Belle d'Opium

Thirty years later, the house of Yves Saint-Laurent chose to reproduce this sulfurous yet global success by offering a modern take on this scandalous fragrance: Belle d’Opium. Floral, lighter, but just as addictive, Belle d’Opium would hardly go unnoticed either!

Belle d’Opium, the rebirth of Yves Saint-Laurent’s legendary fragrance?

The 1980s represent, in perfumery, the decade in which fragrances were the most opulent, the most present and the most long-lasting. Beyond these sillages with exuberant personalities, the advertising campaigns were composed on the same scale: explosive!

This was particularly the case with Opium, which, under cover of powerful oriental accords, made obvious allusions to the narcotic state into which the fragrance plunged its smitten admirers. So much so that some countries chose not to sell it, the allusion to drugs being so explicit… This did not, however, prevent Opium from being one of the greatest successes of the Yves Saint-Laurent house and of perfumery of that era.

In 2010, Yves Saint-Laurent chose to launch its scented daughter onto the market: Belle d’Opium. Composed this time by Honorine Blanc and Alberto Morillas, Belle d’Opium, though modernized and refreshed with armfuls of white flowers, remains no less sulfurous than its scented father, Opium.

Once again, Yves Saint-Laurent caused a stir with Belle d’Opium by presenting a rather suggestive advertising campaign in which Mélanie Thierry, filmed by Romain Gravas, performs a magnificent choreography while simulating… taking drugs. This proved too much for the United Kingdom, which decided to censor the advertisement… In the Opium family, they do like to be noticed!

Between oriental, addictive and floral notes, Belle d’Opium casts its spell…

A scandalous fragrance just like its famous predecessor Opium, Belle D’Opium is nonetheless noticeably less opulent than the 1980s fragrance and presents itself as a fruity chypre rather than an oriental. However, Opium’s addictive “narcotic” signature remains in Belle d’Opium in the form of a hookah note.

Belle d’Opium opens on contrasting top notes between a fresh and lively note of mandarin that pairs with the floral sweetness of white flowers and gardenia. A lovely lily powders this lively floral opening. The heart of Belle d’Opium wavers between fruity, velvety notes of peach and a woody, spicy accord composed of tobacco, olibanum and pepper (the famous hookah accord). Finally, patchouli, sandalwood and amber form the sensual oriental cloud of Belle d’Opium, carried along by smoky notes that evoke both the narcotic effect of the fragrance and the full depth of its mystery.
I am your obsession. I am Belle d’Opium, the new Yves Saint Laurent fragrance. Yves Saint-Laurent for Belle d’Opium.