Stephane Humbert Lucas Mortal Skin Eau de Parfum has a more memorable opening with juicy, slightly sweet-tart blackberry, ink (almost has a varnish-like translation), and myrrh. It is smoothed out with buttery iris, lightly spiced with cardamom, and then later, slightly salty, resinous, and aromatic with woods and soft musk.

Mortal Skin Notes

The notes are listed as:

• top notes: ink, blackberry, incense, labdanum
• heart notes: myrrh, opoponax, iris, cardamom, artemisia
• base notes: styrax, ambergris, atlas cedar, cedar, birch, sandalwood, musk

What does Mortal Skin Smell Like?

It opened with dark, inky blackberry juice, slightly tart with an underlying soft, berry sweetness that gets deeper and sweeter as the myrrh came through. It did, in fact, seem to have an inkiness to it that made the blackberry seemed chilly. There was a light powderiness and hint of green that popped up after five minutes of development. The sweetness became more resinous and lightly spiced, blended well with the blackberry.

After 15 minutes, there was a subtle, leathery quality that tempered the fruitiness to a moderate degree. The blackberry dripped over a soft, smooth leather, slightly animalic, and sticky, spiced resin with a mere hint of buttery iris.

After two hours, the tartness of the blackberry felt like it dissipated over time, as if the blackberry juice was reduced with sugar and made thicker, more syrupy but stretched over a buttery base of iris. It was smooth, blended, and sweet with golden resin and spiced woods. The woods intensified over the next few hours, until the drydown, which was ambery, lightly musky, and wood.

Longevity

It lasted for eight hours until it was a skin-scent and about 12 hours before it was quite difficult to detect on my skin. The sillage and projection were moderate with the sillage dropping faster than the projection within the first hour of wear.

Testing Methodology

For testing, I used 1/3 of a 0.7ml sample vial dabbed to the underside and topside of my wrist area. I used an unscented moisturizer prior to applying the scent as I found scent did not hold well here otherwise.

I purchased my sample in January 2022; fragrances are known to be reformulated over their lifetime, so be mindful of when a review was made, e.g. a review from 2010 may not reflect what the same-named perfume smells like in 2022.

Availability

Mortal Skin is available for $290/50ml.

If possible, I highly recommend trying a fragrance before purchasing a full bottle because fragrance can wear differently just because of skin chemistry. Skin chemistry can effect not just the longevity of a fragrance but also what notes are prominent or hidden.

Mortal Skin Samples

We recommend the following retailers for purchasing decanted samples (typically 0.7ml to 2ml in size). This is a fuller list, so individual availability may depend on inventory.

• Jovoy Paris
• LuckyScent
• Scent Split
• Twisted Lily

Where to Buy

• LuckyScent

Stephane Humbert Lucas Mortal Skin Perfume Review

Stephane Humbert Lucas Mortal Skin Perfume Review

Stephane Humbert Lucas 777 Taklamakan Eau de Parfum (SHL 777 Taklamakan for short!) is a dry, woody and amber fragrance that opens with a rich, spiced caramel that later is complemented by patchouli, spiced smoke, and vanilla. It is described as “hot and dry” where “patchouli” then “meets the smoky vanilla, the resins and the incense” and “falls in love with the cedar.”

While the scent had a drier characteristic, which I felt like came primarily from the woody elements (but it was not strongly cedar, if anything, the sandalwood was more distinctive between the two, later on in the drydown), it was not so dry that it felt parched. The blending of the various notes was beautifully done, as they evoked concepts rather than specific details at many points during its development.

The brand listed the following notes:

• top notes: Calabrian bergamot, osmanthus, neroli
• heart notes: Chinese cedar, Indian patchouli
• base notes: vanilla, cistus, benzoin, musk

Though points of purchase also noted rose, tonka absolute, birch, cade, gaiac, myrrh, orris, tolu balsam, labdanum, ambreine, ambergris, and sandalwood.

It opened with a sweet, creamy citrus wafting from spring blossoms before transforming into a spiced caramel with a hint of darker, almost bitter, citrus peel. The sweetness intensified, becoming more sugared and gourmand, more distinctively vanilla and less of the depth of thick caramel. It flit between a more sugary vanilla and a more spiced vanilla, all over drier woods, while the woods gave it a warmer feel. After 20 minutes, Taklamakan was a rich, warm vanilla with spiced, dry woods.

It developed a woody smokiness after an hour of wear, which became more and more noticeable over the next several hours. The vanilla was softened, like a cloud enveloped smoky woods and spiced resins. The scent grew closer and closer to my skin and wore more linearly after the fourth hour and it produced a more golden amber, redolent in sticky sweetness. The drydown removed the traces of stick sweetness and was a skin-scent that was lightly spiced, woodsy, and creamy vanilla.

For testing, I used two sprays from a 2ml glass vial, which were applied to the underside and topside of my wrist area on my left arm. I used an unscented moisturizer prior to applying the scent as this is also my swatching arm (aka, incredibly parched at any given moment) as I found scent did not hold well here otherwise.  It was long-lasting (over 10 hours and was still detectable as a skin-scent) with moderate sillage and projection for the first hour but only hovered above my skin by a few inches for next two hours before becoming a skin-scent after three hours of wear (though still quite rich and intense when smelled up close).

Subjectively, while O Hira was O Pricey, Taklamakan is, in contrast, more in line with the pricing of many niche perfumes. I often purchase samples based on a particular note or set of notes I’m looking to explore, but there are also certain brands that have stellar reputations for putting together beautifully composed fragrances where I’ll also purchase a few additional offerings alongside the one I was most interested in initially (O Hira).

This was the case with Taklamakan, which I enjoyed but not enough to consider a full bottle of it. For me, it lived in its sweeter phase with less of the notes (like patchouli, benzoin, cedar) coming through than I prefer.

Available Sizes

• 50ml for $185

Where to Buy

• Harrods
• LuckyScent

Stephane Humbert Lucas 777 Taklamakan Perfume Review

Stephane Humbert Lucas 777 Taklamakan Perfume Review

Stephane Humbert Lucas 777 O Hira Eau de Parfum (SHL 777 O Hira for short!) is one of those scents that ends up being a must-try for those fascinated by amber accords. It is prohibitively expensive for most fragrance lovers, but as someone who was exploring the depths and grandeur of all things amber, I absolutely had to take the journey through this labdanum-centered scent that was everything I anticipated: rich, dark, and very nearly intoxicating in its singular intensity.

The note is listed simply as “fossilized amber,” but the brand said O Hira was designed to “express [the] primitive and noble odour” that layers “amber, leather and woody notes, headed by a superb pyrogenic Styrax” that give the “impressions of earth, salpetre, amber, and cinnamon” with a core “based on Tonka been, Torrefied vanilla, and musk.”

The opening was absolutely heady combination of smoky, honeyed booze that became muskier after a few minutes. There was a faint tickling of cinnamon spice but so subtle that it seemed effortlessly blended with the rest of the fragrance. After 15 minutes, O Hira became smokier and leathery with underpinnings of spiced woodiness. The leather retreated to a noticeable degree and was replaced by smoky, spiced labdanum that was a little animalic.

It is a soliflore, meaning that it was centered around a singular note, so the progression is more linear, and my experience was that the scent shifted in and out of being spicier, woodier, and sweeter but was always rich and heady. At times, it was more animalic in its underlying muskiness, other times it was smoky and leathery with less woodiness, and sometimes everything appeared but blended superbly together to create something spiced, smoked, woody, and musky with a deeper, more resinous sweetness. The drydown felt like pure amber: rich and resinous, like a chewy toffee but darker, still a little earthy, smoky, and spiced.

For testing, I used two sprays from a 2ml glass vial, which were applied to the underside and topside of my wrist area on my left arm. I used an unscented moisturizer prior to applying the scent as this is also my swatching arm (aka, incredibly parched at any given moment) as I found scent did not hold well here otherwise.  It was long-lasting (over eight hours and was still detectable as a skin-scent) with moderate sillage and projection for the first hour but only hovered above my skin by a few inches for next two hours before becoming a skin-scent after three hours of wear (though still quite rich and intense when smelled up close).

Subjectively, it drew me in and kept me tucked in its labdanum embrace. Given that I have purchased many Tom Ford fragrances in the past, which can sometimes approach $375 for 50ml (cringe!), O Hira is still a stretch but if it was a scent I’d wear routinely, possibly something I could justify. That being said, as someone who often finds it difficult to commit to any one scent (thank goodness perfume lasts much longer than makeup!), it’s not on my list of future purchases because of its price, which has grown long and I’ve hardly made it through all the samples I have on my desk!

Available Sizes

• 50ml for $485

Where to Buy

• Neiman Marcus
• LuckyScent

Stephane Humbert Lucas 777 O Hira Perfume Review

Stephane Humbert Lucas 777 O Hira Perfume Review