The Afternoon of a Faun EDP 100 ml - Etat Libre d'Orange

The Afternoon of a Faun by Etat Libre d'Orange: an olfactory dance between the dreamlike and the carnal

Olfactory Family: Aromatic Spicy

Top Notes: Bergamot, Cinnamon, Incense

Middle Notes: Rose, Iris, Jasmine

Base Notes: Myrrh, Leather, Benzoin

Perfumer: Ralf Schwieger

Launch Year: 2012

As if emerging from a symbolist poem or a Debussy score, The Afternoon of a Faun by Etat Libre d'Orange presents itself as a perfume that doesn't simply perfume the skin, but rather transforms it into a setting. The setting for an erotic, wild, confusing, and beautiful dream. It is a composition that breathes art, dance, poetry, and provocation. It's a tribute to Nijinsky, yes, but also an ode to sensual animality, to uncensored desire, and to memory that dissolves like incense in the air.

From its first spray, bergamot sparkles like a glimmer of sunlight through the leaves. But it's not a fresh and conventional opening; an enveloping, spicy, almost intoxicating cinnamon immediately appears, as if the warmth of the afternoon were reclaiming its place. The incense, dense and reverential, marks a subtle contrast, a sensual shadow that begins to weave the veil between reality and dreamlike. It's as if the perfume were inviting you to enter a mythological forest where anything can happen.

The heart of this fragrance is pure reverie. A velvety rose blends with a powdery and sophisticated iris, while jasmine provides that carnal and slightly untamed nuance that elevates sensuality without making it vulgar. It's a floral centerpiece that doesn't seek to please in a predictable way, but rather to seduce through ambiguity. Like a memory you don't know if you lived or imagined. Like a body slipping between silk and bare skin.

The base is where the magic reaches its climax. Myrrh, with its resinous and almost sacred sweetness, creates a narcotic atmosphere. Leather appears like a primitive whisper, an echo of the faun's dance that still resonates in the warm earth. Benzoin, with its balsamic and ambery note, envelops the entire composition in a warm and persistent trail. Here, the perfume becomes a tactile memory, a sigh that lingers even after the body has passed away.

The Afternoon of a Faun cannot be understood without an artistic context. Inspired by Mallarmé's poem and the scandalous ballet Vaslav Nijinsky performed in 1912, this fragrance conveys the same tension between the sublime and the carnal to the nose. At its Parisian presentation, critics were divided between astonishment and indignation: eroticism was no longer hinted at, but embodied in gestures of explicit desire. And that is precisely the essence of this perfume: an open representation of desire, of the body, and of fantasy.

The collaboration with Mx Justin Vivian Bond gives it a contemporary, queer layer that breaks down gender norms and celebrates ambiguity as an art form. This perfume is neither masculine nor feminine; it is wildly human. It speaks of bodily freedom, of pleasure without labels, of scandal as a declaration of existence. It is an olfactory experience that is also political, poetic, and deeply sensorial.

Etat Libre d'Orange, as a perfume house, has made excess and provocation its natural language, but The Afternoon of a Faun isn't a scream: it's a whisper that haunts you. A fragrance that stays with you like the echo of a wet dream, like the perfume someone leaves on your pillow at dawn. It's not about pleasing everyone: it's about bewitching those ready to lose themselves.

Wearing this fragrance is like dancing with your eyes closed in a forest clearing. Like letting your skin remember what your mind has already forgotten. It is, without a doubt, a perfume for those who dare to cross the line between the real and the imaginary. For those who know that desire cannot be explained: it is smelled. It is felt. It is experienced.