ID Parfums / Isabel Derroisné Eclat Eternel (2011) {Perfume Review & Musings}
Eclat Eternel (Eternal Spark) is a sparkling, radiant white floral which was composed by perfumer Véronique Nyberg. The nose took the genre of the white-floral bouquet, retaining the opulence of this style of fragrance but made everything feel more transparent, aquatic and light right from the moment the head notes diffuse. A citrusy accord of grapefruit and bergamot is made to cut through the perfume to help create this effect. Bamboo-shoot nuances add hints of verdant crispness. In the background, one senses a bed of pillowy white musks, veering a bit ominously in the direction of functional perfumery. Translation: it feels like your white floral bouquet was left to sit on a softening laundry sheet saturated with molecules of hard-headed, stubborn cleanliness.
The promised luxuries of tuberose absolute and sambac jasmine absolute courtesy of Laboratoire Monique Rémy however kick in the heart bringing a new heft and richness to the composition...
It is a little surprising in this day and age to witness a perfume which goes beyond the call of duty. A more ordinary fragrance would have been content with developing the well-rounded head notes into a whole fragrance. Here, a different atmosphere appears, more langorous, more directly sensual and also, more exotic. Eclat Eternel at this point reveals its creamy facet. A nuance of cream of banana is perceptible; it is often associated with white bouquets, especially with the note of gardenia. The slightly grating white musks recede in the distance.
We are more now in the territory of a classic 1940s gardenia perfume, evoking the fresh sultriness of a Lady Day or Billie Holiday wearing an exhaling split crown of luminous gardenias in her hair. The white musks have turned into a light note of spicy feminine perspiration.
The scent softens further becoming delicate, petal-y. It is warmed up by the notes of vanilla and Cashmeran wood but keeps its fresh edge thanks to the citrus leitmotiv, now subtle. The composition becomes airy, breezy, like a gust of lightly scented wind in the summer. Going beyond the initial airy effect is to recognize that this is where the luxury of the fragrance is made to halt. It cannot go on for much longer due to budgetary constraints. But it manages very well to offer you a ride.
Upon initially smelling the spray nozzle of the fragrance bottle, the perfume led you to remember the very dewy and crisp sambac jasmine composition, now defunct, by Van Cleef and Arpels called Murmure (Whisper). The color of the jus, a pale yellow-green invites the mind further to think of a green jasmine. The dewy orange-blossom nuances of sambac jasmine can be felt offering you a particular kind of jasmine to appreciate in a pure form. The tuberose is more blended-in.
It is a charming composition. A crisp yet carnal variation on the white floral bouquet. "Why not wear it?" is the kind of response it evokes in you. It is not a difficult perfume. It is more of a lifestyle fragrance with an added dose of luxury. The bottle incidentally looks better in person as it offers an unconventional elongated form, like the shape of a Renaissance vertugadin.
As far as white floral bouquets go, it cannot however replace my coup de coeur for the lushness, the spiciness and the sultriness of L'Aurora by HSH Prince Nicolo Boncompagni Ludovisi.
