I’ve been wearing this newly launched summery fragrance from L’Artisan Parfumeur all through the appalling weather we’ve been having recently, in an attempt to lift my spirits and pretend I’m in a warm bubble of summer (or spring, at least). The fragrance is good, but not THAT good and I remain miserably cold, although short of an unexpected trip to the Caribbean I’m not sure anything could have helped shift the weather-gloom.
This new scent, Caligna, is a treat of a summery fragrance for anyone who likes a green-ish, pine-ish slant on their florals (there’s just a waft of rosy- jasmine so it’s floral with a small f). The main ingredients are pine, oak moss, clary sage and a home-spun sounding jasmine marmalade….it’s refreshingly sunny, the brand describe it as a Provencal flirt, inspired by all those sunburnt scrubby woodland smells from the Grasse area of France mixed with jasmine, sun screen cream and resiny-sea breezes. There are strong hints of fig too, which I think you’ll like if you appreciate Diptyque’s Philosykos or the Figuier candle.
It has a soft, gentle-ness to the top notes, quite elegant and beautifully balanced, it’s quite unusual to use clary sage as an anchor to a fragrance (according to the brand), it usually has more of a supporting role, but its strong greeny muskiness stops this from being ‘ordinary’. The creator of the fragrance is a woman, Dora Baghriche-Arnaud, and I know it shouldn’t count, but I do have a soft spot for a female perfumer. Available on the L’Artisan Parfumeur website