Diptyque: Fleur de Peau EDP
Fabric and Thread: The “Skin Scents” of the World That Covers You
I almost cried upon sampling this (in a wonderfully wistful, nostalgic way).
It smells exactly like my grandma's sewing house. My grandma had a little street shop where she would sell new clothing "seconds" that she had fixed up and made more presentable, either by hand or with her sewing machine. She had a tiny second house built in the 1950s, which was basically just for storing huge boxes of clothes and sewing supplies.
Fleur de Peau captures the clean yet vintage-dusty scent of that space—stacked high with boxes of new clothes, spools of thread, and fabric patches. There was an atmosphere of comfort and of being home, even though we were only there for a visit. The sound of her working on her sewing machine, which was in her tiny, threadbare kitchen, is stirred up in my memory upon smelling this perfume.
The powdery aspect is a lot like the smell of new, clean fabric and although there is something about it that makes you think of “washed cloth," it isn’t overtly soapy. There’s also something of the sweetness of new carboard or natural paper.
Everything in this composition is so very sheer, and no single note overtakes another enough to want to categorize this scent as "a musk" or "an iris," even though it is both of those things. The notes listed in the description are definitely helpful, but don't let them sway you too much if you're averse to something in there: everything is so light that you might not mind even those notes that you’re usually averse to.
When I walked outside into the cold, night air while wearing this, it seemed to bring the sillage out in a wonderfully delicious, crisp way. Three hours later it settled into a much more precise musk, very reminiscent of scents like Glossier’s You, but Diptyque’s offering has much more of a classic, early 20th century vibe—it’s vintage, not modern. Fleur de Peau presents a dreamy softness that’s more than just a perfume—it’s a time machine back to an era when beauty and elegance were also about quiet simplicity. Wear it when you want to feel securely wrapped in nostalgia.
