L’Insomnuit by Robert Piguet

If you love iris, this is a fragrance you must try. Perfect when it’s cold outside and you start craving warmth, creating a comfortable atmosphere… yet it also carries a languid vibration that makes you forget, even if briefly, the rigours of winter, with all its darkness and melancholy. Let it make you feel sensual, even if you woke up or arrived home at 7:00 am. I adore fragrances dedicated to this beautiful note, but few truly satisfy me. However, this creation is very particular and quite different. L’ Insomnuit is a dark blue iris, almost midnight blue. It lives in a moonlit night, frosty and crystalline… a truly lunar atmosphere, precisely, where everything is still and perfect… and you feel a slight shiver of melancholic pleasure as you spray it on your skin. It is precisely when you begin to think this fragrance will lose you in a labyrinth of thoughts that these slightly unsettling and poetically sad atmospheres give way to completely different images, because the fragrance comes alive, warms up, and ignites in a way that is almost miraculous. Bergamot evokes pale, warm rays of sunlight, and the shy violet becomes an embrace. In the base, subtle oud appears, bringing a scent of sweet, woody wood, delicately resinous, providing a wonderful, almost mystical depth and gifting you the caress of a small autumn fire. In this phase, it smells deliciously fruity, quite intense. Then a powerful iris arrives, a little more intensely creamy, enveloping you in mystery, yes, but also with caressing elegance and giving you a sense of tranquility so unpredictable yet enduring. This fruity iris is captivatingly beautiful, but it simply does not offer peace in all its splendour. The warm, spicy blend of tonka, sandalwood and cedar makes it even more beautiful, ensuring a truly pleasant, high-quality finish. The general performance on my skin is good, with a trail well perceptible for the first hour and a half before slowly fading. I wore it for seven hours, which is not bad. I loved it; at one point it reminded me of Florentine Iris, but warmer as time passes. It’s an expensive perfume; I do not recommend buying blindly. Better to try a small decant to decide if it has a feeling with your skin and style. By courtesy (and guilt) of Rafasant, I think I’ll write a little letter to the Kings…