Parfums de Marly
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Pink pepper delivers its characteristic sneeze-inducing tingle while lime oil's sharp, almost soapy brightness cuts through like a blade. The grapefruit adds a momentary reprieve of bitter citrus flesh before the whole opening collapses into the rising smoke of what's beneath, lasting barely ten minutes before the resinous heart muscles through.
Saffron blooms metallic and hot, its iodine-like leather facets tangling with frankincense's cool, piney smoke in a combination that feels almost liturgical. The wood accord—Akigalawood's synthetic dryness bolstered by guaiac's tarry depth and the creamy whisper of sandalwood—creates a dense, splintered wall that the rose and geranium can barely penetrate, their petals turning brown at the edges from proximity to all this heat and resin.
Cistus labdanum's sticky, ambery-animalic sweetness finally emerges, coating the patchouli's papery dryness and cedarwood's pencil-shaving austerity in a thin layer of balsamic warmth. What remains is smoky, slightly dusty, the ghost of incense clinging to skin that still radiates a low, spiced heat—less perfume now, more the memory of a temple visit worn home on your clothes.
Nisean announces itself as an exercise in disciplined heat—pink pepper's tingling brightness crashes against lime's acidic edge, creating an opening that feels almost medicinal before the grapefruit rounds things out with bitter pith. But this citrus fanfare is merely the prelude to Nathalie Gracia-Cetto's real interest: a densely packed heart where saffron's leathery metallic threads weave through a smoky cathedral of frankincense. The Akigalawood (Givaudan's Patchouli Coeur molecule) brings its distinctive dry, cracked-wood character, amplifying rather than softening the composition's austere backbone. This isn't the polite, creamy sandalwood affair you might expect from Parfums de Marly's typically opulent stable—instead, Nisean leans into something more ascetic, more deliberately challenging.
The rose and geranium offer fleeting moments of rosy-green relief, but they're constantly smothered by guaiac's tarry density and the sticky, ambery-balsamic weight of cistus labdanum. There's an almost incense-shop dustiness here, the smell of wooden prayer beads handled by countless fingers, of resin caked on brass censers. The patchouli in the base isn't earthy or sweet—it's the dry, papery facet that smells of old books and temple corners. This is for those who find most woody ambers too palatable, too eager to please. Nisean asks you to sit with its spiced, smoky austerity, to appreciate the beauty in its refusal to seduce easily. It's winter meditation, the scent of contemplation worn by someone who's outgrown the need to be liked.
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4.2/5 (517)