Malmaison
Floris (1830)

Carnation Soliflore...

To me, this fragrance is like having a Guerlain - L'Heure Bleue for men. It reminds me of that fragrance, but without the vanilla.

This one opens with a blast of almost medicinal like cloves, which compliment the carnation here. The flower carnation itself has aspects that are citric and lemony, and other aspects which are menthol like, and is very much like cloves. Here, cinnamon, rose and patchoulli also join in, making it a very dark fragrance in my opinion.

This is a very old and classic fragrance, reportedly worn by Oscar Wilde. Although it has been discontinued due to the volatile clove oil use din the composition. The successor, Malmaison Encore to me doesn't have the depth and richness that this one does. Nevertheless this one is a great choice for colder weather. A true spicy carnation scent which is full of sharp spices and rich florals. As a substitute, and for a more rounded composition generally, I think I would have to go for Guerlain - L'Heure Bleue over this.

I dearly love the smell of a good carnation perfume and Malmaison is resplendent in rich ,clovey spicey carnation. It 's not very different form Bellodgia by Caron except this is lighter in feel and less sweet-ambery . It's a beautiful sloliflore and very sad sad that this carnation scent is no longer produced. Thanks to HilaryJane for this lovely sample. :)

I have 3 brand new, never opened, 100ml bottles of Floris Malmaison EDT. These have been beautifully gift wrapped by Floris with their own paper and ribbon and so would make a very special gift. This unusual, iconic and very wearable carnation scent has been discontinued by Floris for some time now (and they have no intention of bringing it back) so it is now also very rare. If you are interested in purchasing one of these bottles, please email me: [email protected]

It's very rare that I experience a fragrance drastically differently from the great reviewer foetidus, but that's what I'm experiencing with Malmaison. There's definitely a heavy dose of clove, but not nearly as overwhelming as something like Ava Luxe Kretek or even other carnation scents like CdG Carnation. The clove is prominent, but lurking not far underneath is a sweet, almost angelica-like green floral/carnation note and a touch of black tea. The fragrance is fairly linear, but I find it very enjoyable and thus don't really mind. As far as carnation scents go, Malmaison is one of my favorite. Sadly bottles seem to be hard to come by these days....

To my nose, the use of cloves in Malmaison make it one-dimensional, linear, and causes cloves overload. It's an even sharper cloves note than I've seen in other fragrances with the same problem – Geo Trumpers' Bay Rum, for instance. The clove gets its extra sharpness, I believe, from its combination with the cinnamon and pepper. Maybe even the carnations add their spiciness to the accord, too. At any rate, Malmaison presents only this spicy cloves accord to my nose. It's much too strong… and for me it takes over sixty minutes for the intensity of the cloves to ameliorate enough for me to tolerate. It becomes a skin scent at the end – a nice scent but very close to the skin. To recap: linear, one-dimensional, and cloves / cinnamon spice bomb. Then it morphs into a skin scent. If you like the smell of cloves, you'll probably like this.

Malmaison is one of my favourite fragrance ! But.. I'm not a woman. The very spicy clove note makes it a very unclassic masculine scent. Floris does not present Malmaison as a fragrance for woman.