L'Eau à la Rose
Maison Francis Kurkdjian (2019)

Peachy rose that eventually dries down to strawberry-flavored candy. This seems to be so worried about smelling "old-lady" that it errs on the side of smelling cheap. Don't bother...

I wasn't exactly kind to the original Maison Francis Kurkdjian À la rose (2014) but I also wasn't exactly unfair either. It was a clean, "girly rose" sort of drugstore number made a bit more modern by having an aromachemical base rather than the oakmoss chypre base that might have been used in years past, but was still the sort of thing Bath & Body Works or Elizabeth Arden cranks out with perhaps a little less finesse than MFK. The dealbreaker to the original À la rose was what you got for the price you paid, and although Francis Kurkdjian is a consummate genius that excels at whatever concept he approaches, the underpinning concept of À la rose was its failing since the ultimate price tag for MFK's take on a drugstore scent is easily five to ten times the average segment competitor. I'm all about "what the market abides" in the luxury world (because it is luxury after all), but with MFK, you usually get something a little more unique, polished, and avant-gard for your luxury dollars, so having "just a rose" perfume sounds a bit like catalog padding to my ears. Apparently I'm in the minority because this simple rose perfume sold so well that MFK was incentivized to make a flanker in L'eau À la rose (2019), a fruity-floral fragrance based on the core of the original but decidedly fresher, younger, and more casual for hotter weather. With L'eau À la rose, Maison Francis Kurkdjian really goes after those spoiled brat one-percenter trust fund teenage daughter dollars, or at least parent company Estée Lauder does and Mr. Kurkdjian is just required to satisfy a brief as per whatever contract he signed when he sold his business to them.

The opening of L'eau À la rose is much brighter, fresher, and more tangy than the original, and this has mostly to do with the addition of Lychee to the mix of lemon and bergamot, with the removal of orange. Peony replaces violet in the heart of L'eau À la rose compared to the original, and this makes for less sharpness to the rose blend of Turkish and Centifolia. The fruity zip of the lychee sticks around during the full wear, so perhaps you might call it a heart note too, as the whole of this scent becomes "one accord" unlike with the original À la rose. There isn't much going on in the base besides some light aromachemical wood-ish Iso E Super kind of deal over a light musk note, making the final skin feel come across like an overpriced Calgon spray to my nose, removed from the harsh chemical alcohol-heavy sharpness that something $5 and served up in a plastic bottle might have. That's the only real redeeming value of L'eau À la rose, being a well-refined, blended, and consistent version of a fruity floral rose body mist you might otherwise buy at Wal-Mart or CVS. Wear time is very short at about 4 hours and the projection here burns off pretty quick within the first 30 minutes so once again, this compares more to a drug store product than a proper perfume. On the up side, this is a "wear anywhere" kind of youthful rose refresher perfect for summer, casual gatherings, and is a little more unisex in tone than the original because of the decreased "rose soliflore" factor thanks to the lychee. If you're the type to seek out niche solutions to common fragrance needs, and have no shortage of cash, you may find this worthwhile.

The big problem with L'eau À la rose is it doubles down on the superfluous nature of the original, being a gourmet take on a common, almost commodity-like accord, shifting from drugstore rose perfume to even cheaper fruity-fresh drugstore body mist. I get that niche perfumers do this for common male styles too, and with few exceptions, I usually knock down luxury takes on ubiquitous aquatic, ambrox, or other "gym bag" men's staples as well, because it's insulting to ask so much money for what is basically a redress on a staple (or at least as much "staple" as any perfume can be). Maybe I would be kinder if this lasted much longer like all the luxury "eau de cologne" takes I've smelled, but as it stands L'eau À la rose barely can get out of its own way. Francis Kurkdjian again does wonders here, and this is the smoothest version of this scent profile I've ever witnessed, but is it $300 smooth? The jury is out on that one. When you also take into account that this launched on the eve of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, meaning all that luxury spending suddenly goes poof as unemployment swells with common people on lockdown and the rich shutting their coinpurses, the whole thing seems even more gauche. Granted, some of the greatest perfumes in history were released during The Spanish Flu, The Great Depression and World War II, but Maison Francis Kurkdjian L'eau À la rose is certainly no Guerlain Mitsouko (1919), Jean Patou Joy (1930) or Royal Bain/Champagne de Caron (1941). Your mileage may vary but for me this one is just about pointless. Thumbs down.