L'Eau de Liesse Eau de Parfum

Macadamia is not a material you meet often in perfumery, and it is the first thing Courrèges L'Eau de Liesse Eau de Parfum puts in front of you.

It smells buttery and mild rather than sweet, a soft, faintly oily richness, and aldehydes fizz over the top of it with that bright, waxy, slightly metallic lift that makes an opening feel scrubbed and polished. Neroli adds a clean white bitterness alongside. The middle is powdery and quiet: heliotrope is the face powder material, soft, sweetish and a little dusty, iris is cool and earthy and expensive, and sambac jasmine warms the pair with a heady richness that stops them turning chalky. White musk and ambroxan close it, the musk soft and laundered, the ambroxan warm and skin close, the two together giving the scent its glow.

Nicolas Beaulieu is the perfumer here. Eight materials, and the achievement is that something this soft still has a clear shape rather than dissolving into a blur. It is a comfort scent rather than a statement one, and that makes it easy to wear at work, around people who dislike perfume, and in any season. It reads as unisex, leaning feminine, and it suits daytime particularly well. Expect a long, close wear from it at eau de parfum strength: moderate projection for an hour, then several hours sitting against the skin, with the musk and ambroxan still present at the end of the day.

Courrèges is a Paris name from 1961, known for geometry in white and silver. Perfume first appeared under it in 1971. The company has been bought and sold several times over, and the current fragrance line dates from a relaunch of five scents in October 2021.