Dina Cosmetics
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The diesel note strikes first—mineral, slightly rubbery, like the smell of rain on hot tarmac meeting a florist's window display. Pink freesia emerges dewy and transparent, its green-pink translucency smudged by that peculiar petrol haze, whilst rose appears more as idea than full bloom, sketched rather than painted.
Lily of the valley and magnolia should dominate, but the charcoal accord keeps them ghostly and subdued, as though viewed through smoke or frosted glass. The florals become almost abstract here, their natural brightness muted into something softer, greyer, whilst a mineral quality persists like wet stone or pencil shavings scattered across silk.
Jasmine finally finds its voice, but it's a reedy, slightly salty whisper rather than a shout, the brine lending an almost marine quality that suggests coastal flowers rather than tropical abundance. The sweetness that remains is austere and close to the skin, like sugar dissolved in seawater—present but fundamentally changed, leaving only a mineral-floral memory on the wrist.
Empire 50 Sweet is a peculiar botanical study in contrasts, where the industrial meets the hothouse in unexpectedly harmonious discord. That diesel note in the opening—surely one of the most audacious choices in late-'90s perfumery—acts not as petrol-soaked aggression but as a smudged graphite line around watercolour florals. It's the scent of crushed freesia stems still damp with greenhouse mist, rose petals pressed between pages of a mechanic's manual. Jérôme Epinette has crafted something that refuses to behave: the lily of the valley should sing its green soapiness, the magnolia ought to unfurl in creamy opulence, yet both are tempered by that charcoal accord, which lends an ashen, sketched quality to proceedings—less funeral pyre, more artist's medium.
The brine in the base is what elevates this from interesting to genuinely compelling. It arrives as a whisper of salt-crusted skin after a swim in cold water, meeting jasmine that's gone slightly indolic and feral rather than remaining politely floral. This is for the person who finds conventional florals suffocating, who wants their roses wilted at the edges and their white flowers carrying a hint of decay. There's a melancholic sweetness here that never tips into dessert territory—instead, it's the sweetness of flowers left too long in stagnant water, of beauty persisting past its prime. Wear this when you're feeling contrary, when you want florals that bite back. It's unisex in the truest sense: it simply doesn't care about gender conventions.
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