Amethyst Éclat Eau de Parfum

Amethyst Éclat is an openly declared flanker. Released in July 2014, it extends Amethyst, launched seven years earlier and which had by then become one of the pillars of the house's feminine side. Nathalie Lorson, who had signed the elder, revisits her own formula here to lighten it: the same red fruits, the same framework, but a flower brought to the forefront.

What Éclat shifts is the peony. It already featured at the heart of the elder, submerged in lily and ylang-ylang; here it moves forward and the rest is organized around it. Magnolia lends it a lemony accent that keeps it bright, rose gives it body, and the red fruits fall into line behind instead of dominating. The gesture is one of lightening rather than addition: material is removed to let light through.

The name continues to refer to the stone. Since 2007 the line has borrowed from amethyst its color and its idea of violet transparency, and the bottle takes up its curve in a lighter, iridescent mauve, traced in relief with peonies and berries. Éclat reads here in its optical sense before it reads in its figurative one.

Reception has been divided, and both sides are right at once. Those who appreciate it speak of a clean, well-built fruity floral, easy to wear without being simplistic. Those who resist it fault it for fading quickly and letting the bite of the blackcurrant slip away, too smoothed over by the sweetness of the base. The discussion concerns less the construction than the strength: the fragrance is deliberately understated, and that restraint comes at a cost.