I’m not a white floral gal. Take for instance, Parfum de Nicolai Number One. Number One may be a gorgeous awarding winning fragrance but it just doesn’t make my heart skip a beat. Serge Lutens Nuit de Cellophane is the epitome of white floral perfection but it just bores me silly. But take your basic white floral notes and make them the centerpiece of an oriental or chypre and I’m all over it.Divine eau de parfum, makes me swoon so hard I lose consciousness, my knees buckle and I’m typically distracted while wearing it. Divine eau de parfum could have been created by Dominique Ropion, who I’ve come to think of as a classicist, a rare breed of perfumer who still makes unabashedly full bodied and sultry fragrances. Of course, Ropion is not the perfumer for Divine, but I digress, I’m obsessed with him lately.
Divine is a tiny niche perfumery from France, started in Dinard, a seaside town in Brittany of all places. Dinard isn’t Grasse, and it’s a far cry from Paris, and it isn’t chic or trendy. Yvon Mouchel is the perfumer, who, as the story goes, owned his own perfume boutique before he decided to create the juice himself. The idea of this small perfumery, creating classically beautiful fragrances gives me the warm fuzzies. I’m a huge fan of the underdog, and Divine fits this description.
Divine eau de parfum is categorized as a chypre. When a chypre leans toward the sweet, I have a difficult time differentiating between it and a floral oriental. Divine eau parfum stands somewhere between floral oriental and chypre to my nose. Similar to Acqua di Parma’s Iris Nobile eau de parfum, which is also considered a chypre, but I would have guessed a floral oriental. Speaking of Iris Nobile edp (not edt), there are some strong similarities between it and Divine. Both are luscious full bodied white florals, heavy on the gardenia and tuberose, with fruity beginnings and spicy, mossy bases causing me to drool.
Divine’s list of notes are peach, coriander, gardenia, Indian tuberose, May rose, oak moss, musk, vanilla, and spices. There will be no mistaking, when you smell Divine, it’s very 1950s Hollywood glamour. Divine is real perfume, for a confident woman, who cares not that she’s wearing an in your face tuberose/gardenia chypre. If she’s going to wear perfume she’s damn well going to wear the good stuff.
Divine has won me over. I hope more people fall in love with Divine’s perfumes and I wish the company much success. It would please me to know that a small perfumery can make good old fashioned perfumes against all odds, without advertising and make it on their exceptional juice alone.
You can purchase directly from Divine's website from wherever you happen to live. In the US Divine is sold at Luckyscent.
PS: The image is Ellen Barkin. I love Ellen, she rocks.
