According to Cartier, this series of Rivers “captures the life and raw beauty of water, a source of olfactory reflection.” Odd that something odorless should specifically help olfactory reflection, but do go on. I half expected the fragrances to be named after Départements, since the French Revolution extirpated all the old regions (Anjou, Aunis, Saintonge), diced them, and replaced them with river names (Charente, Sèvre, etc.). Come to think of it, fragrances named Loire or Rhône wouldn’t be bad. Instead we inexplicably get two states of mind, Insouciance and Allégresse (jubilation, wrongly spelled with è on the Cartier website and packaging1), but then, incongruously, Luxuriance. Series are good but better when they make sense.
I was stumped by these compositions, all complex, all herbaceous, all skillful, none with any striking shape. Tania described them as “three reasons people don’t like cilantro.” To me, they feel like a house paint catalog in which you pick a contrasting color for the fourth kitchen wall and hesitate between Soft Fern and Tudor Cream. Once again, I had to shift gears and imagine them as something unassuming that you’d spray on in the morning in the expectation that it would act as a mood hint.
Allégresse
I may be missing the point here, but this is a perfectly pleasant bergamot-orange flower affair with no particular tendency to unbridled joy.
Insouciance
An iris-violets thing, pretty and wallflowery.
Luxuriance
Described in Michael Edwards’s database as an aromatic fougère, this one strikes me as pale, civilized, and a million miles from what you’d expect a Laurent composition with that name to smell like.
The state of French spelling is bad and getting worse. Ministerial tweets and emails to me, even from learned colleagues, typically contain one howler per sentence, mostly homophones. At some point, France is going to grasp the nettle and reform the language.
This is off point, but in case you are getting to the end of your Cartier explorations (which I have loved): Have you ever revisited vintage Le Must de Cartier? Your review was pretty scathing in the book, and in light of how often I DO agree with your other reviews, I have wondered if there might have been any evolution in your feelings on Le Must. Classic extrait de parfum being the best exemplar, in my experience of the scent.
I tried these carefully and I agree, these are all just very nice office scents. Allegresse brought back fond memories of my first year with an office job, wearing Eau de Cartier, as there was something in it similar to EdC. It almost made me want to spring for a bottle of that Nagel creation, but I now find it more of a masculine cologne for some reason.
They were all vegetal, snapped green stalks, Ellena-like. That’s my vague inexperienced take on them.
Really I do think Eau de Cartier would do the trick if you want a kind of green cologne.