L'Artisan Parfumeur
L'Artisan Parfumeur
268 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The first spray delivers a shock of pomegranate juice sweetness spiked with metallic saffron, like biting into a fresh lokum cube whilst someone grinds cardamom pods nearby. Apple provides a translucent, watery brightness that keeps the opening from becoming too heavy, whilst ginger adds a sharp, almost citric heat that tingles at the edges.
As it settles, a remarkable iris-leather accord emerges—buttery smooth leather meets the cool, root-vegetable earthiness of iris, all dusted with powdered sugar from the lokum note. The tulip adds an airy, slightly soapy floralcy that hovers above the sweetness, creating an elegant tension between indulgence and restraint that defines the fragrance's character.
What remains is a soft, musky sweetness wrapped in pale cedarwood and vanilla-rich benzoin. The leather has become a whisper, the iris a memory, leaving behind skin that smells like you've spent hours in a hammam before dressing in clothes stored with sandalwood and dried rose petals.
Traversée du Bosphore is Bertrand Duchaufour's olfactory postcard from Istanbul's spice markets, where powdered lokum sits alongside supple leather goods and saffron threads bleed crimson into lukewarm tea. This is a fragrance that plays with the tension between opulent sweetness and austere restraint—the pomegranate and apple opening reads like fruit macerated in rosewater syrup, whilst the iris and leather heart speaks to the cool, grey-violet side of refinement. There's a gourmand quality here that never tips into dessert territory; instead, it's the sweetness of actual Turkish delight dusted with icing sugar, cut through with the metallic brightness of saffron and the bite of ginger root. The tulip accord, perhaps more conceptual than literal, lends a fresh, slightly green powderiness that stops the composition from becoming cloying.
This is a scent for those who appreciate the ornate without drowning in it—the sort of person who'd wear embroidered velvet to a gallery opening, or who keeps a first edition of Orhan Pamuk on their nightstand. It's unabashedly sweet but grounded by that iris-leather pairing, which gives it a backbone of sophistication. The benzoin and musk base ensures it melts into skin rather than shouting from across the room. Wear it when you want to smell expensive and slightly mysterious, when the weather turns cool and you're craving something that wraps around you like cashmere soaked in syrup. It's East meeting West on skin, without resorting to lazy orientalist tropes.
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3.9/5 (193)