Miss Charming Eau de Parfum 100ml

Short compositions are rarely this well known: Juliette Has a Gun Miss Charming Eau de Parfum 100ml is built from three materials in total, and it has outlasted a great many fragrances carrying five times as many on the box.

Moroccan rose is the heart of it in every sense, a deep and slightly jammy rose with none of the green sharpness that a freshly cut garden flower has. Strawberry sits above it, sweet and a little tart, and the fruit is what makes the flower approachable to people who normally avoid rose perfume altogether. Musk closes the fragrance, clean and soft, holding the pair in place without adding a word of its own.

There is nothing else at all to report, and that is part of the appeal. The fragrance does not evolve so much as settle, and the eau de parfum concentration gives it the staying power a thin composition would otherwise lack, around six hours in all with the first half hour the most noticeable. There is no long development to it, and anyone who simply wants to smell of rose and fruit for an afternoon is well served. It reads feminine and youthful, it suits daytime, spring and mild autumn weather, and it makes a sensible first niche purchase for somebody curious about rose but wary of the grander treatments of it. Francis Kurkdjian composed it in 2006, the year the house itself opened for business.

Juliette Has a Gun is French and niche, founded by Romano Ricci, a great grandson of the couturiere Nina Ricci, and run between Paris and Grasse. Its first bottles were sold exclusively through the Paris store Colette, which is where the house built its following.