Music For A While

Over the years and through experimentation, Carlos Benaïm and Frédéric Malle have developed a deep professional rapport. Carlos Benaïm, who celebrates his 50th anniversary at IFF this week, sees his collaboration with Frédéric Malle as a way to enrich his fabulous legacy. After Eau de Magnolia, Music for a While is the latest fruit of their partnership: an oriental fragrance, a lavender scent enriched with patchouli, amber, and vanilla. Very little musk, because each ingredient is so precisely measured that there's no need to soften the edges artificially. An almost classic structure, were it not for a succession of overdoses—patchouli, lavender, ethyl maltol—and were it not for Carlos Benaïm's choice to tint it with a pineapple scent, as unexpected as it is magnetic. Those who admire Helmut Newton's work will surely be familiar with this ultra-luxurious, intoxicating fragrance.

The paradoxical nature of Music for a While, its ambivalent olfactory aesthetic—at once elegant and provocative—and its name lend themselves to a multitude of interpretations: Music for a While, because this fragrance is more than just the sum of its ingredients; it uplifts us like a refrain we carry within us forever. Music for a While, a gentle yet wildly addictive drug, composed chronologically, like a piece of music, that transports the wearer and amplifies their seductive power. Music for a While, a fragrance that is both classic, like the Henry Purcell piece from which it takes its name, and profoundly contemporary, like the compositions of its creator, Carlos Benaïm.

An unexpected interpretation of lavender: paradoxical, magnetic and sensual.
Lavender as the keystone: a citrus opening, anchored to the lavender by its fresh notes, gives the fragrance its initial flight. The lavender then gradually blends with the sweetness of patchouli, amber, and vanilla. Finally, a touch of pineapple adds its color to this torrent of sensuality.
Precise and powerful, this fragrance bestows upon the wearer a timeless, almost bewitching power of seduction. Vibrant at first, then more lingering, it will stay with you for hours.
Like a piece of music, it uplifts you, transports you from moment to moment.
Like a piece of music, it makes you live at its own pace, composed of two movements: a fresh start followed by an addictive and sensual heart.

Top notes: lemon, orange, mandarin, bergamot. Heart notes: lavender, hints of rose and jasmine, cinnamon, pineapple.
Base notes: patchouli, labdanum, vanilla