Boucheron Eau Légère
Boucheron (2005)

To my nose this is a light milky floral, hardly the "oriental" Turin dubs it. The citrus and orange float over the lily and that's about it. I don't get the muguet, amber or sandalwood.

It is "transparent," certainly, in its lightness. The modern oval bottle with its silver top and yellow/blue color does give a visual summing up of its effect. It wants so to be a new twist on the "oceanic," I believe, but fails to have enough character to make a commitment, either side of the fence.

Decent, light, wearable, but of no real significance in the world of scent.

It always amazes me how the combination and proportion of individual notes influences the resulting scent. The notes ilisted in Boucheron Eau Legère are certainly among my favorite but, in toto, the resulting effect here is muddy. Although the scent does have some likeable orange and amber sensibility, to my nose it smells like there's been a light layer of petroleum jelly applied over it.
BEL does have a certain elegant charm of older-school perfumery, and feels quality, despite a petrochemical accord, but it doesn't appeal enough to add to my shelf.

I've been thinking about unabashedly synthetic fragrances. Not Comme des Garçons synthetic or non-perfume punk fragrances. I mean Hermès 24, Faubourg, Boucheron by Boucheron & Boucheron Eau Legère, Lauder's Dazzling Silver, Paco Rabanne Metal. Some work better than others. The less successful of the lot seem to fail for errors of approximation and errors of scale. Boucheron by Boucheron approaches sensibilities of flower and amber, but misses them by just enough that they seem odd, then magnifies them enough that they seem alarming. Approximation and scale.

Boucheron Eau Legère (2006) uses the same palette as the original, but actually smells nice. Maybe it's a lighter hand in the composition, maybe there's simply a little room to breath between the notes. It feels like it has a thinner nose viscosity. It doesn't hide its synthetic tone; there is a crystalline quality that is both pretty and shallow. The chord has a fetching ring, but it's played on a tinny instrument. Smart, though. In Boucheron by Boucheron a similar chord, much louder, is brittle and harsh.

The strict use of aromachemicals rather than botanicals (and animalics, I suppose) does allow for a manipulation of abstract qualities. It gives PR Metal and EL Dazzling Silver their metallic glare. In Nahema, synthetics allow the creation of a sort of meta-flower. But in using solely aromachemicals to attempt to replicate florals, ambers, etc., perfumes like Boucheron and 24, Faubourg use synthetics as scent prostheses. A bit like using saccharine instead of sugar. It sets up an expectation that can't be met.

Eau Legère's lighter weight is what allows it to succeed as a perfume. It verges on appearing over-produced, but it's catchy.