women style-wise. The opening is so incredibly green without being grassy or leafy, and then mellows down to a chypre floral that has a definite femme fatale feel to it, is all violet and chrysanthemum, two unintentionally beautiful smelling flowers that i love the smell of. There is a rich and flamboyant quality in it that i miss dearly in modern perfumes, that makes me think about all the rich perfumes of the 80's and the beginning of the 90's. The dry down on my skin a hint of smoky incense and vetiver. The chrysanthemum gives it a structure that i really like. Melancholy purple twilight in a bottle.

A dark-green violet leaf arises at the beginning, with a misty undertone that is modulated by a gradually increasing floral bouquet of chrysanthemum and carnations, with the latter being the least prominent on me at this stage.

More florals appear, with bluebell and whiffs of muguet, which are underlined by a light and gentle incense impression, which blends in well with all the florals. Towards the end this all results in a brightter and more light-hearted floral mix, with just a dash of the sweeter incense, like a gossamer veil, casting a shadow over this potpourri.

I get moderate sillage, very good projection, and respectable longevity of nine hours on my skin.

The first part does the name justice, with the darker florals conveying some somber gravity - just the white lilies are missing. the later phases loose a lot of this darker side and become a bit more, albeit cautiously, brighter. A Requiem that is not all dark clouds. More Verdi than Berlioz. 3.5/5

"All'ombra dei cipressi e dentro l'urne....". Definitely a Christopher Sheldrake's masterwork of funereal perfume-mastery. I've often believed that most part of the Serge Luten's creations are above all effluvia evocative of natural or mental ambiences and scenarios than properly accomplished and structured works of perfume-artistry (and this has not necessarily to be intended in a negative sense, Serge Noir is for instance an absolute favorite of mine and one of the most evocative perfumes I've experieced - on my mind evocative of a translucent sinister dawn inside a old phantasmagorical stuffy parisian attic-). De profundis, another Serge Luten's "non-scent", which is anyway more structured than how one could imagine, is an utterly evocative work of "moody" art. A chrysanthemum-based averagely-resinous mouldy fragrance and one of the most assertive scents I know in perfumery (hard to be discerned in its dozens of immediately emerging - wet, stoney, mineral, woodsy, floral/leafy - facets). Sinister and supremely leafy/damp, a perfect cocktail of dry lymphatic floral notes (mostly violet leaves, hyacinth, carnation and chrysanthemum, green, cold, leafy, humid and earthy), mineral patterns, lythurgical resins and faint spices. Moody and chilling in its sinister sense of crawling moodiness and melacholia. I find points of "evocative" ambiental conjunction with the darker and smokier Durbano Black Tourmaline (which is anyway a quite different olfactory "stoney" experience). By smelling this scent you can easily figure on mind the silent atmosphere of a stoney graveyard surrounded by cypresses and ferns and studded by cold marble statues and monumental structures during a grey and gloomy irish winter afternoon. I detect the fresh soil vibe which is probably afforded by a implementation of woody resins as combined with mineral patterns and hints of rubber. The juice seems introducing a sort of circular round-shaped construction with faint evolution and the sudden blossoming of the most part of the diverse elements (immediately apparent and producing their olfactive peculiarity till the end of the trip as a part of an orchestra). Frankincense is perfectly calibrated with the rest of the notes in order to provide the "rounding up olfactory aura" without hampering the general dry/leafy (vaguely lymphatic)/boisé atmosphere. The final effect is weirdly silent and assertive, the olfactive equivalent of the sense of solitude. I tend to wear this kind of fragrances when I intimately wish to silently isolate myself from the rest of the universe in perfect relax (despite a tad of sadness which is a stable part of me).

I own the limited Vapo version of this scent and, like CliareV, can't say that I find it melancholy in any sense.
Quite on the contrary, I like to wear it in late February and March, when the snow is beginning to thaw as the sun is warming. The cool fresh green top notes go with our longing for new greens and give us hope of a renewal of nature. They are like the first millimetre of a yellowish green leave tip when the first buds open in late March, early April.
I get cool flowers, violets mostly, and chrysenthemums on a very slight hint of light wood and just a tiny bit of incense. The perfume has a polite sillage, but it lasts and lasts. I sprayed it, using one spritz, 20 hours ago and I can still smell it clearly and in full complexity.
Aren't flowers meant as a consolation in funerals? A beautiful reminder of how nothing is ever lost, just changes form, a body turning into soil and from soil into plants and new life?
Anyway, this cool, calming, ethereal fragrance that stays with me for a whole day and more is perfect for a work environment in early spring. Lovely!