A Tribute to Diptyque L'Eau Trois

Diptyque L'Eau Trois is the best myrrh focused fragrance I have ever sniffed.

Somehow I managed to buy a bottle of L'Eau Trois many years ago before I was even a full fledged Scent Junkie, in fact, I still have my first bottle, with only about 15% remaining. L'Eau Trois has been around since 1975 and I probably stumbled across it in the mid-90's. I have lived in fear of it's discontinuation ever since. And now that terrible day has dawned...L'Eau Trois is discontinued.

I have a few other myrrh/resin focused fragrances; Annick Goutal Myrrhe Ardente, Laura Tonatto Amir, Etro Messe de Minuit, the CdG incense series and to a lesser extent L'Artisan Passage d'Enfer, but none of these are as good as L'Eau Trois. I'm serious, I really think L'Eau Trois is the holy grail of myrrh fragrances. The discontinuation of this pains me.

Myrrh seems a difficult scent to get right. As much as I love Annick Goutal fragrances, Myrrhe Ardente was a let down, it mostly smells of root beer. In my book, fragrant myrrh needs to be resinous, woody, herbaceous, incense-y and only barely sweet. Most other myrrh fragrances are actually amber scents with too much vanilla frosting. L'Eau Trois is so perfect, it's as if I wrote a letter to Diptyque asking them to create an exquisitely dry (dry as a bone) scent, with loads of herbs, woods, spice, incense and barely a drop of something sweet just to make it a perfume one can wear in public.

Rustic is a word that comes to mind when I smell L'Eau Trois. It's a rustic, natural, earthy, sappy smell. I think of tree sap - gooey and golden. Thyme and rosemary are prominent notes - which I adore - it's not very often you smell these herbs in perfume. And there's also a coniferous (pine) quality to L'Eau Trois. The scent of L'Eau Trois is so balancing, centering and idyllic it seems the perfect antidote to a stressed individual. Diptyque suggest that L'Eau Trois is meant to capture Northern Greece. I've never been to Northern Greece, but if it smells like this, I would love to visit and stay for awhile. Having recently moved to the southwestern United States, I find a striking similarity with the smells here in the high desert. Perhaps this is why I've been craving L'Eau Trois and brooding over it's discontinuation.

I think of L'Eau Trois as an uncompromising perfume renegade. She doesn't smell of flowers or vanilla or citrus or fruit like the vast majority of fragrances. In my mind, L'Eau Trois is Amelia Earhart, a pioneer who has left us before her time.

The nose behind this fragrance is Serge Kalouguine. Notes are: rosemary, myrrh, myrtle, oregano, cistus labdanum, pine, laurel, and thyme.

Serge Lutens La Myrrhe: A Review

Am I the only person who finds La Myrrhe reminiscent of Chanel No. 5? For me, La Myrrhe smells like a Lutens/Sheldrake homage to No. 5, with their characteristic twists and bold signatures, of course.

Aside from the similarity with No. 5, La Myrrhe is an enigma. From the start, it’s sheer and bright, it leans toward bitter, and, to be blunt, medicinal. But then it’s also resinous (the myrrh) and there’s a hesperedic layer throughout the fragrance and an almost (very feint) marzipan paste.

Is La Myrrhe difficult to describe? Yes. Is it what I expected it to smell like? Not at all. When I think of myrrh itself, I imagine Diptyque’s L'Eau Trois, which is my favorite myrrh scent. I also have Annick Goutal’s Myrrh Ardente, which didn’t work out for me, it smells nice, like woody rootbeer, but not as I’d hoped. La Myrrhe doesn’t smell like myrrh essential oil, as you might expect, given it’s name. It is most definitely the aldehydes that remind me so much of Chanel No. 5. La Myrrhe starts off with a great soapy aldehydic pop which lasts for the first hour.

Like several Serge Lutens fragrances, La Myrrhe is not to be evaluated upon first sniff or even the first hour. After the aldehydes burn off, the fragrance changes. It loses it’s soapy aldehydic pop and instead turns sweetly spicy, like spiced Coca Cola, with anise and woods. This combination is generally what myrrh smells like – it isn’t a mistake that there’s a Coca-Cola/root beer vibe.

La Myrrhe has such stark duality that I imagine there are many who would either love the opening and dislike the dry down or vice verse. I happen to like both, the aldehydic start and the sweetly spicy dry down, but overall I like this fragrance, I don’t love it.

La Myrrhe clearly conjures a vision of a certain type of woman for me. She’s the offspring of proper wealthy ladies who have worn Chanel for decades but this lady prefers not to flaunt her wealth. Instead she exudes a bohemian charm, with chunky jewelry, loose wavy hair and maybe even a tattoo. Ignoring her politics, personality and history but based solely on appearance I imagine Angelina Jolie wearing La Myrrhe. It needs to be mentioned that La Myrrhe makes an excellent masculine as well.

Minimal sillage but long lasting overall.

Notes: Mandarin, bitter almond, sandalwood, myrrh, honey, jasmin, amber, musc

PS: I just came across the shoes and loved them. Made by L.A.M.B, called Tegan Pumps, available at Nordstrom. Since I couldn’t find a good photo of a La Myrrhe bell jar and I did not want to assault you with yet another photo of the overexposed Jolie I went with the shoe image. And, I do image La Myrrhe wearing nicely with these shoes.