Serge Lutens La Religieuse

Serge Lutens La Religieuse (The Nun) is the fight of good against evil, a contrast of black and white. La Religieuse - untouched - pure - virginal - unadulterated - new fallen snow!   So perfect that sometimes the bad wolf in us wants to stomp.  Profoundly human? 

Jasmine petals are white as snow. Black is Luten's religion." Jasmine represents the white in this scent and the incense, civet and musk the black. According to French perfume websites, it was inspired by a hermit's life in Marrakech. It is an eau de parfum, edp.  La Religieuse is in the Oriental Floral fragrance group.  

Reviews of Serge Lutens La Religieuse from some noses that may or may not sniff it as your nose.

from boisdejasmin - "If you want a pleasant fragrance that doesn’t try too hard, the type of perfume that sales associates call an “office scent”, it’s a good choice. If you want a soft, fluffy jasmine, La Religieuse will also hit the spot. But if you come to Serge Lutens to be thrilled and surprised, then you might want to pick another magic carpet ride...  The jasmine in Lutens’s version has a candied accent, with strawberry and apricot seeping into the white petals, and the first impression is mouthwatering. A swirl of peppery incense is a sobering touch, enough to cut down the sugar. It gently shades the frilly jasmine accord, and if you were to stop time at this point, La Religieuse is lovely. Not intense and smoldering, but alluring nonetheless."

from Patty at perfumeposse - "It is centered very much on jasmine, with additional notes listed of civet, musk and incense. We talked about this briefly last week.  Those four notes just make my heart start pounding.  Good v. evil, jasmine, civet, musk incense.  What could go wrong?  Well.  Nothing really.  Sometimes you just have to ignore the press narrative that’s going on and look at the fragrance.  If I hold La Religieuse up against that good v. evil narrative, black is my religious, and on and on, it just doesn’t match up to it.  If I just look at it solely as “is it a good jasmine fragrance,”  then I come out of it feeling better.  Not much civet, a little incense and musk, the jasmine isn’t nearly as feral as I like."

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