Murmure (2002)
by Van Cleef & Arpels

This is a strong seductive fragrance for a real grown-up. Sweet without being nauseating, it reminds me of Alessandro Dell'Aqua because of the musky quality. It gets softer over the course of the day and that's when I like it best.

13rd April, 2011.

Strangely enough I didn’t actually like Murmure the first time I wore it. I bought the bottle ‘blind’ (without testing the fragrance first) while I was going through my crazy ‘must acquire every perfume ever made’ phase; shortly after I discovered my love for fragrance. I loved Van Cleef & Arpel’s First so much that I thought Murmure would be in the same vein. I was very wrong, hence my initial disappointment.

Murmure smells modern to me, completely contrary to the old-world glamour of First. Like the sound of a murmur it hums quietly but powerfully through it’s stages. Upon first spray there is a strange herbal blast, slightly medicinal and my curiosity is piqued. I can’t say that I particularly like the opening, but it’s a little foreign and intriguing. As Murmure develops I detect cedar and vanilla. The base is soft, stays close to the skin and has a beautiful warmth. The vanilla is woven nicely with the cedar and rosewood to create a comforting scent without any food-like vanilla connotations.

Overall Murmure is beautifully crafted and softly glamorous. I must also mention the bottle, which I think is stunning and perfectly representative of the scent. The top of the bottle looks very much like a sculptural interpretation of the opening of a lily flower, a strip of gold runs down the bottle and has the name embossed along it. It’s a picture of modern beauty, much life the fragrance itself.

20th December, 2009.

Like a less pungent Beautiful. Nice.

15th May, 2009.

WHITE WHITE WHITE... It has done away with any romantic sensibilities. If this were a famous person in history I'd almost go with Elizabeth the Virgin Queen, ruthless and untouchable powerful woman. There is a very old Dior perfume my mother used to have which had much the same evocations (Diorissimo?? not sure). It's a floral for the strong willed, practical woman.

23rd December, 2008.

LIES!
I opened the parfum and sniffed the stopper (yes I know better) to find an intense blast of nutmeg. Hoping for more, I put it on and found a completely different odor... A white floral!
No fair!
It's not a bad white floral, and parades around with a rather macho herbal backdrop which keeps it from being too cloying. I also smell the "flower shop" of both the flowers and the cut and bruised stems. Don't overdo this one, as I suspect it will cause headaches in sensitive noses as many white florals do.
I just want the nutmeg...

12nd October, 2008.

I remember that my aunt and uncle’s greenhouse had a room where they prepared their floral bouquets, centerpieces, corsages, and such. That room was often filled with hundreds of different kinds of cut flowers and cut greens, and this fragrance smells like that room, except that Murmure has brought wearability to the out-of-control smell of hundreds of flowers and greens in a correspondingly small room. It’s the same aroma, though…abundantly floral with that natural green background. The wood in the base is exquisite: Sandalwood and cedar – delicate, classic, very natural, very warm, and very wearable. Murmure is beautifully put together, has excellent refinement and longevity: Natural, sophisticated, flawless. As density reduced and modern as it is, it needs an awful lot of discretion in application—it can be overpowering if applied too heavily. I do not see this, even the drydown, as masculine, though.

20th November, 2007.