Barbara Herman is a vintage perfume expert, historian and consultant. She collects, researches and writes about them on her blog YesterdaysPerfume.com one of the best go-to resources on vintage fragrance out there. In 2016 she launched a much-anticipated niche fragrance line called ERIS Parfums. The line debuted with three fragrances all composed by Antoine Lie – Belle de Jour, Night Flower and Ma Bête – each inspired by the eroticism of vintage animalic floral fragrances. Eris is the Greek goddess of discord, spite and jealousy. She’s a stirrer all right, and the perfect name for Herman’s line: "Antoine Lie and I have reimagined the intensity and eros of perfumes of the past for a contemporary audience. We wanted to bring back the emotion of animalic perfumes," says Ms. Herman in an interview. All three fragrances are full bottle worthy, depending on what you are looking for and Ma Bête is what I’ve been looking for - for a long time. Inspired by the 1946 Jean Cocteau film La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast), the familiar fairy tale centred on the transformation of a beast into a handsome prince through the true love of a kind, pure-hearted woman. Ma Bête opens with aromatic neroli that's citrusy, honeyed, floral and aldehydic. It has a fatty, waxy texture that gives it a vintage feel. The florally is warmed with spicy, earthy nutmeg. It’s romantic, warm and beautiful, but this is just the start. The top notes are amplified at the heart with sweet, indolic, animalic, jasmine and spicy, earthy cypriol and warm resinous styrax. As it moves to the base, I smell balsamic, woody cedarwood, licks of patchouli and bold, erotic animalic notes. These are the notes I smell, but it’s the effect they create on me that’s the reason I love this fragrance. It’s a feminine, floral, seductive beauty brushing up against a virile, animalic, male beast and then backing away over and over again that makes Ma Bête an irresistible, erotic tease. And, like any good tease, where you start with is not where you finish. Ma Bête is confident for sure, but not brash or aggressive. Mr. Lie has too much skill for that, but it does have what he calls a “raunchy elegance”. Notes: Neroli, aldehydes, nutmeg, cypriol, styrax, jasmine, cedarwood, patchouli and animalic notes.
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