Laine de Verre
Serge Lutens (2014)

Tries to smell almost perfectly like fabric softener, however, the ingredients are better, or at least, leave more of a natural impression. This is an interesting experiment, albeit one I would not be willing to spend 50€ on. I'm happy with my sample.

Sweet-ish. Fresh cool mint. With the citrus, it suggests a tall tumbler of 7-Up, ice cubes, and a sprig of mint. OK, I have smelled worse. Settles into a minty musk and light wool notes. More of a concept than a scent I would enjoy wearing.

Cashmeran is a chemical compound, referred to as "blond woods" by perfumers. Its properties are those of light musk and woods.

Here it is used with mint and white musk to create a fresh clean scent, reminscent of White Linen. It's perfectly nice, and is something to leave in the bathroom to spray yourself with upon emerging from shower or bath before going about one's spring or summer day.

The name Laine de Verre translates to "glass wool," or shall we say "transparent wool."

Nothing to write home about and like most Lutens of recent years worth only about a third (at most) of the asking pice. A very decent musk scent.

This is certainly a statement. I'm not ready for a theoretical discussion of whether it's actually perfume or not, but it certainly is a composition, with a pedigree, packaged and priced accordingly.

And it is startling. The combination of the stark aldehyde, a slightly floral bit of citrus (smells a little like lime zest oil, a little like Meyer lemon), and a strange minty thing seems more like an effect than a smell. The mental image I get is of a fragile glass skeleton shivering under ice-cold water in a stainless steel shower.

How do you rate something like this? As a work of art, or as a consumer product? I guess it's worth a neutral, because I learned something from it. And I suppose I get the joke: this must be the reductio ad absurdum of Cool Water and all its ilk.

LdV greets it's host with the most loud and violent opening from a fragrance that I have ever encountered: A clash of chemicals with a mint-like note compete for attention. This fragrance certainly challenges one's perception of perfume; however for me it has failed to do so in a constructive way. An incredibly bitter, chemical note persists within this fragrance (probably symbolic of glass fibres) which I find quite repulsive and sickening.

I admire this house but alas, not this creation.

I like Laine De Verre…well, sort of.

The initial aldehydes / citrus combo is really quite something if you like super-asbtract fragrances. It brings to mind of an hypothetical *bio* version of one of the most sparkling compositions in the Synthetic Series by CDG. The fragrance quickly turns into a clean white musk with super smooth woody undertones to then, even more quickly, turn into nothing.

One, probably two, hours and then puff…it's all gone. Now, I'm not particularly obsessed with longevity but this is *really* ephemeral. Someone call these kind of fragrances *invisible perfumes*, others call them *anti-perfumes*, I prefer to simply call them *non-perfumes*. If you like the genre but you pretend that you're fragrance can still be called *a fragrance*, stick to either White Linen or Odeur 53. As far as clean sheets go, there's nothing like these two.

Pity because Laine De Verre actually had some potential and I'm probably one of the very few to completely like its name. A frustrating experience.