Magie Noire

Lancôme launched Magie Noire in 1978. Gérard Goupy composed the formula; Victoria Frolova of Bois de Jasmin also counts Jean-Charles Niel and Yves Tanguy among its authors. It should not be confused with Magie, another fragrance from the house, launched in 1949.

The house presents it as a strange power: the most bewitching of potions, full of mystery and charm, casting a spell on the senses. For years it called it the most oriental of orientals; it now ranks it among rich, woody fragrances, as the most opulent of them.

In the wake of Opium

Elena Vosnaki of Perfume Shrine sees it born in the wake of Opium’s success. Along with Rochas’s Mystère, its exact contemporary, it offered in her view a mossy, murky and daring alternative, before very sweet orientals pushed it off the shelves in the 1980s.

Victoria Frolova likens it to Robert Piguet’s Bandit and Clinique’s Aromatics Elixir as much as to Guerlain’s Vol de Nuit and Yves Saint Laurent’s Nu, for its pairing of warm oriental facets with cool chypre facets.

A reworked formula

According to Elena Vosnaki, Lancôme reworked the formula when it relaunched the fragrance after a brief discontinuation. The eau de parfum and parfum versions of the 1980s were, she says, spicier and murkier, with an unforgettably powerful sillage.

In 2009, she noted that the eau de toilette was the only concentration still offered; it is also the only one sold today on the house’s website, in a 75 ml bottle. Victoria Frolova preferred the parfum, darker and more androgynous.