L'orpheline

I have a bit of history with L'orpheline. It's a very special scent to me, in various ways, which is why it took me a while to write this review. It feels melancholic, a bit sad, yet calm. It paints a picture of a girl, alone, lighting incense after a long shower before going on a lonely autumn walk, with winter creeping around the corner. The walk itself has no purpose, no. Being alone is all that matters right now. There are multiple layers to this fragrance, much more than the standard version. The incense is heavy, heavy to the point of drowning out everything else. It's thick and malleable, like walking into a bar you can smoke in. Picking through your incense collection to find just the perfect one with little to no aromatics, one that can pleasantly decorate your room with a stable lingering scent. But then, something completely different hits; absence. It's a meditative, very emotional absence. A feeling of true grief and bitter loss you can't seem to shake. For this reason, I cannot recommend wearing this in public. This is meant to be a personal, by yourself perfume, when introspection hits a little harder than usual. The dry down is beautiful; a lightly mineral, warm, tender, musky complexity, forming the end of a circle. I imagine soft, gentle hands cradling me from behind, telling me that all of this is necessary, a part of life, a part of truly feeling everything. L'orpheline is a message to me. Maybe to others as well. There is always a continuation to the end of a story. Let it be a moral, real, or idealistic one, but the end is never really, truly the end. Sadness, loneliness and grief are often a part of the foundation that allows us to start again. I'm in love.