Poivre Noir Eau de Parfum 50ml

Single mindedness is the whole character of Serge Lutens Poivre Noir Eau de Parfum 50ml, and the smaller bottle is the sensible way to discover whether it suits you.

Black pepper is the point of it. The material is dry and prickly with a dusty heat behind it, and rather than disappearing in the first ten minutes the way pepper normally does, it is held in place for the whole wear. If you have ever wanted to smell of a pepper mill, this is the bottle that does it.

Nutmeg rounds off the edges, warm and faintly sweet with a baking cupboard dustiness to it, and cedarwood runs beneath, dry and splintery, lending structure without adding another flavour to the mix. That is the entire formula: three materials, no top and no base in the usual sense, and nothing at all kept back for later in the wear.

At this size the outlay is manageable for a scent you may well reach for only in certain moods, which is how most people end up using it. Expect six hours, moderate reach for the first and intimate afterwards, and two sprays is ample, which at this size matters. It works in cold weather and in daylight, reads as unisex, and is a decent reply to the complaint that everything on the shelf now smells of dessert. Expect no compliments and no complaints either, because it is a private sort of scent. It belongs to 2022.

Ownership and authorship sit in different places here. The decisions are Serge Lutens', made from Paris, while Shiseido, which he first worked with in 1980, announced in 2015 that it would acquire the trademark. The square bottles that carry the line into shops date from 1999.