The last few days I’ve been enjoying wearing two Serge Lutens, Chergui and RAHÄT LOUKOUM. Christopher Sheldrake is the nose for both.
While they seem very different, in some sense they comfort me at the same level — they both are evocative and at the same time soothing. They transport me to a different place and clime.
Before you know it, you are addicted.
The only saving grace is having a lot of fragrances to choose from in your arsenal, because they are fresh every time you come back to them. I have decants of both, but they are both FBW.
RAHÄT LOUKOUM’s notes are white almond, cherry kernel, white honey, musk, vanilla…plus throw in some crushed cherry pits, hawthorn, heliotrope, Turkish rose, balsam, tonka bean, and aldehydes. Somehow the way they come together is a modern classic.
While based on the Turkish candy, it isn’t as candyish, say, as Pink Sugar. It is more sophisticated than that. Even from the first moment, the notes blend together as well as hang in the air individually. While it has both almond and cherry, and both are prominant right to the end, it does not smell like the original Jergens. In a way, it smells the way Smith cherry cough drops taste. It begins very gourmand, but ends with a sort of honeyed rose, while edges of the cherry and almond are still around.
There are some who like Keiko Mecheri’s Loukhoum, but it is too sweet and powdery to and on me, and I tire of it easily, compared to RAHÄT LOUKOUM.
RL reminds me in some sense of Cartier’s Delices, but whereas Delices also has cherry, it is much sharper and lacks that bit of comfort that I especially like in RL, because of its brightness. Perhaps it is the pink pepper that gives it the dissonance, or it is the kind of cherry note that is used.
I suppose the reason I’m drawn to Chergui along with RAHÄT LOUKOUM, is that they share the honey note. But that is about all. Chergui’s notes are honey, hay sugar, incense, tobacco leaf, musk, amber, iris, rose,sandalwood and leather. It’s been called an elixir and those that fall under its spell are bewitched by it.
In the South of Morrocco, before the wind Chergui blows it is preceded by little tornadoes called Djinns - they pick up from the ground insects and vegetations- then comes Chergui with its red sand curtain effect - “Violente ouverture d ‘un opera fantastique” It aspires more than it blows, raising vegetation, insects, brushwood up in its irresistible rise. Its persistent gusts crystallize the flora. Bushes, bays surrender their ultimate ransom, unaware treasures of saps and resins. When Chergui withdraws, followed by its sandy fires, the night descends on the still burning memory leaving place to olfactive ambered, spiced, crystallized savours created by an alchemist called Chergui.
It is considered an oriental, but it is not like Shalimar, for instance, because it has a hot, dry feel to it. It is sweet and smokey and reminds me a lot of L’air du désert marocain by Tauer Perfumes which I reviewed earlier. I will have to do a more in depth comparison of these two on another day.
It is interesting to me that both Chergui and Bigarade Concentree have hay in them. I seem to like that note. It keeps them fresh and modern, to me.
Do you wear either of these?
Karin
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