Mortal Skin Stephane Humbert Lucas

This is a strange perfume I really enjoy though it’s not a frag I couldn’t live without, I’ll admit. You definitely won’t smell it everywhere- it’s a very “niche” niche scent. I absolutely adore the flacon though! Stephane Humbert Lucas’s presentation is top notch! You can really feel the quality in the heavy weight of the bottle and especially the cap. The juice is also incredibly potent. They only come in 50ml size but a little goes a long way. One or two sprays max is plenty for good projection.

Mortal Skin opens with a strong, hyper-realistic ink note. It’s sweetened by blackberry and warmed by the smell of unburnt incense, nag champa incense to be precise. On me the scent remains fairly linear as I can still detect all three of these main notes all the way until the end. I also detect cold metallic iris in the composition. The projection is moderate to heavy depending on how heavy your hand is when spraying it on.

This piece is very different from the 777 collection, which mostly center around amber notes and all have a Middle Eastern vibe. In fact, he made it a point of creating an entirely different collection called the snake collection to separate it from the 777 collection.

Some fragrances fall short of living up to their concept. Angel, for example, is anything BUT angelic in my opinion lol. It’s a monster actually haha. Alien as well, being a huge white floral, does not smell “alien” to me. A fragrance called Alien in my book would smell closer to Nebula 1. Mortal Skin with the metallic snake concept, nails it. It’s cold like snake skin. When I try to imagine what snake venom might smell like, this would be it (accurate or not).

I’ve always had a slight fear but at the same time, facination of snakes. Being born and raised in Texas, snakes are part of the culture here because they are literally everywhere. Venomous, non-venomous, we have them all in great quantities. The worst ones are the coral snakes and the pit vipers: copperheads, rattlers, and cotton-mouths or water moccasins, which are aggressive and known to give chase if one gets too close to a nest. The bite of a pit viper can be lethal if not given medical attention, though deaths are rare since there is plently of anti-venom around. Occasionally I find tiny brown grass snakes in my garden and will pick them up. They will interlace themselves between your fingers if you let them and they don’t bite. But I was raised to be cautious of snakes, to know how to identify them, to respect them, and most important- if you see one, give them space, especially if it’s venomous.

Many people are afraid of snakes and for good reason. Even the thought of a snake disturbs some folks, giving them rapid heart beat and the “heebie jeebies”. So this perfume and its snake motif may incite that primal feeling of fear and even disgust.

I also want to point out that the name, “Mortal Skin” is almost a play on words, reminiscent of “Mortal Sin”. And that conjures up images of the whole Adam and Eve story with the snake, who according to legend, committed the original sin and brought mortality to mankind. Needless to say, but the use of snake imagery and metaphor is a much more gothic noir/ avant garde approach to marketing and branding than most perfume houses who typically opt for more light and airy themes like the Angel concept or flowers and candy and such.

I’d say that this perfume is unisex, leaning feminine. The blackberry note gives it a bit of sweetness not typical of masculine fragrances but men can definitely still pull this off.

For those who love unique scents, this is a definite must try. I ordered a sample off LuckyScent for around $7 and sprung for a full bottle after only testing twice. It’s edgy and boldly unique but it’s not for everyone and also not cheap at $290 USD for 50ml, so testing before buying is recommended. But whether you end up loving it or disliking it, this perfume is a very unique experience.

Season: Winter/Fall. I like it year round

Top: Blackberry, ink, incense, labdanum

Heart: Opoponax, artemisia, myrrhe, iris, cardamom

Base: Ambergris, styrax, cedar, birch, sandalwood, musk

Royal Extract Guerlain

Royal Extract falls into a small group of anomalous perfumes Guerlain has released in limited productions over the years. Vol de Nuit Evasion, Attrape Cœur, Guet Apens, Royal Extract, and a few others too. They all have different names and different packaging but they are all essentially the exact same fragrance.

Among Guerlain collectors, it’s more of a third tier collection piece. Top tier being the über rare, $25k collection piece flacons, like Shalimar Indes & Merveilles or the L’Abeilles flacons, which are practically museum worthy pieces. Second tier being the Lalique or Baccarat crystal pieces and even the porcelain Mitsouko flacons, for example. But for regular folks like myself, THIS is top shelf stuff.

Photo from my personal collection: VdN Evasion, Guet Apens, & Attrape Cœur.

I’ve had the pleasure of hunting down and owning three versions of this fragrance in Vol de Nuit Evasion in the traditional Cœur cap “L’heure bleue” bottle, Attrape Cœur in the Persiennes bee bottle, and Guet Apens in the cobalt blue lantern bottle. Royal Extract took several years to be able to test though because it’s such a limited exclusive and was only released to Harrods in London, so testers in the US are few and far between, much less full bottles. I was lucky to come across a decent size decant for swap on Fragrantica and I swapped my partial bottle of current formula Mitsouko EdP for it (which I’ve since replaced with a vintage full of oakmoss). To me, it was a great score because I’ve been dying to test it out and compare it to the others.

Guerlain is known for often releasing previously discontinued fragrances. But the re-releases more often than not come with some tweaking of the juice, meaning of course, reformulations. And this frag was tweaked every time it was released. It’s very obvious not only in the color of the juices, but in side by side comparisons. The scent itself, Royal Extract, is much more refined, cleaner, brighter and even sweeter than Guet Apens but it’s still that same fragrance I’ve come to love so much. Over the past 3 years, this perfume has become my most favorite fragrance to date. And not because of the “thrill of the chase” with it being such a rare, discontinued unicorn, but the scent itself is so incredibly gorgeous, it sends me into bliss. I could drown myself in this juice, figuratively speaking of course, ha. To me, it’s the most beautiful ambered vanilla I’ve ever had. And Guerlain is well known as the master of vanilla perfumes. From their iconic and historical flagship fragrance Shalimar to their coveted exclusives like Spiriteuse Double Vanille, Cuir Beluga, and Mon Precieux Nectar, which are considered some of the creme de la creme of exclusive vanilla perfumes and I own them all and truly love them all, but I love this one the most. I just really can’t get enough.

Screenshot of Notes listed on Fragrantica

Though these are Orientals, Guet Apens and to a lesser degree, Evasion, are heavy with labdanum, giving them a woody chypre undercurrent, faint but detectable. Royal Extract on the other hand, leaves out this “dirty” bit and focuses more on the vanilla and peach. To my nose, it’s very similar to Mon Precieux Nectar in that they both carry the same sweet honey viscosity (not literally, in the thickness of the juice itself, but rather how it is perceived). They are about the same level of sweetness, brightness, though MPN features a prominent almond note, Royal Extract being peach. I would dare say they share the same base.

Though many perfumistas couldn’t care less about this relatively obscure little group of discontinued perfumes, much less this one incarnation of it, die-hard Guerlainophiles go nuts over this stuff and clearly I am in that latter group haha. Why is it that Guerlain continues to seduce and tease with these limited releases? Why change the name, the bottle, and presentation of this fragrance every time? Though I have no idea, I can say definitively that it lends an air of mystery and evasiveness even, to the entire “hoopla” surrounding this fragrance and its history. And it gives us Guerlainophiles sort of a scavenger hunt if you will, that adds notches to the perfumista belt of experience. Because the truth is, not many perfumistas will ever get a chance to try even one version of this fragrance, much less four versions of it. And yes, I am proud of this little accomplishment, truth be told haha.

In every case of collecting items, whatever they may be, there are always coveted pieces that are rare and highly sought after. From stamps to train sets, to art and even cars, perfume collecting is no different. So I feel very lucky and very grateful to that super Fragrantican that afforded me the opportunity to try out this rare and gorgeous fragrance. And even though I practically already knew what it was going to smell like before I even received it, I’m still super thrilled that I got to experience Royal Extract and its subtle differences for myself. ❤

Photo credit to Monsieur Guerlain

* Fragrantica has this currently listed incorrectly as “Royal Extrait” instead of Royal Extract.

Attrape Cœur

I finally, FINALLY got my hands on a bottle of this insanely rare perfume and I’m just smitten. In fact, I got not one but TWO formulations of this rare elixir, that has eluded me for that past 3 years, popping up in eBay here and there but just out of reach since the listings typically go for around $800 and up. And that’s just beyond my budget, unfortunately. But I found one at a reasonable price and snagged it right up. I don’t think it had been listed more than an hour lol.

So the fragrance itself is exactly what I was expecting it to be: it smells like Evasion, but perhaps a bit less creamy. The top notes are subtly different and it really takes a few minutes until it gets into the heart of the perfume, for that familar, intoxicating fragrance to begin seducing the senses.

This Bee Bottle flacon that I bought is, from my understanding, the second version of Attrape Cœur, aside from the other named incarnations. It’s a reformulation. The juice is golden yellow as opposed to that familiar shade of peach that I have become accustomed to from Evasion. But the scent itself is the same.

Now for the original formula, which I acquired as a 15ml decant from an incredible swap partner on Fragrantica. It’s incredible. It’s BEYOND incredible! This juice IS peach colored only deeper, darker than Evasion. It’a also a bit “dirtier”. From what I’ve learned, the original Attrape Cœur contained oak moss, which shortly thereafter production, became banned by the IFRA. So it was reformulated with a different tree moss. But the original is thick, syrupy and wears like an extrait. Perhaps it IS an extrait, I’m not sure, but it certainly feels like and wears as such. But it is amazing and I would consider selling a kidney to get a hold of a full bottle of the original haha.

Oakmoss. Photo Credit to Eden Botanicals

The reformulated version is definitely lighter, more effervescent and doesn’t have nearly the longevity of the original. In fact I think Evasion actually wears longer than the reformulated version, though the longevity IS fair for an EdP.

Photo Credit to Monsieur Guerlain

So now I’m left with two more versions of this precious liquid to try: Guet Apens and Royal Extract. Though there ARE actually several other versions of this fragrance that were released over the years, they were such limited and exclusive releases that it’s just not plausible I will ever get to try them. But I’m happy to say that I located and purchased a partial bottle of Guet Apens from a person in France, though it will be several weeks until I see it. But I definitely have something to look forward to!

For die hard perfumistas and serious Guerlain aficionados, there are only handful of perfumes from this house that are truly considered real unicorns, holy grails, the “El Dorados” of fragrance and Attrape Cœur is right up there at the top. It is truly a masterpiece and I hope Guerlain continues to tease us over the years with more mysterious releases of this elusive perfume. ❤

Guerlains limited release “Guet Apens” 120ml  blue lamp flacon 

Season: Any and every chance you get, but it wears great year round.

Top: Peach, Rose

Heart: Iris, Jasmine

Base: Vanilla, Amber, Oakmoss, Woods

Various flacons released containing this same fragrance. Photo Credit to Monsieur Guerlain.