Tempfluo
Nishane (2022)

Tempfluo by Nishane (2022) is a sort of shameless "upgrade" to perfumer Anne Flipo's own work on Libre by Yves Saint Laurent (2019), which she co-composed with veteran perfumer Carlos Benaim. Both have a similar structure of sweet lavender and orange blossom over redolent woody and musky notes touched with vanilla, and from a distance, might be indistinguishable. What isn't indistinguishable is the price, as Nishane's extrait de parfum from their city range is exponentially more expensive. People say how clones cheapen the market, but what happens when they're upmarket?

The only real difference to my nose between this and Libre is the thickness and warmth of it, as the orange blossom is more forward here and saffron replaces the fruity opening notes of Libre. If you're not familiar with Libre and prefer a blow-by-blow development, that equals a sweet orange and saffron immediately being dominated by indolic jasmine and orange blossom made slightly fougère-leaning with lavender and tonka. A cashmeran woody/musky base with some cedar and vanilla finish up. Performance is eternal as you might expect, but the blend shows its seams here, unlike Libre.

This is like an extrait variation of the original Libre eau de parfum, which may be of niche interest as the actual stronger versions of Libre that YSL sells have been retooled more drastically with different notes. Clearly this is a purchased mod from IFF on Nishane's part, where Anne was brought in to finagle because Carlos probably was unavailable, as he is slightly more high-profile within IFF. Nishane got their "niche version of X" that so many of these luxury brands do these days, and I'm just left unimpressed because there is no substantive reason to spend the extra cash over an already-expensive Libre. Neutral