
Flora Nymphéa is the latest annual addition to the Aqua Allegoria line by Guerlain, due to launch on March the 8th, 2010 in France. The perfume's inspiration rests on the scent of mock orange (seringa). It also benefited from an exceptional quality of orange blossom sourced from Calabria from a three-generation family of producers, per the press materials.
As noted previously, the name for the fragrance this time calls attention to a more complex imagery than that of the pairing of two main ingredients:
Figue-Iris,
Laurier-Réglisse, Angélique-Lilas or
Tiaré-Mimosa... On a semiotic plane, it is closer to such titles as Herba Fresca, Anisia Bella, Winter Delice and Flora Nerolia although it seems to put emphasis on an added poetic tonality, an impression which is reinforced by the advertising campaign featuring a nymph (model Anna Selezneva) out of a fairy-tale, and not simply a nymphea flower. The nymphea arguably appeared recently on the
Guerlain Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus bottle in 2009.
If Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus was a return, to my nose, to a more authentic rendition of
Mitsouko paradoxically created through different paths, Flora Nymphéa conveys a similar impression: that of a more original Guerlain marrow found inside a new skeleton supporting fresh flesh dressed up in new guises but done in the same technique of vaporous, vague
flou as with some of the early Guerlains.
If the lotus and nymphea are the signs, inspirations and mental aids that Guerlain use to recapture their ability to compose Impressionist perfume-poems, so be it.
Flora Nymphéa is a delicate, romantic, less aquatic-and-new-freshness
composition than we have come to expect from contemporary perfumes as well as most of the Aqua Allegoria line in particular.
There is also more of the interesting jolie-laide harmony found in the antique Guerlains...
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