Nocturne
Decanting 0%
Extrait de parfumMaison Nocturne, Grasse — since 1911
No. 9 — iris, bergamot, vanilla, oud.
Four raw materials, eleven months in a cold cellar, one heavy flacon poured by hand. 32% concentration: it sits on the skin until morning.
ITop notethe first fifteen minutes
Citrus bergamia · Reggio Calabria, Italy
The first thing you notice, and the first thing to leave. We buy green December fruit from a single grove above the Strait of Messina and press the rind cold, so the oil keeps its bitterness — a flash of light before the dark comes in.
IIHeart notehour one to five
Orris root · the hills above Florence
Orris is not the flower but the root. The rhizomes are lifted by hand, peeled, and left to dry in the dark for three years before they give anything up. What comes out is cool and powdery — violets, suede, rain on a warm stone. It is the most expensive thing we own.
IIIBase notearrives late, stays close
Vanilla planifolia · Sava coast, Madagascar
Pods sweated and sun-dried for six months, until the vanillin blooms on the skin in tiny crystals. We steep them in our own alcohol for a full year — the slow way — so the sweetness never shouts. It is warmth left in a coat.
IVBase noteuntil morning
Aquilaria agallocha · resin wood, Hojai
Agarwood from one plantation, where the resin took fifteen years to form. Smoke, leather, the inside of an old violin case. There is less than half a percent of it in every flacon — the heaviest half-percent in perfumery — and it holds the other three in place all night.
The house
Nocturne began as a shop on the Rue de l’Oratoire, where Honorine Vey sold violet pastilles by day and blended for three private clients by night. Four generations later we are still eleven people, one copper still, and a cellar that holds fourteen degrees all year.
Every flacon of No. 9 is macerated for eleven months, chilled, filtered through paper, and poured by the same two hands. The number on the base is written in ink. So is the name of the person who poured it.
Wear the night
€38
The four raw notes alone — bergamot, iris, vanilla, oud — in 2 ml vials, and 5 ml of No. 9 where they meet. Credited in full against your first flacon.
€290
Cut-crystal flacon, hand-gilt stopper set with onyx. Numbered and signed. Refills of the perfume alone are €210, forever.
Returns within 30 days, even opened. We would rather you love it.