Juliette has a gun MMMM

When this was put in my hand, my immediate reaction was to love the bottle and hate the name. As it turns out, it’s highly appropriately named because a nano-second after rolling my eyes at the name, I was completely smitten. Mmmm indeed! And, it’s so hard to describe as well, but here goes:

Created by Romano Ricci, who I met many years ago (totally charming and fun – also ridiculously handsome but I digress), Juliette has a gun carved its name into niche perfumery a little ahead of the trend. Looking at my notes that accompany the fragrance, his words are: “I was thinking about this indescribable onomatopoeia when I created the fragrance.” Which just about sums up everything that’s wrong with niche fragrance. I know that fanciful inspiration is virtually compulsory but come on… say something that doesn’t have us going ‘quoi?’ at first breath. It’s Romano’s first gourmande – his next quote though makes perfect sense and completely sums up MMMM; “My Grandmother was so elegantly saying: “A little too much is just enough!” And that’s the fragrance right there, in a nutshell. So we can park the indescribable onomatopoeia and never speak of it again.

More specifically, the fragrance is a floriental gourmande with top notes of Neroli, Raspberry, Geranium, heart notes of Orange blossom, Jasmine Sambac, Tuberose, Iris butter and base notes of Sandalwood, Patchouli, Vanilla. What should be all flowers is hit with sugar – Jasmine and Orange blossom are heavy and sweet notes and I love both so my senses hoover up those! I get a lot of patchouli from this – too much really – but if you can imagine sugar-smoked-cocooning flowers that’s kind of it. It’s a big fragrance – somehow reminding me in fullness and body of McQueen – and I didn’t expect to like it as much as I do. It’s £99 HERE, but I have a feeling it’s one you need to spritz before you buy unless you have a passion for floriental gourmandes.