Immortelle Corse
Extrait de Parfum, Parfum d'Empire (2019)

Marc-Antoine Corticchiato is no stranger to calling back on old perfume codes. In fact he seems to revel in it, putting his own unique style on them by making them smell modern, and with startling clarity and precision. Immortelle Corse calls back to one of those old greats, Sables by Goutal, a gorgeous immortelle perfume that, unfortunately, has not really stood the test of time except with perfumistas. There are some differentiators, of course, and I won’t spend time comparing it to Sables except to say that you can find the summary of the differences in the word Corse, which means Corsica. This is immortelle as you’d encounter it on that arid island in the Med.

You immediately get a sense of this in the opening with the yellow tree fruit and saffron. They smell as if they have been completely dehydrated. The fruit is reminiscent of peaches and apricots that are all pith and zesty skins, no juice, no sugars, just some piquant tartness in the skins and parched flesh. The saffron smells of dried and aromatic wisps of grass in the breeze, bringing a bit of a pale woody facet. This is about the wettest Immortelle Corse gets, and introduces an absolutely gorgeous immortelle accord in the heart. It’s stunning. It has a texture of powdered spices, and carries a preserved yellow floral note like you found the flower dried-up on a cliffside, a translucent and hardened and dried honey note, and plenty of red-gold and brown earthy elements. And heat. You can smell and feel the cool yet relentless Mediterranean sun radiating from your skin. The balance to this immortelle accord is superb. And, somehow, Immortelle Corse gets drier and hotter still! In the final skin scent the immortelle has lost what little golden yellow pollen sweetness it had and presents dark brown and spicy earth dry enough to float away in the breeze. Accenting it is an oakmoss note that is not green and damp as we usually get it, instead it has turned pale brown, retaining only a touch of its aromatic woody qualities, and feels as though it would crumple at the slightest touch from the exasperating aridity.

Unusually for an immortelle perfume of this type, you could wear this in the summer (just spray it conservatively). Though it is quite powerful and spicy, its near complete lack of wetness and sweetness means that it will never be too cloying or close. This certainly makes Immortelle Corse stand out amongst the majority of immortelle perfumes since very few dare to be this bold in their dryness, yet it is just as tenacious as those others with more durable ambery-type materials in their bases. Additionally, as Marc-Antoine Corticchiato always does, the dry down is given ample attention. Every stage of this perfume’s life is excellent, a compelling presentation of experiencing Corsican immortelle from start to finish. I’ve never felt the need to find a backup for my vintage bottle of Sables, though I’ve been tempted, nor really any of my other immortelle perfumes, but with Immortelle Corse I do. That says a lot for me, that it stands above and separate from a timeless classic and most others. I cannot imagine ever being without this.

Citric apricot open that is actually more purely expressed on strip than on skin. Hyper-realistic on paper from first spray that, after the effervescent limey citrus fades in a minute or so, smells like biting into a fresh apricot. On skin, this is mitigated a bit, in a very good way, by the immediate and subtle animalics of the other principal elements of this perfume: sun-parched, burnt-maple immortelle flower and leathery musk. On skin, you sense this backdrop immediately, even as the citrus and apricot dominate the open. There is also a slightly metallic saffronic edge that peeks out in the open, lending that apricot fizz a bit of perfume pop that keeps this from being anything close to gourmand (I can see some noses picking up more persistently on the saffron than mine does).

After only 15 minutes or so, a syrupy (though not entirely sweet) maple booziness starts to integrate with the more leathery elements of the apricot-osmanthus materials and the saffron starts to pull everything into a lucid expression of immortelle in a way we are familiar with. It is sere, grassy, and herbal-sweet as late-summer hay—this is the curry element that folks can get from something like Dior’s Eau Noire (2004). At the same time, it pulls from the suede in the apricot and lends its own resinous qualities to lay down a warm maple-liquor depth. Maple syrup with dried field grass in a pot, left on a burner too long—here, I think of DS&Durga’s Amber Kiso (2018).

Unlike the Dior and the DS&Durga, Immortelle Corse is close to a single-subject study, a compositional spotlight that happens to be a composition. The sweetness, the citrus and apricot, even the metallic saffron and creamy leather undergirding—it is all to highlight the rich, citrine, crystal-yellow warmth of the immortelle. This perfume is for immortelle lovers who want to tell their friends and the public what unadulterated immortelle smells like in perfume.

Obviously, this may limit utility and practicality for you. I don’t really wear it much, but when I do, it projects strongly for an hour or so, sits close for several hours, and stays on skin overnight (the longer into the wear, the more you get a gorgeous musky saltiness up close as well). I wear this in the depth of winter and, contrary to intuition, it is a standout warm-weather perfume, where it truly highlights the grassiness of the subject.

For some, Immortelle Corse may have limitations as a “general wear,” but it executes perfectly in carrying out its objective. The family of Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, founder and house perfumer for Parfum d’Empire, comes from Corsica, and Immortelle Corse wears like a love letter: self-effacing yet unyielding, coy yet outrageous. In other words, it is Melville’s shy virtuosity writing to Hawthorne much more than Joyce’s prurient ease to Nora Barnacle. The supporting characters in Immortelle Corse are memorable and exquisite and shouldn’t be overlooked—they are masterfully integrated, but this composition by the underappreciated Corticchiato is designed to elevate the velvet syrup at the heart of Helichrysum italicum. And it does this very well indeed.

Immortelle Corse from Parfum D'Empire.

I love Immortelle as a material, but when it comes to perfumes, I am very picky about its usage in the composition. I owned many perfumes based around it and ended up selling all of them. Recently, I picked this one up after deciding I needed an Immortelle scent in my collection. After much contemplation, this is the most beautiful take on Immortelle from all I have tried and the one I have chosen.

I owned two bottles of the original Sables from Goutal and loved them dearly. However, the dry down was too sweet and ambery for my preference. Moreover, it had a weird retro air that didn't sit well with me. But for an Immortelle-themed perfume, it is the golden standard. That said, Marc Antoine managed to better it with his spin in Immortelle Corse. I find it very similar to Sables, yet with a modern touch, a more stretched-out olfactory dimension, not as sweet and syrupy (drier, actually), and more dynamic. And I think it is an improvement of an already near-perfect Immortelle-centered composition.
The opening of Immortelle Corse feels spicy, fiery, and pleasantly fruity and juicy at the same time. Citruses are listed, but what jumps out to me is the apricot. The saffron provides that fiery glaze, like the last rays of the sun blazing the horizon at dusk on an early Autumn afternoon. This introduction quickly makes way for the main player, the Immortelle. In all its glory, naked and unashamed. You need to love it to appreciate this perfume. What I like about it here is that it doesn't go super syrupy and sweet. It stays true to the more dry and shrub-like facets, playing on the tobacco, boozy, and caramel-like nuances.
Furthermore, the hefty dose of oakmoss (another favorite material of mine) anchors and further prevents it from going into that licorice-syrupy-sweet direction as it does in Sables. The latter perpetuates the dryness and adds a touch of bitterness to balance the composition. In the late dry-down, you get the Corticchiato signature musk cocktail evepresent in his compositions and easily identifiable in perfumes like Tabac Tabou and Ruade. It smells salty, creamy, and slightly leathery, providing a brilliant finishing touch to an already cleverly crafted perfume.

For me, it checks all the boxes. It delivers the huge Immortelle kick that I am craving, is complex and dynamic, vintage with modern touches, spans several genres, and provides that perfect amount of funk that makes all perfumes better (or at least more interesting).
I believe the color palette in this picture is a good suggestion of how the perfume smells. I like to think of a late day at dusk in early Autumn when the sunset is golden right before it changes to shades of red and pink. Golden is a good color for it.

IG:@memory.of.scents

This immortelle is a fantasy of wide open fields of high summer – shockingly floral at the start (for a blossom that usually smells nothing like flowers we appreciate usually do), plumped with a ripe fruity fullness (apricot) and pierced by the dry, salty tang of sweat. It's a combination that may not be for everyone, but I found it carried me away to sun-drenched indulgence without the accompanying sunburn. Curiously addictive, especially as there's a delicate, waxy-powdery nuance teasing the nose just on the edge of perception which slowly blooms and becomes meatier, revealing a full-spectrum helichrysum not frequently encountered in perfumery. This is an immortelle soliflore, no two ways about it, but refined and not overbearing, and with a becoming apricot blush for about half its life.