Écrin de Fumée
Serge Lutens (2023)

I must confess that I got the intention of Ecrin de Fumee wrong during the initial sniffs after application. At first, I thought I was getting massive and billowing tendrils of incense smoke, a combination of frankincense, myrrh, and white wood smoke, but quite quickly I realized that was not the case. It was the richest and weirdest combinations of chocolate, and sweet oaky alcohol of something like rum or bourbon, both hovering like a dense cloud over smoking pipe tobacco. Within about 30 minutes the boozy, chocolatey, smokey notes are gone and Ecrin de Fumee settles into gear for a long-haul of large, rich, vanillic, unlit pipe tobacco. And that's about all she wrote, folks.

In keeping with Lutens's particular style Ecrin de Fumee is pretty straightforward. I've said this a handful of times in other reviews that Lutens's perfumes are more like bases than they are complete compositions with well-staged tops, hearts, plus bases, but I've also said that's a bit unfair because a great Lutens perfume is like a brilliant quote from a brilliant mind: yes, that quote likely came from a lengthy literary composition of some sort from that author, but you don't need several pages to get the point because the quote is so perfectly stated that being succinct and to-the-point does not weaken the message. Ecrin de Fumee is Lutens and Sheldrake in that top form. As a perfume whose purpose is to deliver an accord of pipe tobacco, I believe Ecrin de Fumee is probably the best out there. Part of the reason for this is because, rather than rely solely on tobacco - fresh green tobacco, cured tobacco, or otherwise - Ecrin de Fumee seems to put one foot over the line into amber territory. Tobacco and amber are far from being a new idea, but it's usually amber plus tobacco, not tobacco plus amber. The balsamic and vanillic amber very nearly pushes Ecrin into the gourmand genre, and I'm sure some wearers will say that it is well-over the line in that genre. Those "amber sensitive" noses have a valid point, but, to my nose (which is amber sensitive) it never loses that tobacco centered purpose. Though a bit less common but far from being new, the way Lutens and Sheldrake manage this tobacco+amber concoction with beautiful materials and near-perfect balance is what makes it stand out. It is so rich, complex, smooth, well-rounded, and endlessly evocative and addictive to the point where I cannot stop raising my hands and arms to my face for one more smell. I'll say it again, if you want a perfume that showcases rich aged pipe tobacco, Ecrin de Fumee is probably the best.

Ooh, yeah...I'm sure plenty of folks will like this but I'm not one of them. Way too sweet, too ambery...for me verges on unbearable. And it's quite potent. Thick, syrupy and sugary. Ultimately smells synthetic. For me, a scrubber, but as I'm loathe to give a thumbs down, I'll call it a neutral with the comment that for me, personally, it's the opposite of a thumbs-up.

Sweet and smoky, quite similar to Amouage Interlude Man in my opinion.

Écrin de Fumée is sometimes compared to Fumerie Turque. But apart from the use of smoke as a theme they could hardly be more different.

Fumerie Turque is a pale cloud of hookah smoke flavoured with Turkish Delight; sharp, quite thin and rosy … underscored with animalic notes. EdF on the other hand is dark bitter smoke with a toffee-amber gourmand. And there’s a cool overtone like cold ash, which offsets the ambery notes.

Écrin de Fumée is not only smoky, it’s a dark heavy gourmand; together their appeal resembles what must be one of the lowest common denominators between taste and smell, burnt sugar.
With such an obvious sweet-toothed hook, Écrin de Fumée is surprisingly commercial for a Serge Lutens, although it’s still not a typical designer scent. It’s a bit like sitting round a dead campfire, eating scorched toffee, and with strong booze and cherry cake to follow.

This combination of dark and sweet notes, offset by a high pitched overtone is nothing new to the Lutens catalogue. Where Fille en Aiguilles is based around incense and pine, sweet notes, and a dark forest floor, with ÉdF you get smoke and cold ash, sweet and boozy notes and a dark toffee-amber. The notes are different but the composition is basically the same.

ÉdF is also something of a bludgeoner. It draws on the brute force school of perfumery, in particular things like Fortis and Black Afgano – which it resembles, not so much in it’s theme but the style of construction that uses powerful synthetics to make an impact. Although there are some nuances to ÉdF, the massive underlying structure works against the subtleties that the perfumer introduces with the different layers. It’s no monolith, but as the decoratives tire it tends to resolve into large blocky chords.

This is not a typical gourmand by any means, but 1) it’s a gourmand – that most lazy of genres, and 2) it feels derivative, and that’s not something you expect from Serge Lutens.

In many ways, this fragrance boils down to "Serge Lutens remakes Robert Graham Fortitude."

Écrin de Fumée opens with dark, boozy, smoky woodiness, conjuring up faint echoes of Jovoy Les Jeux sont Faits, but the conventional "tonkabacco" core is undeniable. You can glimpse an impressionistic resinous tobacco accord in the opening hour, but that accord gives way to a heart of tonka-supported coconut milk and ebony wood, similar to that explored in Odin No. 10 Roam.

As far as dark, woody, enigmatic, slightly sweet scents go, it's not unpleasant, but it does not immediately yield the excitement of Sheldrake's other tobacco scents for Serge Lutens, in part because its most exciting section (the opening) is so short-lived. For the bulk of its lifespan, it's a scorched coconut-tonka scent, which might be a good enough concept but isn't rendered as richly as you'd hope.

The drydown exposes the synthwood more nakedly, so those that struggle with modern woody molecules should beware.

I'm giving it a modest thumbs-up, but my assessment borders on neutral. It's not as satisfying as I'd hoped.