[unpaid/sample/affiliate/ad] I’m not all that familiar with BYREDO fragrances so I don’t really have any comparisons to draw – that’s not a bad thing I don’t think. I have come across Blanche before in the form of a hair mist (in 2015) but it’s so different to what I remember that I may as well never have smelled it before. My impression of Blanche EDT is that of a very fancy washing powder … which makes perfect sense because that’s what it’s supposed to smell like! This edition is a collector’s edition and it’s as undressed as it can possibly be with no label and a completely clear bottle. This nakedness marks the fragrance’s connection to skin and texture.
Any fragrance designed to connect the olfactory senses to that of skin and body is going to throw up different things to different people. On the one hand, a touch of sandalwood and musk take it to a raw sensual level – laundry, sheets, the bodies that fill both, but on the other hand, the dot of rose makes me think of clean baby hair! It’s poked at that instinctive maternal reaction to wash your newborn. How weird, and I wasn’t expecting it at all.
Wait a while though and your escape from the laundry pile comes in the form of more rose, soft and powdery, but less intimate that the first moments turning more floral by the minute with light and gentle touches of peony, neroli and violet. I can see from my 2015 review of the hair mist that I found the scent then very clean but seemingly failed to pick up on the skin nuances. Either I have changed or it has but equally both could be true. I feel a bit captured by Blanche but not in any passionate way, maybe more of a comfort scent – I’m going to be really decadent and spritz it on my sheets because it has a languidness about it that makes me feel that’s the right place for it. Or, maybe a spritz before bed – why not? The collector’s edition has a price tag of £188 (gulps quietly) HERE. Non-affiliate is HERE.
his striking new collector’s edition marks a first in Byredo history as Blanche is reimagined with a white cap and labelless, completely clear bottle; a classic undressed to its most essential form.
A longstanding icon in the Byredo catalogue, Blanche explores the smell of texture and skin; bodies slipping beneath fresh sheets; laundry baskets filled to the brim; a punch of detergent. An aldehyde hit softens into delicate rose; through sandalwood and musk, the allure and intimacy of human touch.
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