Les Heures de Parfum - XI L'Heure Perdue (2015)
by Cartier

smelldorado below, nails it—although in the end I decided on a neutral instead of a positive review.

If you’ve ever seen one of those competition cooking shows where the chefs deconstruct the components of a classic recipe and rearrange them in such a way that references the original but in a wildly different manner, then that pretty much describes what I experience when I smell XI L'Heure Perdue (the lost hour, indeed). It has all the components of a perfume, but one that’s been broken down and rearranged in a totally new, even experimental, way.

I’ve read that perfumer Mathilde Laurent’s inspiration for this is tied up in memories of childhood and Marcel Proust’s love of madeleine cookies. But this isn’t a confection to my nose—I don’t get any sweet at all. What I mostly get is a very sharp, almost vinegar-ey cardboard underneath which some kind of weird floral plays hide and seek. Trying to nail down this note is like trying to snatch at the rain to fill a bucket. Maybe there’s some smoke as well? A hint of clove or cinnamon, a bit of vanilla? But it’s all so bizarrely rendered and so elusive that I just can’t love it.

It seems that I’m in the minority, though. The reviews are by and large swoony, and each time I’ve worn this someone has stopped me to tell me how good I smell, begging me to tell them what I’m wearing. Too bad this costs the earth, for which, I'm sure, there are some good reasons. But the piss-elegant packaging, while befitting a luxury brand like this, shouldn't be one of those reasons. Ultimately, it's bulky and totally unnecessary. Just give us a good bottle, a fantastic juice, and a box we won't feel guilty about throwing away.

Major props to Laurent nonetheless. She has established a definitive throughline in her work for Cartier. Here, I smell echoes of Le Panthere and Baiser Vole, each of which is similarly beautiful but not without their difficulties. Laurent is clearly making her mark at Cartier, both defining the brand and her individual aesthetic. Which is fantastic—unlike some houses that spew out half-hearted mass-market-targeted juices by the shit ton, Cartier seems to take perfumery seriously (although not stuffily), and they are happily letting their house nose do her thing.

Generally, I can't stand anything that smells too heavily of vanilla. But while L'Heure Perdue does smell sweet and vanillic, it also smells really weird. Like glue or rubber. But powdery. The parts are familiar, but they've been reconfigured in totally new ways. Like Mathilde Laurent broke off pieces of other materials and Frankensteined them together to make something beautiful, strange, and difficult to place. But how does it smell on the skin? Fantastic. Swoony even. And it is tender and light while still maintaining excellent longevity. At a lower price point and wider distribution, everyone and their mom would be wearing this stuff.