Perfumes may come and go, especially with us beauty bloggers, but some enchant us so much that they remain a constant force in our fragrance collection. Like your favourite sweater or blanket, it offers warmth and comfort like nothing else.  Givenchy Ange ou Démon Le Secret is that safety  net for me, a touch of coming home with each sniff. Love at first whiff made me curious about the other fragances in the Ange ou Démon family, but where the original fragrance is just so-so on me, the latest embodiement of the Givenchy woman, Givenchy Ange ou Démon Le Parfum & Accord Illicite*   is supposedly so audacious and on trend that I can’t help but be intrigued.

All salacious clichés of what a woman’s sensuality is supposed to be and smell like aside, the new Givenchy Ange ou Démon Le Parfum is above all a new play on layering fragrances, a new way of wearing perfume that has gone maistream these last few years. After spritzing the Le Parfum, you’re supposed to up the ante (and sensuality) with a few well placed drops of the Accord Illicite on  several “pulsation points” (behind the ear, on your wrists,…), and tadaaa, out comes the sensual beast in you.

Carnal as the main perfume may be, with it’s sweet, woody-floral composition of sambac jasmine, soft musk, warm amber, vanilla and leather, it’s the Accord Illicite that does the trick. Different notes of leather, patchouli, white musk and white leather layer in such a way on my skin that the leather takes charge, becoming more intense and outspoken, pushing away the sweetness of the jasmine. The wooden tones of the patchouli deepen, and even the vanilla softens and warms up where the  2 scents are layered.

I really hope Givenchy is actually considering selling the Accord Illicite separately, as this is the reason this perfume works for me! Ange Ou Démon Le Secret might still be my number one of the family, but the Accord Illicite is becoming my little secret.