Datura Noir by Serge Lutens, to me, it is quite a scary name as the real datura flowers are hallucinogenic if consumed and they have been known as the hell’s bells (but in some culture it’s known as the angel’s trumpets though).
The start is really sweet, so sweet that as if it has the ability to penetrate your soul in a way, as if everything can stop and all of a sudden in the time-space continuum, what you have left if you and the scent. As I’ve said many times that I’m a white-floral-fume hater, however despite the intense sweet tuberose-y accord in Datura Noir, I actually find it addictive, because this tuberose isn’t boring, despite the quasi-linear development I’ve been experience so far with Datura Noir, there is this hidden apricot fruitiness comes and goes, bringing the overall impression of tuberose to life without the heavy or indole-y aspect of this flower.
After a while, I start to realise that there is this slightly mild-powdery-spicy and vanilla-y element which has always been there in the background, but I just didn’t pay attention to due to the surprisingly good overwhelm by the beautiful tuberose-y theme; but as the scent gets warmed up, the tuberose-apricot-y fresh sharp floral accord gets a bit tamed and now at this stage, it is like a beautiful tuberose-dominant and creamy-vanilla-y dominant accords duet. This creaminess brings to mind another quite popular SL scent, Un Bois Vanille, however, I personally find that Datura Noir is more interestingly versatile than Un Bois Vanille, especially if you find there are too many gourmand vanilla scent in life and you like white florals.
The final dry down is quite vanilla-y like plain sponge cakes, with a bit non-tropical, non-demanding coconut hint, all in a good way; and I do like it at this stage very much, for it is sensual, delicious as most vanilla perfumes but more a grown-up elegant vanilla. I can smell something powdery-fuzzy, slightly woody in the back ground, while the tuberose is nearly undetectable. This is the kind of quite smothering dry down to me.
Datura Noir, I am impressed by this Serge Lutens’ perfume, because it has this weirdness (which many SL’s perfumes have and made them rather not public friendly) as well as its mass-market appear (white flower, sweet, and could be categorised as feminine under today’s standard under which floral perfumes are the best sellers year after year). When I read the official ingredients in this perfume, things just don’t seem to go together, like tuberose, coconut, vanilla or iris, each of them should be the dominant theme in a separate perfume, but miraclely in Datura Noir, everything coexists and makes this quasi-tuberose themed sweet perfume really beautiful.
However, be warned, even though principally we should be able to wear whatever we want, social conventions tell me that Datura Noir might not be an inoffensive scent towards your surroundings, as many guys under 35 tend to associate this type of, to me, rather sophisticated floral scent with their grandma or mum, and while not everyone is as crazy about trying out niche scent like most perfumistas do, girls might find your Datura Noir ‘too strong’ even though their over-applied Britney Spears Fantasy is sugar-sweetly cloying the life out of you.
Datura Noir is for the diva who likes tuberose with some creamy twist, and who’s not afraid to be a little bit weird, yet still in a dazzling mesmerising way.
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