Serge Lutens - Fumerie Turque

Istanbul smoke

Here's another tobacco perfume from my collection. I love a good tobacco scent in the fall. It's a comfort scent; it makes me feel like flannel shirts and kicking through piles of golden leaves on a sunny day.

Fumerie Turque recreates the smell of a Turkish smoking salon. I've been to Turkey but unfortunately never went to any of the cafes in Instanbul where patrons smoke nargile, a water pipe. A popular fixture of Turkish culture and a place to relax and chat with friends and strangers, these shops have recently suffered from a 2009 ban on indoor smoking. As far as I can tell from reading, it seems they now mostly have patrons partake outdoors on patios.

The nargile tobacco at these shops is frequently favoured with fruit. Fumerie Turque uses Serge Lutens famous stewed fruit accord well here, combining it with a light blond tobacco note that seems to float above like smoke. The perfume is this perfectly balanced between the sweet and the bitter, the dark and the light, the heavy and the weightless. The tobacco seems both dryly herbal and sticky fresh. It reminds me of pipe tobacco and the smell of my uncle's pipe.

In the drydown, the fruit becomes honey and the patchouli in the base is an earthy chocolate with only the tinge of bitterness from the tobacco to keep it from being gourmand. I highly recommend Fumerie Turque for anyone who loves the smell of tobacco. And you can use it indoors.


House: Serge Lutens
Nose: Christopher Sheldrake
Notes: honey, juniper berries, tonka bean, chamomile, patchouli, vanilla, jasmine leaf, turkish rose, red currant, tobacco, styrax and suede

Photo: robokow