# Shiseido — Nombre Noir > Nombre Noir (1982) is one of perfumery's most mythologized lost masterpieces - Serge Lutens's first fragrance, created for Shiseido under his art direction with composition credited to Givaudan's Jean ## Essence Nombre Noir (1982) is one of perfumery's most mythologized lost masterpieces - Serge Lutens's first fragrance, created for Shiseido under his art direction with composition credited to Givaudan's Jean-Yves Leroy. A dark, damascone-saturated osmanthus-rose chypre presented in an all-black sandblasted bottle, it was discontinued within a few years and became a near-unobtainable legend, its status cemented by Luca Turin's rapturous praise. It is foundational Lutens - many of his later signatures (Féminité du Bois woods, Rose de Nuit's rose, Daim Blond's osmanthus) trace back here. ## Scent Profile The note set (aldehydes, palisander-rosewood, coriander, marjoram, bergamot / damask-rose, osmanthus, carnation, geranium, orris, lily-of-the-valley, jasmine, ylang-ylang / honey, vetiver, sandalwood, musk, tonka, amber, benzoin) describes a dark floral chypre, but Turin's analysis is the key: "Nombre Noir is first and foremost a damascone fragrance," he wrote in 2025, noting an analysis found "a mixture of four damascones in roughly equal amounts" making up most of the formula. Damascones, he explains, "fluctuate... between rose and apple... a lush, fluorescent, almost metallic rose and a tart Granny Smith bordering on lemon." In The Secret of Scent (2006) he described the core flower as "half-way between a rose and a violet, but without a trace of the sweetness of either, set instead against an austere, almost saintly background of cigar-box cedar notes," "glistening with a liquid freshness that made its deep colours glow like a stained-glass window." Wearer descriptions corroborate: a deep, jammy-yet-airy "purple/black" rose, osmanthus apricot-suede, a clove-spiced carnation, aldehydic lift, and a sandalwood-rosewood base; many note an early "lipstick" accord from orris. Often called linear-elegant; some find projection and longevity disappointing for a Lutens (possibly due to fragile, oxidation-prone damascones). ## Performance Reports are mixed and complicated by age - most extant juice is decades old. Several owners report modest projection and "extremely disappointing longevity" even from minis and parfum, plausibly because the high damascone load is photosensitive and degrades with oxygen exposure. Others (with fresher or parfum concentration) report the scent affixing for "several hours," wafting with movement, the parfum being more intense and complex than the EDP. Given rarity, performance commentary is anecdotal and condition-dependent rather than a stable consensus. ## Wearing Context Effectively a collector's/connoisseur's artifact rather than a daily wear today. By character it's a cool-weather, evening, dramatic "dark rose" - multiple reviewers invoke gothic, "smart goth girl," or "Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons" imagery, and "smells exactly like the early '80s." Feminine by classification but with a powerhouse-'80s structure that reads less gendered now. Practical reading: a sampling/bucket-list experience scent, not a functional wardrobe piece. ## Comparisons & DNA Within Lutens's own canon, wearers and critics link its rose to Rose de Nuit (though one detailed wearer argues they're "second cousins, not sisters" - Rose de Nuit being more honeyed/musky/"pissy"), its osmanthus-apricot-suede to Daim Blond, and its woods to Féminité du Bois. Cross-house, reviewers compare it to dark-rose chypres: Gucci L'Arte di Gucci (cited as a near-tie for quality), Lutens La Fille de Berlin (similar rose, less complex), and the damascone-heavy Dior Poison (Yesterday's Perfume calls Poison "Nombre Noir's slutty, younger sister" - same genetics, less elegance). Bois de Jasmin's osmanthus writing (Hermès Osmanthe Yunnan, etc.) is useful context for the apricot/leather facet, though those are far lighter, transparent JCE treatments. ## Reception Reverence shadowed by backlash. Turin called Nombre Noir "a radical surprise" whose effect was "an epiphany," and famously (as circulated via Chandler Burr's The Emperor of Scent and repeated since) "one of the five great perfumes of the world." Mark Behnke of Colognoisseur called it perfumery's equivalent of Citizen Kane - "When it comes to perfume I believe our equivalent to Citizen Kane is Shiseido Nombre Noir" - though pointedly as admiration for its construction rather than emotional connection (he adds it "never engages me emotionally" and is "unapproachable for me"). The counter-current: many who finally sample it find it "underwhelming," "just another dark rose chypre," over-hyped, or note its hype-and-price disconnect - "the smell of bad judgement" given current prices, as one wit put it. Axes of polarization: greatness vs. over-praise; whether degraded modern samples can even be judged. ## Versions & Reformulation Produced as Eau de Parfum and pure Parfum (the parfum more intense/complex per owners); discontinued within a few years of its 1982 launch. Shiseido later exhibited a reproduction at the House of Shiseido in Tokyo (EDP, later a solid perfume) among other discontinued scents (Zen, Vocalise) from around 2000 until that venue's closure, and a rare bottle was shown at The Perfumer's Studio in Los Angeles (2014 exhibition). Discontinuation reasons are debated: expensive leaking packaging, failure to recoup costs, the high cost of natural osmanthus, and/or the photosensitizing damascone load. No modern commercial reformulation exists. ## Acquisition Notes This is a vintage or secondary-market purchase rather than a normal retail item. Condition, fill level, storage history, and top-note freshness matter more than nominal bottle size; sample where possible and verify packaging details before paying collector prices. ## Notable Facts & Lore - Lutens designed the entire black-on-black identity (gloss-vs-matte sandblasted bottle, mourning-dressed sales staff at a "black hole" department-store stand) around his belief that black concentrates all colors. - Turin has said "Nombre Noir is the perfume that tipped me over into perfumery," recounting his 1982 epiphany at a newly opened mall in Nice (he memorably described the juice as something that "should have looked like purple ink for love letters"). - The composing perfumer, Jean-Yves Leroy, is a tragic footnote - described to Turin as more salesman than perfumer, Nombre Noir was his only fragrance, and he later died by suicide. - The fragrance's fame is inseparable from Turin's championing and Chandler Burr's The Emperor of Scent (2002), which together turned a discontinued Shiseido oddity into a six-figures-of-attention cult relic. - Nombre Noir (1982) is one of perfumery's most mythologized lost masterpieces - Serge Lutens's first fragrance, created for Shiseido under his art direction with composition credited to Givaudan's Jean-Yves Leroy.