Reviews of L'Ombre dans L'Eau (1983)
by Diptyque

Diptyque L'Ombre dans l'Eau

Notes: black currant leaves and Bulgarian rose (from luckyscent.com)

Despite the meagre listing of notes, to my nose L'Ombre dans l'Eau starts as a bright and uplifting blend of grapefruit, tart berries and rose. The rose is very classical, akin to an old-fashioned rosewater or French milled rose scented soaps, that is to say, "tea rose" or similar. The rose note is very evocative of the type of rose soliflore that make most people hate rose soliflores. Yet, here in L'Odl'E, the rose is brightened marvelously with sour and bitter grapefruit and berry notes. This is one of those synergistic blends where it is possible to recognize the component parts and still appreciate the whole composition which becomes more than the sum of its parts. Classic rose is modernized and made low calorie, in a sense, by the use of fresh fruits. The grapefruit does get a bit sulfurous in the drydown, and I was thinking at first that it was off-putting. Then I realized that paired with the liquor-like rose note, this edginess makes the rose seem even more luscious. It is as if the rose is on the verge of that extremely full-bodied stage of being fermented while still on the stem. The drydown is quite a bit more herbal and green, giving an impression of rose geranium. My only real complaint is that overall the fragrance is a bit linear and not terribly complex. Regardless, this is probably what Hermes Eau de Pamplemousse Rose should have been--it is clear that grapefruit and rose can be very good friends.

Unique opening. Red fruits marmalade still bubbling in the pot, with a touch of white rose petals and a hint of sweet citrus (similar to the one that opens OYEDO). Very sweet and intense feminine mid notes where the Bulgarian rose leads the way to the woods of the base. Great Longevity. Not a mainstream but worth at least a try.

It's always fun to try these polarizing scents. Here, I'm going to have to side with the haters. A bitter, vegetal opening (crushed tomato leaves?) dies down to a vague middle, from which a rather processed-smelling, almost cooked, rose note emerges. There's nothing here I want to smell like. Pass.

Diptyque certainly makes some unconventional, push-the-envelope type scents. This is another one. Here we have a very sharp and harsh green opening. Eventually a dark rose emerges, but the harsh green doesn’t go away. I like the rose somewhat, but the green ruins it for me.

Bitter, jarring opening, melds into an unappealing, artificial rose scent. The least enjoyable Diptyque I have yet to experience.

L'Ombre dans L'Eau is very different from most of Diptyques offerings, in that it isn’t strictly a linear scent – not that linearity is a bad thing but it was a very pleasant surprise:

Top notes: Starts off with a very sharp (and masculine) citrus-green opening – it’s one of the best and most unique openings I’ve experienced in quite a while. The presence of the blackcurrant leaves create a dark, pungent and slightly sour accord. This stage lingers for at least 10 minutes.

Mid notes: This is the most challenging stage. At first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but (based on other reviews) realised a tomato leaf / plant accord shinning through [for those who loved this stage the best, and wished it lasted longer, the closest scent that comes to mind is Sisley’s Eau de Campagne]. The gradual emergence of the rose can be clearly detected half-way through.

Base notes: Although the green notes remain, albeit more subdued, the rose note becomes more prominent. Unfortunately, some disappointment sets in as I’m heavily reminded of both Lutens’ Sa Majesté la Rose and Montale’s Ta’if Rose. However, based on the sudden relisation that the other two were released at least 15 years later, all respect for this composition remains unscathed.

L'Ombre dans L'Eau still smells timeless and is a wonderful creation. Its lasting power is also one of the best I've experienced by Diptyque. Although I'm not sure if it's full bottle-worthy for me, it's most certainly an amazing creation that was ahead of its time.

[Original submission date: 24 October 2008]

L'Ombre dans L'Eau indeed. Well, actually I don't get much water out of this, but there are plenty of shadows. L'Ombre dans L'Eau has an arresting opening: harsh, bitter green notes jump up and kick your nose around a bit, just to make sure you're awake. These are followed almost immediately by a very clear, three dimensional rose note, which soon blends with the green to form the heart of the fragrance. What comes to mind is a rose growing in wet earth, with a distinct soil note that keeps drawing me back into the composition.

This is a dark rose scent, more masculine than unisex to my nose, and with an element of danger hovering deep in the shadowy background. It's relatively linear, like so many Diptyque scents, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. Sillage and projection are both outstanding, so don't overdo it!

If you're looking for a masculine rose scent and the Montale Aouds and Czech & Speake’s No. 88 are too much for you, you ought to give L'Ombre dans L'Eau a try.

The surprising opening smells pink / purple to me: It’s syrupy sweet and surrealistically rosy. I’m more shocked than impressed because I really don’t know what to make of it. Then there’s an acidic sharpness that comes immediately after spraying. It’s green and quite a bit harsh, but I’m not complaining, because I like it better than I like the uberpinkpurple rose note. I get rose, but to my nose it’s quite a cheap, fake rose note – pink… errr… purple – actually one of the most undesirable rose notes I’ve smelled in fragrances – bubble-gummy sweet. This rose note is tenacious and domineering and selfish – it won’t allow me to smell the other notes in the accord. I even lose that sharp green of the opening. My nose is not interpreting the notes of this fragrance very well, I’m afraid. I usually get along with Diptyque fragrances excellently, but this one I have to vote a thumb’s down. (Edit of 09 December 2006 review.)

This lovely scent brought to mind my long-gone grandmother's garden on Whidbey Island in the San Juan Island chain off the Pacific Northwest of the USA. Her little home was at the end of a deadend road, stop a cliff overlooking Puget Sound. Her garden was full of honeysuckle, sweet peas, rose hips and pansies - not your usual floral notes for perfume! Pretty scents against a backdrop of freshly mown lawn and an armful of cut flowers with the stems smelling brightly alive and green - and all recently lightly dampened with the fine spray nozzle of the garden hose. A sweeter, innocent time and place, I hardly dare wear it - but rather cherish it as a way to revisit the carefree summers of childhood. Beautiful!

Green floral pee.

I wanted to love this one, I really did, but that remains my first and last impression.

For a while I've opined that I'd like to see a perfumer's take on a local wild flower that smells pleasingly sharp from a distance, and up close... like L'Ombre dans L'Eau.

As it turns out, I really do not want to smell like that at all.

Live and learn.

As for the fragrance itself, it's complex and well made, and has very good longevity and moderate sillage.

Luscious. I want to be in the place that smells like this. It is evocative in the extreme of a verdant flowering lakeside or riverside late in the day, I feel immediately transported there. I find this scent magical and seductive. I only wish I didn't have to save it for special occasions because it always makes me feel very alive. It's hard to find and expensive, and it's my little secret in a bottle.

Haunting, definitely figurative, chewy, persuasive, mysterious, rich, shady, dewy!
The rose scent is hidden in a lush dark tangle of vegetation at the edge of a pool... But it in no way it reminds of the "warmth" of a stagnant water, with putrid scents: it is also very fresh, dynamic and sparkling! Suitable for summer lazyness as much as to reheat the cold winter heart with memories of sunny days... I think I'm feeling more and more enough brave to wear it!

Mown hay and brown sauce (that's A1 Steak Sauce for USA readers). And, at the same time, really dark green roses. What a totally strange and lovely smell. Have tried wearing it during the day (too loud) and the evening (too green), summer (too spicy) and winter (too fresh). Have decided just to wear it anyway and stop trying to pigeonhole it.

To me, this smelled like ferns and rose geraniums... tossed in a dumpster and left to rot. Pungent and unpleasant.

I was lucky enough to try this "creation" at Saks in new york while on holiday

The name actually evoke the scent - the rose is there but shadowed by a kind of freshness.

A total masterpiece in modern perfumery.

This is impossible to describe - it can only be experienced

Billy Idol said - he would be lost without this scent - just for the quote !!!

I am not sure if I will actually wear this one - but for sure - it is a great creation

A bit somber - a bit rebel - a bit goth .......... but so much more


Hard to find - rare - expensive - unique - everthing you want from a SECRET scent
Unlike flashy bottles "supermarket" EDT -
you have got here a Mercedes hidden in a simple glass bottle !!!

Saks New York - Liberty London - proof of a great pedegree !!

It starts with a very green, very sharp opening, it almost hurts it is that sharp. As you rush to get the supplies to wash it off it mellows a little and the green becomes a nice wet and damp smell and the rose comes out more. It's a very floral perfume with mostly rose that tingles, combined with the wetness and damp greens it smells beautiful but it is a tragic beauty that cries a lot.

Not for me.

I love coming back to this fragrance because the first whiff is an explosion of damp, dark earth, leaves, and the deepest rose I've yet smelled. The initial herbaceousness of this frag makes me sit up and take notice. I didn't expect that. Then the rose takes over and it's a rich rose. I think of a bloodred flower under moonlight. I spray this on and I can't stop smelling my wrist. Powerful and luscious.

The sweetness of rose is wonderfully offset by the slight bitterness of blackcurrant leaves (much beloved by Slavs as a basic flavor for dill pickles!) After about an hour the blackcurrant almost fades out, and the rose develops more, but never to the point of being cloying. It remains fresh, subtle and almost real. Almost, because I have never yet come across a rose scent that really smells like a real wild briar rose.

A green, fairly bright rose frag that any man can pull off. I don't see it as being at all dark, though, unlike Vibert. No, this is the rose antithesis of #88 and Black Aoud -- it's as clear and fresh and bright as those two are dark and mysterious and somewhat Gothic.

A fascinating frag -- may have to go out and get myself a bottle!

Diptyque is currently pulling some odd tricks on my nose. My first umpteen sniffs of L'Ombre were disturbing... I smelled sharp, dank, muddy, rosy, and green. This was offensive; I didn't want to smell sharp, dank, muddy, rose, and green. Yet my recent scented "reminders" of how much I adore the smell of pond water and rose did something odd to my brain. Now, L'Ombre rocks my world (and, very soon, I'm sure, my pockets too...) It's rose and pond water. Seriously, who could wish for more?!

L'Ombre dans L'Eau is the scent that got me interested in perfume. My brother gave me some L'Ombre dans L'Eau body wash as a gift one year, and I loved it so much I decided I absolutely had to have the perfume. That was the first bottle of perfume I ever bought for myself. Now, two bottles later, it is still the scent I want to use all summer. I love this perfume. It is a heavenly, natural, green summer garden scent. It makes me happy every time I wear it.

L'Ombre dans L'Eau is one of the most realistic rose scents that I have ever experienced. It begins with a gorgeous, yet extremely sharp green accord of berry leaves and rain. It's an exact impression of a spring garden at dawn, just after a late night thunderstorm has washed the leaves cold and clean. The rose emerges from these leaves, dark and vivid, without any mitigating warmth or sweetness. The cool, hard quality of these leaves and petals is often remarked on, and I get the sense that it often alienates fans of more traditional roses. It's lifelike, without a trace of sentimentality. I personally like it quite a lot; powdery, sweet, and motherly roses have been done well and often, and at this point they can seem like the olfactory equivalent of background noise - too common to merit any special attention. It's unusual and refreshing to find a rose that is so uncompromising and clear.

first its like shock for rose, green, nature. Then it gets better. Allso like other Diptyque scents, not so parfymlike.
Light scent.

The Baron de Charlus once told me: 'On one occasion, I dreamed that I was drifting in a canoe with Marie Antoinette down a stream near the Palace of Versailles. She held aloft a bottle of Diptyque's L'Ombre Dans L'Eau, all the while singing raucously out of tune, her silhouette shadowed in the water, surrounded on both banks by greenery and roses.
"Ah, a nice ironic metaphor, Your Majesty," I remarked. "For, like your singing, Diptyque's L'Ombre Dans L'Eau provides us with a decidedly out of tune rendition of roses on the riverbank. Whilst I would not go so far as to agree with that poet who asserted that vegetation always bored him, I find this certainly to be the case with L'Ombre Dans L'Eau. A crude and tedious production, do you not agree?"
"Rum and vinegar!" chanted the Queen, "Rum and vinegar for me!" "No, you imperial twerp," I assured her, "rum and vinegar are nowhere in evidence here. Humdrum roses and banal greenery. Do try to get it right!"'

no words can express what a beautiful unbelievable rose scent diptyque created with this treasure in a bottle

At first whiff, I was taken aback by all the green...so much green I was reminded of sprigs of fresh parsley. But then the rose kicks in for me, and that followed by the smells of rain-drenched leaves. The bottom note settles down nicely into a musty, musky scent reminding me of the wet ground in springtime on a rainy day. If you married Demeter's "Dirt" with Yardley's "English Rose" you would get this scent, but without the wet leafiness. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised at how the commingling of green herbishness and rose could create a "truer" rose fragrance than I have ever experienced. This is truly a beautiful scent.
As with all the Diptyque's, it is far better to spray, walk around for about five minutes, and then sniff the wrist for the truest revelation of the fragrance. If you are looking for a long lasting, lush garden experience, I would definitely try L'Ombre dans L'Eau.

This is a beautiful fragrance. Like a lot of the Diptyque fragrances, it is just incredibly green for most of its lifespan - green rather than floral. Particularly on a card, it has a bracing coldness that for me is incredibly evocative of the garden. On my skin it is a little warmer, and as it dries down I do get some of that incensey quality - but it is very restrained - this is never a heavy scent. In fact, although you can clearly smell that it is a fresh, green rose, oddly it reminds me more than anything of a tomato plant. All in all a wonderful, crisp, unartificial scent that is particularly good for daytimes and summers!

At first quite nice a scent, especially the fascinating turn from the starting note, which is a little crispy, almost pine–like, to the perfectly authentic smell of heavy roses after some moments. But all in all it does not last too long and leaves a somehow morbid old lady–like smell at least on my skin. A perfume I would never recommend to a young man, at least if he does not feel like an impersonator of the late Judy Garland.

I just can't seem to hitch a ride on the Diptyque love train, and this widely loved Diptyque scent hammers that home for me. While not unpleasant - as in sour, musty, dusty, dour - like some rose scents can be, L'Ombre dans L'Eau smells so basic and straightforward to my nose that it just leaves me unstirred. Fresh, dewy young rose meets some green notes. Boom, the end. I don't get any black currant, no earthy notes, no nuance whatsoever beyond buds and leaves. I've really made an effort with Diptyque scents but they just don't cut it for me. Recently I happened across a shop that was selling a few Diptyque scents, including this L'Ombre, at dramatically discounted prices. I'm talking around $15 a bottle. And I STILL couldn't get myself to buy any of them; if that's not my subconscious telling me, "Calchic, you really hate these, you won't admit it but you really hate these," then I don't know what is!

One of the most beautiful rose perfumes ever. You can literally smell cut blackcurrant leaves when you spray it on. It's unique...

I have a suspicion - people from the US often are just unable to appreciate scents that are somewhat unusual, strong, or oriental - I think some of them have a strong dislike for pachouli, myrrh, incense and similar scents, which they identify - who knows why - whit bodlily odors. Could it have something to do with an exaggerated tendency to so-called hygiene, which is misinterpreted as the neutralization every trace of natural odor? That said, I think this perfume is excellent, even if not suited for all tastes. It starts as a fresh and aromatic herb mixture, which rapidly evovles to a pungent scent of resin, and finally takes on a scent of incense - but not the one you burn in sticks, the arabic one you buy in form of resinous grains - I think this is the myrrh comings out. Warm, oriental but sober, spiritual, well suited for autum and winter. More male perfume, probably, although I as a woman really love it.

Although I really enjoy the smell of this oldie I, can't help to think it's better suited for the ladies. I was given a generous sample of it at Skins in Amsterdam (one of the worlds finest fragrance stores, IMO) and the friendly sales-woman said she loved the smell of this on men. So I gave L'Ombre dans L'Eau many wearings. I will say it contains the perhaps purest, most lovely rose I've ever experienced in liquid form. And maybe it's this strong floral character that makes me a little uncertain of it's masculine appropriateness. It shares a similar blackcurrant accord with Creed's Silver Mountain Water, making it very fresh and crisp. Probably the perfect scent for a 25-30 year old professional woman during spring and early summer. However not very unisex at all.