Reference Tuberose?

Carnal Flower IMHO is the truest representation of tuberose .

Agree.

Fracas is a big and loud tuberose, indeed. I'd add JPG Fragile too, it's an interesting tuberose. I have curiosity about Tubereuse Criminelle by Serge Lutens, this is also commented as an interesting tuberose.

Just to add to the lemming-

Beyond Love by Kilian is a GREAT tuberose soliflore - but quite big on the cheese note.
Profumum Tuberose is wonderful too as is Jo Malone's Tuberose.Both these are fresher, in smell, than Beyond Love which is more camphorous to start and then it's heady tuberose. All long lasting.

I love Fracas but it's not purely tuberose to me- a bit powdery , orange blossom .

Parfumerie generale PG16 Tubereuse couture

Yes, this is a very good tuberose too !

The actual tuberose flower should be the reference tuberose IMO. But fragrance-wise, I'd say By Kilian's Beyond Love is one of the better tuberose soliflores around, even more so than Carnal Flower imho. Sugandaraja shd be checking in soon with more recommendations. Tuberose is after all one of his favorite flowers!

I'd agree Carnal Flower is the best reference tuberose, but I'd suggest also trying out Annick Goutal's Tubéreuse for a good feel of what the actual absolute really smells like: it's practically nothing but tuberose absolute.

Diamondflame is quite right - it's best to find an actual tuberose! This is how I first fell in love with the fragrance.

Given that Colorado is much too chilly for them, the best place to look is a florist. If they don't have some in, most should be able to order some in, and having tuberose as a cut flower is a joy to have around - for a week, they can completely fill a house with a most beautiful scent. Unlike roses, their scent has remained largely intact in the florists' trade.

When I think of the fragrances out there, I think Carnal Flower is the best bet for a very vivid and true tuberose note. That being said, it's not an entirely "pure" tuberose, with a sharp, cool green quality in the top notes, and musk, coconut, and jasmine increasingly predominating in the drydown.

Fracas is often considered the classic tuberose, but it's more of a fragrance with tuberose than a tuberose fragrance; orange flower, gardenia, and host of big "pink" flowery notes making it more of a blend than anything. I enjoy it, but it's quite possible to love tuberose and hate Fracas!

Fracas is quite widely imitated, however, and you'll find a good number of tuberose fragrance take it as a model.

Beyond Love is, to my nose, kind of a modernized Fracas, a more natural tuberose, but still blended with other flowers, and in this case, a very warm, lactonic peach and musk accord. It's exceedingly pretty, but like the Venus de Milo, when you compare it to the real thing you notice it's missing a few parts.

Tubereuse Criminelle is quite fun but has much more going on that just tuberose. There's a slight cool, tingly quality in the flower that's exaggerated to the extreme, giving this tuberose a very bright wintergreen top note. The drydown is strongly tuberose, but again not just tuberose, a very creamy vanilla and musk giving a soft landing after a harsh entrance.

Tuberuse Couture is lovely but more of a mixed floral to my nose, ylang-ylang, wintergreen, and a unique sugar cane note playing a big part. It has a nice tuberose, but tuberose is a team player here.

Ajne's Fleur Blanche is my favorite all-natural tuberose so far ( not meaning the most natural smelling, just that it's made from all-natural ingredients ). It shows off a certain grainy quality tuberose absolute has quite well, while remaining lush and floral, and a very true tuberose in the drydown.

I've heard great things about L'Artisan's Nuit de Tubereuse and Caron's Tubereuse, but I've yet to try either. Here's hoping - soon!

Good call!

I really need to try this Goutal... I should check out to see if they have it locally! It's terrible, really: I think I neglect the Goutal line because it's easily available here, and not something "special" I have to work at finding.

Don't forget the original Chloé (NOT the new one in the square bottle), which was a natural tuberose.

I have that big and loud L" Artisian Tuberuse that I just crave sometimes, but when I had the money to buy it, I really wanted the MPG Tuberose which was out of stock at Lucky scent. I don't remember the MPG being 160.00! I think it went up in price as I just looked on Lucky scent for it. Wouldn't you know, it's back ordered again.

It's funny, before I know what the tuberose little white flower was supposed to smell like, I'd read tuberose as an ingredient in various perfumes and didn't know what in the world that was. Now I know a little bit of what it'll smell like when I read that ingredient. It's great to have some knowledge of perfume or you don't know what you are getting. Thanks to all you smart noses out there , I am now not so perfume naive.
I think the mpg tuberose is a good reference point for a tuberose scent.

What of Richard James Eau de Toilette or Cologne? Big tuberose notes in the middle.

Suga- I am so pleased you think well of Ajne's Fleur Blanche.

Very much so! I've tried a number of all-natural tuberoses ( Ayala Moriel's White Potion, Gigi, and Tuberose Lei; Profumo.it's Mona Lisa ), and this is probably my favorite "true" tuberose ( Tuberose Lei is my favorite but is kind of an incense smoke and tuberose combination ). It starts out gardenia-like - never a bad thing in my books - before turning into a creamy, pleasant tuberose. I think it's great! Thanks for introducing me to the Ajne line.

Tuberose absolute has some interesting undertones that I smell more clearly in natural fragrances. Profumo.it's Mona Lisa is the weirdest one I've smelled - it manages to make tuberose smell like rocks and bread, for some reason. Very much a non-floral floral.

Suga, thanks for adding your considerable knowledge to this thread. You're truly the master of tuberose, a niche within a niche!

I don't think I'll ever be quite as enamored with tuberose as I am with iris, but chacun a son gout. From what I've read so far, the Profumum and Annick Goutal offerings have my attention. And I intend to follow through on your excellent suggestion to order a vase-full of tuberose from my local florist.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised. Fresh tuberose flowers, when they are in full bloom, are just the most magical smell.

Like some have already said, Beyond Love seems the most true IMO, and LT agrees!

All the comments on this thread have been very kind. Just an obsessed fan of the flower, honestly!

I´m agree with Diamondflame and Sugandaraja that the reference is the real tuberose flower. I have tuberose blooming in my garden from April to October. But IMO there isn´t yet any bottle in the market that really catch the tuberose essence. TUBEROSE IS FRESH! and not that heavy, sweet, loud and oily smelling. To me it would be the perfect man floral fragance: elegant, fresh, clean one. I don´t know if it is because there is a fermentation or something like the indolic thing during the chemical process to obtain tuberose absolut but all the tuberose perfumes are heavy flower bomb. Some days ago I walked under a full blooming frangipani tree and indeed that flower has a heavy fragance. I had great expectations with Carnal Flower. Indeed a great product, but don't have the decided freshness that you can find in the flower in a hot and humid tropical night. By the way, CF reminds me the discontinued Versace’s Blonde (indeed there are differences between them, but the weather here make them so similar and there is a lack of nuances) Maybe Richard James Eau de Toilette (my next purchase) would have that facet that I´m looking for in a tuberose fragance.

In my garden I have brunfelsia, jasmine, ginger lily but tuberose (by the way from Mexican origin) is my favorite one. Pleaaaaase someone to catch the real smelling!!!!

I know what you mean about tuberose. I'm just taking a guess here, but you MIGHT like Tubereuse Criminelle - it has that fresh quality in tuberose, but greatly exaggerated. It's not perfectly natural - nothing I've smelled is - but it's very fresh in the top notes.

Suga, you were mentioning wanting to try the new L'Artisan Nuit de Tubéreuse... I cannot recommend it highly enough, it's an amazing composition based around tuberose absolute, but the operational word here is "tuberose absolute": the material picks up some of the characteristics of the flower, but brings out a lot more things that Duchaufour has worked on (I think you must have read my interview, where he explains this).
People looking for a scent that is true to the flower won't find it there, and Fracas-style tuberose fans will be disconcerted. It's a very new take on the genre.

It's probably the fragrance I'm most looking forward to trying of the releases this year. I keep on speculating internally what it will smell like!

I know I quite enjoy some fragrances that are based around an element that is indirectly natural rather than emulating the living flower. In Serge Lutens Rose de Nuit there's that dark, dried, slightly jammy quality I've smelled in rose absolutes but never a living rose; I love it. I honestly think I prefer the fragrance of jasmine absolute to most jasmine flowers - it's so dark, rich, and dense; a perfume in itself.

Nuit de Tubereuse

I haven't tried it, but Shalini (which retails for...er...900 for a 2oz), is supposedly a fresh tuberose fragrance. I wonder if it's a true interpretation of tuberose flowers.

Bump to a great thread.

Good job hedonist. I'll add

Bruno Campora Blu to the list. Very lovely rich yet crisp/light tuberose.

This is difficult to explain. I am a huge tuberose fan, but I really do lot like Fracas at all. I have tried all variations including extrait, edp ~ both older and newer formulations. So I personally would not suggest it as a reference tuberose.
I would suggest Annick Goutal ~ Tubereuse and Blonde ~ Versace
Although Blonde has been discontinued it can still be found easily and at a very reasonable price. It's a beautiful fragrance based around tuberose, (specially created for the designer's sister who loved the smell of the flower).
An added bonus with Blonde is the stunning flacon !

You also want to try Mona di Orio's Les Nombres d'Or Tubereuse. It's almost an anti-tuberose fragrance, in that it's got a very, very green opening with a lot of vetiver, and then tuberose never quite overwhelms you the way Fracas does. I know a lot of men like Carnal Flower for it's lack of smothering floweriness, but I personally rate Mona's tuberose higher than Carnal Flower. It's also about half the price of Carnal Flower.

Serge Lutens's Tubereuse Criminelle is another avant grade take on tuberose. It starts off smelling almost awful, but in the course of five minutes develops into an absolutely beautiful swan of a fragrance. I own L'Artisan Nuit de Tubereuse in FB as well, but it's incredibly, incredibly spicy. Achingly beautiful on a cold day.

I have to admit it was weird reading one of my posts from 2 years back.

I do recall taking DF's recommendation to "calibrate" my nose with actual tuberose flower from a local florist. Good advice, not only for tuberose but for any flower that figures prominently in fragrance. Here in K.C., tuberose is only available from late August to September, but it's definitely worth searching out.