Hey Stink Junkies,
Someone who has inspired me from the background for many years is Rene Lalique, it’s a name that comes up in art, jewellery and glass collection circles but often is also linked to the rise of Coty as a fragrance brand.
From rlalique.com: Lalique is remembered for his jewelry and his glass. But his greatest accomplishments were born in his recognition of the changing world in which he lived. His life spanned the entire period from the Civil War to World War II and as his world changed, so did Lalique. His amazing turn of careers and fields put him in the forefront of the new mass production. He was a jeweler, he was a glassmaker, he was an artist. But his great accomplishment was to combine those talents with foresight and innovation to not just serve markets, but to create them. In the process, Lalique would become a world class industrialist with an industrial ability on par with any other of his rich talents and achievements.
Lalique 1992
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Chinese gardenia, Sicilian mandarin orange, black currant, blackberry
Heart: Peony, Tunisian orange blossom, magnolia, Bulgarian rose, ylang-ylang
Base: Indian sandalwood, vanilla, amber, Yugoslavian oakmoss , cedar, Tibetan musk
I like the warm, spicy fruit and citrus in the Lalique opening, there is a kind of plastic gardenia flowing through the lot that to be honest smells inexpensive. In fact Lalique smells like a mid range to good celebuscent. Wearable and perfumey, quite pretty and I could imagine it being a go to scent for a non perfumista, a respray handbag scent or a gym bag scent for fragrant touch ups after a workout. I know, damning with faint praise.
The heart is a fresh, ultra clean bouquet that is well blended and I do like it, for the price it is a very wearable fragrance. Though you are fragrant with a moderate sillage you will not be skunking anyone in your vicinity because Lalique perfume is not a loud, bombastic fragrance after the initial 15 minutes, it sits quietly near your skin and occasionally wafts out to you. I do not get any one flower but hints of the orange blossom float to the top sometimes, which is very pretty and not salacious at all.
Maybe back in 1992 this was a bigger, broader and more shoulder padded fragrance, it feels like there might have been some massive cost and quality cuts as the product became less in demand. I get very little of the offered notes in the base, rather it seems an attenuated whisper compared to the notes list. It is a soft and warm woody vanilla dry down that is common among many of the less expensive fragrances.
As a perfumista do you need to smell this? No. Would you wear it? Maybe. I have a few fragrances that I wear when the inspiration, situation or my own headspace is unsuitable for the grand story that some perfumes provide. This is exactly that kind of frag, spritz and forget, respritz after it’s disappeared. With my 5ml decant I think that I will be happy and probably never finish it, though if there’s one thing I’ve learned about this addiction it’s never say never.
Photo Stolen huubgeurts
FragranceShop has 50ml around $25
MyPerfumeSamples has $2/ml or $7/5ml
Photo Stolen ParfumsRaffy
Do any of the Laique fragrances play a role in your fragrance library? Maybe Encre Noir or Amythest? Do you have any of the vases etc? I can only dream of owning the fabulous pieces while I wear my Lalique perfumes.
Till tomorrow I wish you health, wealth and happiness,
Portia xx

Oh Portia, how very sad to read this. I used to own the perfume, eons and eons ago, when it first came out in the early ’90s. It was nothing like the pale, sad, wan thing you’re describing and hearing what it has become now really depresses me. π¦ It seems like a whole other perfume! In fact, even juice that I remember was different. Much more coloured. Orange-y, I think, though I wouldn’t bet my life on it. It wasn’t my favorite fragrance but it was easy to wear, had character and, actually, quite an elegant feel to it from what I recall. *sigh*
As for Lalique itself, I don’t own any but my mother has quite a collection — everything from enormous vases to bowls, knicknacks, special cocktail party plates, etc. She actually has two diff. nymph vases like those shown. I admire but stay very, very far away lest I accidentally break something and end up being disowned. π
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I thought it may have been reformulated badly, thanks for the sad truth Kafkaesque.
On a brighter note, your Mum’s collection sounds fabulous. 2 of those amazing Nymph vases!! My Mum was a Wedgewood urn vase collector, I have continued the collection and there are now 4 sizes and a few of each, they look amazing along the table and full of flowers.
Portia x
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Your collection must look fabulous! π And it’s much happier thing to think about than the lamentable state of reformulated perfumes.
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Oh, it looks great to me. My friends kind of shrug and smile as if to say, “OMG! Crazy cat lady vase collector.”
Much better than bewailing the ailing frag culture.
Portia xx
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Rofl. I simply CANNOT see you as Crazy Cat Lady anything! Heh. Me, on the other hand, I epitomize Crazy Dog Lady. *grin*
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XXXOX
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Cat lady? I thought you were a greyhound lady. We used to live across the street from a crazy greyhound lady. She had 10 of them. She had no room for vases in that small house with that many dogs. If she had any vases I can bet they were not Lalique.
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Yes Poodle i am the crazy Greyhound lady but when people think Cer Ay Zee it’s usually Cat-Lady. And that is definitely the shrug and look I get.
He He He.
Portia xx
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I have only one Lalique, Lalique Pour Homme which I love and reading this reveiw I realized I have been neglecting it. So I shall wear it today!
This is just a taste of how it strikes my fancy: “This is a self assured masculine fragrance for a man with discerning taste and urbane style. It has fluid lines, great style and a strong masculine complexity. It says something.”
xo
L
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Do you have the gorgeous lion head bottle. It calls to me that bottle.
Portia xx
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Yes I do!!
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Yummy. Does it feel as good as it looks Lanier?
Portia x
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Yes yes yes a thousand times YES!
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No Lalique in my possession – perfumes or anything else though I wouldn’t refuse to own most of their special bottles – as long as I do not have to wear their content.
I think it’s a pity though. The brand as expensive as Lalique is could afford a better perfume.
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Hiya Undina,
I think they used to be good fragrances and Lalique Encre Noir is often cited as their best current frag. It is shameful to me that such a great company can be putting out such dross. GRRR
I have been wearing it for over 12 hours in Aussie summer, including sleeping, and there is still a faint amber glow coming from my skin. Not bad too.
Portia xx
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Dear Portia
Sad to her that another perfume has gone the way of so many reformulations.
It also causes me great concern as I adore Lalique’s L’Hommage a L’Homme and now fear for its long term safety….
An elegant and eminently wearable perfume L’Hommage starts with a good but not overpowering oud and then transforms magically into a very assertive saffron with a good dose of a virile violet.
Quite remarkable really and the nearest thing the Dandy has to a signature, making outings on a more than fortnightly basis.
It also comes in a beautiful flacon (not the naked male of the Β£1500 collectors issue but) a wonderful rusticated art deco cuboid. One of the choicest hunks of scented glassware I own.
Yours ever
The Perfume Dandy
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WOW! Sounds fabulous. I have never come across this gem. Where did you find it?
Portia xx
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Lalique sell it at their boutique here in London and it’s at Fortnum and Mason’s, Harrods and I think Selfridge’s – anywhere where they sell the full Lalique range.
I’m quite partial to Le Parfum and adore Encre Noir which I’m forever err ‘borrowing’…
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
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XXXOX
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I say (he blushes) The Dandy tips his hat to the young lady and offers her the carnation from his buttonhole.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
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I recently bought Encre Noire at a discount place because I love the dry down and the bottle is pretty. One of the Amouage stores here has quite an impressive display of Lalique glass that you can purchase along with a truly great fragrance π
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Oh dear. I must come visit you in Dubai when my pocketbook recovers from the last trip.
Portia xx
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I LOVE Lalique – I wore it in about 2000/2001. It is a bit loud, but it fit with my party-girl days! I don’t think the reformulation is as good.
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Hi Annina,
Sadly I think you are correct. It’s a shame.
Portia x
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