Etat Libre d'Orange Like This was launched in 2010, inspired by the actress, Tilda Swinton. She wanted this to be the smell of home, the place of comfort. Mathilde Bijaoui created the scent with notes of yellow tangerine, ginger, pumpkin, immortelle, Moroccan neroli, rose, vetiver, heliotrope and musk.
"I have always located my favourite fragrances at the doorways of kitchens, in the heart of a greenhouse, at the bottom of a garden. Scent means place to me : place and state of mind - even state of grace. Certainly state of ease. My favourite smells are the smells of home, the experience of the reliable recognisable after the exotic adventure: the regular - natural - turn of the seasons, simplicity and softness after the duck and dive of definition in the wide, wide world.
When Mathilde Bijaoui first asked me what my own favourite scent in a bottle might contain, I described a magic potion that I could carry with me wherever I went that would hold for me the fragrance - the spirit - of home. The warm ginger of new baking on a wood table, the immortelle of a fresh spring afternoon, the lazy sunshine of my grandfather's summer greenhouse, woodsmoke and the whisky peat of the Scottish Highlands after rain. I told her about a bottle of spirit, something very simple, to me : something almost indescribable, so personal it should be. The miracle is that Mathilde made it....
It restores me like the smoke/rain/gingerbread/ greenhouse my scent-sense is fed by. It is a poem about simplicity, about human-scaled miracles. About trust. About home.
In my fantasy there is a lost chapter of Alice in Wonderland - after the drink saying Drink Me, after the cake pleading Eat Me - where the adventuring, alien, Alice, way down the rabbit hole, far from the familiar and maybe somewhat homesick - comes upon a modest glass with a ginger stem reaching down into a pale golden scent that humbly suggests : Like This…" Tilda Swinton
Etat Libre d'Orange Like This (Tilda Swinton) is an eau de parfum, edp.
Fragrantica - "It's somehow warm but fresh at the same time. It's like being under a blanket on a rainy day. A first, exciting kiss in a new relationship on a summer evening (which happened for me while I was wearing this scent, making it a lasting memory!). The pumpkin and ginger in this fragrance are exquisite. Truly a masterpiece."
Fragrantica - "the connection of magic potions and kitchens, along with the initial hit of citrusy-ginger, fizzing and spiced as if glowing in cauldron, summoned for me the transcendent, transgressive art of Leonora Carrington's paintings of kitchens as magically charged spaces, as conjured through her singular and visionary filter. Floral, honeyed tobacco, an earthy spring greenness, and gentle musks bubble and brew alongside those first bright and zingy notes and the end result is a joyous creation that feels both celebratory and sacred."
Fragrantica - "autumnal hues of sienna and flax. wilted leaves crunching under loafers. family trips to the mountains, appalachian avidity. drywall and carpet. traveling to grandparents' house and being met with a familiar scent in the air right as you walk in. freshly baked pumpkin bread sits upon the counter top alongside a half-peeled tangerine, on the windowsill sits a bear-shaped bottle of honey. clean blankets and sheets await you in the guest room."
