Nishane
Nishane
116 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Bergamot and orange burst forth with genuine effervescence, a citrus brightness that feels momentarily innocent and uncomplicated. Within minutes, however, plum emerges from underneath like a stain spreading through silk, darkening the composition's intentions.
The fruit intensifies into something jammy and almost fermented, as jasmine and rose materialise with an oily, slightly indolic quality that transforms the sweetness into something genuinely sensual. Cedarwood provides crucial structure, preventing the composition from collapsing into pure gourmand territory, whilst the musk begins its creeping ascent.
Tonka bean and benzoin soften into a creamy, almost powdery second skin, whilst patchouli and sandalwood root everything earthily. What remains is a warm, slightly ambered drydown that smells less like fragrance and more like the scent of your own skin—honeyed, earthy, intimate—though with notably modest projection by this stage.
Vain & Naïve announces itself as a fruity study in contradiction—a fragrance that flirts with naïveté whilst harbouring distinctly sophisticated intentions. The opening gambit of bergamot and orange establishes a cheerful citrus scaffold, but this is merely misdirection. Beneath this bright facade, Christian Carbonnel constructs something far more complex: a plum-and-raspberry accord that reads less as innocent fruit compote and more as the dark, jammy sweetness of fruit at peak ripeness—verging on fermented.
The jasmine and rose in the heart refuse to play the ingénue; instead, they weave through the fruit with an almost indolic density, anchored by cedarwood that prevents the composition from becoming purely gourmand. Here lies the fragrance's central tension—a creamy tonka-and-benzoin base (registering at 64% creamy accord) threatens to tip the composition into dessert territory, yet the patchouli and musk ground everything with an earthy, skin-like warmth that suggests something altogether more sensual than sweet.
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4.0/5 (79)