# Floris — Malmaison

> Malmaison is Floris's legendary carnation soliflore, a fragrance whose creation history stretches to the 19th century (the house dates it to 1830), reformulated and relaunched around 2000 and now disc

## Essence
Malmaison is Floris's legendary carnation soliflore, a fragrance whose creation history stretches to the 19th century (the house dates it to 1830), reformulated and relaunched around 2000 and now discontinued. It is one of the reference carnations in all of perfumery, perpetually discussed alongside Caron's Bellodgia and freighted with the lore of Oscar Wilde, who favored the green-dyed Malmaison carnation in his buttonhole. As a scent it is the carnation laid almost bare: spicy, clove-forward, plush, and, to its admirers, beauty for beauty's sake.
## Scent Profile
The opening is, quite literally, a burst of fall spices: clove and cinnamon over a touch of lemon, before the carnation itself warms and blossoms on skin. It is naturally heavy on clove, the eugenol facet that defines real carnation.
The heart is the carnation in full, carrying a ylang-ylang undertone characteristic of the flower, a supporting rose, and just enough green to cut the sweetness. This is a soliflore that holds one beautiful idea rather than a shifting three-act structure.
The base is a pale woody musk of cedar, patchouli, and musk, with vanilla in the 2000 version, giving a cushiony, plush finish that some describe in the drydown as the sensation of opening a tin of black tea. It is essentially linear, which admirers find meditative and detractors find a one-dimensional clove bomb.
## Performance
For an EDT, staying power is regarded as good, though the structure is intimate: it warms, blooms, and eventually becomes a close skin scent rather than a projecting cloud. Critics have judged the longevity excellent for an Eau de Toilette while wishing for a deeper concentration. It also behaves seasonally, with heat amplifying the florals and cold turning it snuggly and comforting.
## Wearing Context
By near-universal agreement this is a cold-weather, autumn and winter fragrance, wintery and spiced, something to fluff into. Despite a feminine catalog coding, Floris historically marketed Malmaison as a men's scent, reflected in its austere rectangular pink-label flacon and the Wilde association, and many wearers consider it genuinely unisex or even, on some skin, traditionally masculine. It is a connoisseur's carnation rather than a casual crowd-pleaser.
## Comparisons & DNA
The defining comparison is Caron Bellodgia (1927): Malmaison reads as lighter, brighter, and spicier, less sweet-ambery and less old-fashioned, with one assessment calling it more sly, flirtatious, and shrewd. Against Santa Maria Novella Garofano it is far less brutal and medicinal, and against Lorenzo Villoresi Garofano it is lighter. Etro Dianthus offers a lighter modern carnation point of reference, while DSH Perfumes' Souvenir de Malmaison is an explicit artisanal homage to the same 19th-century style. The through-line is a spicy carnation soliflore positioned on the brighter, more transparent end of the genre.
## Reception
Reception is strong within the carnation niche, with critics calling it lovely stuff and one of the prettiest around, and an oft-quoted editorial framing it as the epitome of beauty for beauty's sake, an unadorned carnation soliflore. Dissent is honest: some find the clove too much or one-dimensional, and the reformulated version drew the barb of fine perfume repurposed as diet soda. No major print-guide star rating could be confirmed for it. The polarization runs along a single axis: those who love a pure spicy carnation find it meditative and noble, while those wanting complexity or projection find it monolithic.
## Versions & Reformulation
Three layers matter. The 19th-century original is lost to time and impossible to recreate under current rules. The roughly 2000 relaunch struck some longtime wearers as lighter than older Floris versions, pleasant but less dense and multi-layered. Discontinuation followed, attributed to tightening restrictions on clove oil and eugenol that make a true vintage-style clove carnation effectively non-compliant. Floris then issued Malmaison Encore in 2013 and folded it into the Ledger Series as a deliberately re-imagined 21st-century interpretation, candidly not a replica; Encore is a different, more amber-floral construction widely judged lighter than the original.
## Acquisition Notes
The discontinued EDT in its rectangular pink-label bottle is now a collector's item, increasingly scarce and traded on the secondary market. Buyers chasing the original carnation experience should be clear that Malmaison Encore is a different scent, as several disappointed buyers found after paying full price expecting the original. Anyone simply wanting a great spicy carnation is most often pointed toward Caron Bellodgia and DSH Souvenir de Malmaison as living alternatives.
## Notable Facts & Lore
- Oscar Wilde reputedly wore green-dyed Malmaison carnations in his lapel and is the centerpiece of the fragrance's storytelling.
- Floris's later "Wilde" fragrance is itself a Malmaison-derived tribute.
- The flower's name traces to the Chateau de Malmaison, the residence of Napoleon and Josephine.
- It is one of perfumery's reference carnations, perpetually measured against Caron Bellodgia.
- Its discontinuation is tied to restrictions on the clove-derived eugenol at the heart of its character.