Encens et Lavande
Serge Lutens (1996)

The opening is amazing, such a great lavender. It just doesn't stay very long. Luckily the dry down is a great non smoky incense. It isn't strong, a real skin scent. You forget you are wearing it in all honesty. People say it is a great layering fragrance and there is the downside. It is rather pricey to aquire and then having to layer it to get any performance out of it is not what I'm willing to do.

Well, another rather straight-forward and simplistic fragrance...just as the name suggests and the notes indicate.

Lavender and incense...a wee bit of berry.

This is a nice enough fragrance I suppose, if you are a powdery lavender lover.

Upon first spray and application, I get Glade Lavender Bathroom Spray. The opening is shrill, a bit synthetic to my nose and overwhelmingly lavender. Within a few minutes, a dusty, rather weak incense note tries emerging but IMHO, does so with limited success.

The dry down is a powdery, bathroom-y smelling lavender fragrance...almost reminds me of potpourri, or better yet lavender powder baby wipes...plastic container note included.

This scent would be an okay blind buy for most lavender fiends...cannot imagine a man wearing this because it smells extremely feminine to my nose.

Nothing out-of-the-ordinary, or unusual about this. It's okay but I would never own it, buy it or wear it on a regular basis.

This is an unusual opening: Floral herbal in character, with a lovely lavender mixed with herbs. The lavender is quite green with an earthy undertone, and is dominant in the opening stage. The herbs are clary sage and rosemary, with the latter being the stronger component on me.

Later on the a frankincense arrives, as the name of this creation promises, and merges with the lavender in an unexpected way. The incense is quite smooth, and not really displaying any significant smokiness or burnt characteristics.

I get moderate sillage, excellent projection. and five hours of longevity on my skin, with the last hour being very close to my skin.

A lovely scent for spring or autumn, in all its simplicity of its ingredients it manages to have a creative twist and titillate at times, although the performance is quote poor or incense. 3.25/5

This is one of those fragrances that surprises you. It starts off one way and then switches gears suddenly, and when it does, it's straight-up fantastic.

This is, as the name properly states, incense and lavender. Upon first spray, I get a "dirty" lavender. It's lavender, but seems almost like it's been tainted by something. It's initially a muddled blend that made me wonder what the fuss was about. And then the next ten minutes is where the magic happens. A wonderfully-crafted incense seems to just rise from nowhere, like the Kraken from the sea, and boy is it good. It's frankincense and myrrh that you're smelling, and as others have pointed out, if you've ever spent time in a Catholic church, you will know this scent immediately. I've always loved the smell of church incense, and the lavender -- and this is GOOD lavender -- gives this a wonderful backdrop, creating a soapy vibe behind the church-like incense, which on its own can sometimes border on acrid. It's a wonderful yin-yang, and rather than the lavender and incense being in a state of push/pull, they harmonize with each other wonderfully. The longer you wear this, the better it gets. Sillage isn't great, but when you have a scent this intense, I think that's a good thing. Longevity is decent, so no issues there. You need to go easy on the trigger with this, because the power on this ramps up dramatically after a few minutes.

The only issue with this is the price point, but with overpriced fragrances nowadays, it's not totally shocking. Is it worth the $200+ for a 75ml bottle? It depends. If you are a person who has paid or is willing to pay that much for a fragrance in general, this is totally worth it. Like Caron's Pour un Homme (1934) did with lavender and vanilla, this is a perfumer taking two basic "notes" and blending them masterfully.

Big thumbs up on this!

I'm not really enjoying this. On me, the lavender is chalky and dry, but also shrill and metallic. I think the overall idea of combining lavender and incense is clever, especially as there's a dirty wood undertone to lavender that could melt into frankincense quite nicely in theory, but I just don't like the way the lavender smells here.

To be fair, hours in, when the lavender is mostly gone, I'm left with incense and weird sheen that actually works quite well, but I just don't think it's worth it.

Serge Lutens was a make-up artist on call for much of the fashion world throughout the mid-to-late 20th century, eventually helping to push a dark and dour harsh image of black on black, which he conveyed in his early perfume work with Shiseido as well. However, his involvement with makeup receded and work with perfume increased until late in life, when his own house was launched in 2000, just like Frédéric Malle. Key differences between Lutens and Malle however is Lutens actually composed his own perfumes before hiring out, still creates make-up, and doesn't seek to be a prestige "greatest hits" of the industry's most-reknown perfumers, but rather reflect his own style, with help. Lutens compositions run the gamut from simplistic like Lush, to vintage Guerlain-levels of complexity, depending on who's making what, and sitting price-wise between the average niche house to the ultra-luxe prestige brands like Creed or Xerjoff. Encens et Lavande (1996) predates Lutens as a house, and like Féminité du Bois (1992), was originally part of the Lutens line under Shiseido. Encens et Lavande was composed by Christopher Sheldrake, who moonlights as a frequent contributor to Lutens, even though he also is creative director of perfumes at Chanel. I'll admit I was a tad underwhelmed by this, but only at very first. Most niche houses I've tried so far turn their amps to 11 with sillage and note pyramids, as if to justify the high price, but this is literally just "incense and lavender" as the name suggests, with a handful of supporting players. After a few hours on skin, I started to understand why, and my appreciation of it's fundamentalism grew, but it's still not my first option for lavender. The scent has been moved from the main line to the exclusive line, so it's only available in a 75ml "bell jar" for which this house is known, available only directly from Lutens or maybe Barney's of New York if one is near you, guaranteeing that if you pay the price of admission, you'll likely be the only one in your area wearing it.

The interesting thing about Encens et Lavande is that it grows louder over time, since lavender isn't the most boisterous top note when not helped along by citrus, and incense gets pretty warm and aromatic once body heat reaches it. This isn't the first perfume I've worn that sorta had a "dry up" instead of a dry down, but in all cases, once the plateau is reached, they do come back down the other slope and reduce to skin scent levels. However, because of this "creeping" nature, I'd warn to go with a few sprays or splashes if from a Lutens bell jar, then wait before using more. The development of Encens et Lavande is pretty obvious: you get a very raw French lavender note like Lavande by Jean des Salines (1945), but all by itself with just a smidge of clary sage underpinning floating around, giving Encens et Lavande a slight green tinge. The incense comes in within minutes, like somebody moving a crossfader slide across a mixing desk, panning in the myrrh-like incense until it's 50/50 with the lavender, reaching full volume of the experience, then continuing to pan the olfactory channels as the scent grows quieter until the incense is in front of the lavender as the name suggests at skin level. Longevity is average and sillage moderate at best, but quiet at worst. Encens et Lavande is probably the most-basic of scents from the house, the "comfort food" of the Serge Lutens line, which may explain why it's an exclusive. Lavender is always a good work or casual scent, and is generally versatile enough for all engagements including formal ones, although I often associate it with bedtime so that's where I'd have this seeing the most use personally. Encens et Lavande also doesn't like cold weather. I'd still take the Jeans des Salines over it, as it has tobacco in place of incense, lasts about as long, and has a brighter lavender (plus costs a fraction as much), but that's no besmirching to Serge Lutens as a house, which also plays home to iconic experiences like Chergui (2001) or Muscs Koubläi Khän (1998).


Compositions like Encens et Lavande often sit at the crux of the "what is niche" debate, because they don't seem very niche being simple, comfortable, almost ordinary compositions that could be released by any mall-brand perfumer like Bath & Body Works, or compounded by a head shop to chase the smell of marijuana away. However, the real question here is if you were handed vials of lavender essential oil, myrrh, sage, and some perfumer's alcohol, could you make this? Well, maybe... in a fashion, but not exactly. Yeah we can harp on about quality and provenance of ingredients, uncompromised artistic vision appealing only to the most refined connoisseurs, and pat ourselves on the back for paying the $220-$300 per 75ml bell jar that it costs for what is a basic lavender fragrance made by the creative head at Chanel but for another label, and who exactly are we convincing if we do? Serge Lutens has always been about selling a style, not material quality, as his start was in make-up, not couture or even furniture like Clive Christian, so getting your "money's worth" isn't a valid argument with this house, as you're literally buying an aesthetic, not so much a product, which is no different than letting Jackson Pollock cover your wall in paint splotches for a cool million or two. Encens et Lavande is a very fine lavender indeed, sold at an exclusive price point, and because it doesn't pretend to be something else, it gets a thumbs up for me, even though I think lavender scents in general are just too common to ask for this level of exclusivity. If you have the coin to spare and don't have a problem parting with it, Encens et Lavande is one of the best "near-soliflore" presentations of lavender I've ever encountered, and I've smelled a lot of lavender, plus live where grows wild and is also grown/sold, so I wouldn't make a claim like this lightly. Thumbs up