Passage d’Enfer appeared in 1999, composed by Olivia Giacobetti to mark the turn of the millennium. L’Artisan Parfumeur works incense there in chiaroscuro and names it after the alleyway in the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris where the house had its offices in the 1970s. A translucent lily and white musks soften the balsamic smoke.
Robin hears a springlike incense there, almost soapy, and regrets how briefly it lasts; Victoria Frolova a curl of smoke over hot ashes; Kafka finds it too faint.
Olfastory’s review
Now Smell This — Robin, 30 March 2007
Favourable. Passage d’Enfer is the first L’Artisan she ever bought, and one of the few from her early days that she still wears. She warns at once that the dark, churchy incense the name promises is not to be found there: cold, yes, but so light and so cheerful that she sees an early spring out of doors rather than an icy nave.
The formula strikes her as almost linear, so sheer is it: a little white flower against the incense, a woody musky base, and nothing else. She holds it remarkably fresh, very nearly soapy. The trail smells of pencil shavings, a reproach she long made her own before finding a charm in it. Her reservation goes to how briefly it lasts, ordinary among sheer scents; she wavers between calling for an Extrême version and leaving the original alone.
Bois de Jasmin — Victoria Frolova, October 2005
Favourable. She describes the incense as a curl of smoke rising from hot ashes. Set against Armani Privé’s Bois d’Encens, dark and solemn, Passage d’Enfer takes the austerity out of frankincense and softens it with a floral freshness.
The writing seems panoramic to her: the materials layer one over another instead of following one another, and the perfume regains transparency after a few hours before fading away. She notes the myrrh and its medicinal anise, a classic marriage with resinous frankincense, and holds the lily to be what softens the edge of the incense.
Kafkaesque — Kafka, 23 December 2012
Severe. The opening strikes her as light, fresh, clean and soapy, with a lily and a faint musk. She says she loves the lily and the softness it brings, but judges it too effaced to carry the perfume.