Mousse Noire
Bergamot, rose, oakmoss
- Composed by
- Ariane Cazal
- Family
- Chypre
- Formula written
- 2017
- From
- €89.00
Mousse Noire
Bergamot, rose, oakmoss
How it was built
A chypre is a bergamot top over an oakmoss and labdanum floor, and everything else is argument about what goes in between. The form has been legally difficult since the restriction of atranol in oakmoss extracts, and most houses answered by abandoning it.
Mousse Noire is built on an atranol-depleted oakmoss absolute at the highest compliant level, supported underneath by patchouli fractions that carry the same damp, forest-floor greenness without pretending to be moss.
The heart is a rose-jasmine pairing set deliberately dry, with clary sage bridging the flowers into the mossy base. It is the oldest fragrance we still make and the one that has been reformulated the most times, always for the same reason.
How it wears
Four properties, read on skin over a full day rather than on a blotter. They describe behaviour, not preference.
Sillage
An arm's length
Longevity
Into the next day
Temperature
Neither
Density
Fully stacked
These are the atelier’s own readings, taken on skin rather than on a blotter, and they describe how the fragrance behaves rather than how much anyone liked it.
Head, heart and base
The materials that determine each stage, in the order they own it. The bars are compositional weight within a tier, not a percentage of the formula; the formula itself is not published.
Head
The most volatile materials. They are what you smell as the alcohol flashes off, and they are gone inside twenty minutes.
Bergamot, SicilyCitrus bergamia
NeroliCitrus aurantium
Green mandarinCitrus reticulata
Heart
The body of the composition. It emerges as the head clears and holds for two to four hours; this is the fragrance as it is meant to be recognised.
Rose centifolia absoluteRosa centifolia
Jasmine grandiflorum absoluteJasminum grandiflorum
Clary sageSalvia sclarea
Base
The least volatile materials, and the ones that fix the rest in place. What is left on skin at the end of the day, and on cloth for days after.
Oakmoss absoluteEvernia prunastri
PatchouliPogostemon cablin
Vetiver, JavaChrysopogon zizanioides
Materials and provenance
Where the principal materials come from and how they are won from the plant. Every lot behind a given bottle is recorded against its flacon code.
Oakmoss absoluteEvernia prunastri
Massif Central, France
Solvent extraction, atranol and chloroatranol depleted
Harvested from fallen oak branches rather than living trees. The depletion step removes the two sensitisers that made the classical material untenable and leaves the inky, wet-bark character intact.
Rose centifolia absoluteRosa centifolia
Pays de Grasse, France
Hexane extraction of morning-picked flowers, then absolute
Picking stops by ten in the morning. After that the heat has taken the top off the flower and what is left extracts flat.
Size and price
Each size is filled from the same batch. The ten millilitre format is not a sample; it is the same juice in a smaller flacon.
€89.00
10 ml eau de parfum · reference NOC-MSN-010
Bottles are filled to order from the current batch and dispatched within five working days. Fragrance cannot be returned once the seal is broken; an unopened flacon may be returned within fourteen days.