Rubies & Lace: Gothic Florals theme

You can order all perfumes featured in this theme as a pack of samples.

In this theme

Discover the sinister side of floral perfume.

The Victorians, famous for their gothic revival and dark aesthetic, used flowers to send messages: a lily spoke of death, a red fuchsia signalled “I like you”, honeysuckle stood for devotion, and a poppy indicated one’s heart belonging to another. As sweet tokens, flowers became the delicate language of love from the forbidden to the unrequited and even to the tragic. Interwoven with this floral language were the epic gothic novels of the era: from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein to Louis Stevens’s The Body Snatcher. Throughout these bodice-ripping tales of ghosts, ghouls, beauties and beasts, flowers were used to create gothic bittersweet motifs.

This theme explores the drama and danger that flowers conjure in perfumery, as well the way they intensify spooky, seductive fables and enhance the ferocity of nightmares. In the enclosed selection, you will find examples depicting the power of heady tuberoses, bitter heliotrope, melancholic violets, leathery immortelle and carnal jasmine.

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Nuit de Bakélite Naomi Goodsir Evil and green

Ruthless leather and relentless tuberose. Like a warrior of scent riding across green mountains, this fragrance conquers everything it touches.

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Moth Zoologist Welcome to the underworld

The honeyed smell of hell. Dark rose, sultry smoke and a dirty hint of ambergris, conjuring the distant land of shadows and lost souls.

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Jasmin et Cigarette Etat Libre d'Orange Dead woman walking

An intimate fantasy of a Hollywood starlet. A floral dream with the haze of tobacco and lost love. A neon angel.

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Dali Salvador Dali The femme fatal of your nightmares

With a deadly shade of crimson lipstick on voluptuous lips the floral bouquet of Dali conjures the sumptuous essence of a mysterious indomitable woman.

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PG17 Tubéreuse Couture Pierre Guillaume - Parfumerie Générale Satan’s mistress

Toxic not timid! Cloying and bubblegum sweet with lashings of lush fleshy tuberose and green foliage. Criminally sexy.

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Sweet Lure Sly John's Lab The honeytrap

Alluring cinnamon and innocent lily-of-the-valley swirl in a bamboozling haze of neroli and vanilla. The sweet scent of dangerous desire.

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Forgive me Carine Roitfeld Poisoned posy

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Fareb Pierre Guillaume Black Collection The diabolical cheat

An affair with incense and passionate ginger. Leathery tones of immortelle bloom spell sweet deceit and an illicit embrace.

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Cuirissime J.U.S An assassin’s whip

An assassin’s whip of dark musks creeps ominously. The whips are preceded by visceral visions of orris punctured by fresh gentle hedione.