Mousse d’Ombre
Our chypre — bergamot resolving into oakmoss and labdanum the way François Coty defined the family in 1917.
- Family
- Chypre
- Concentration
- Eau de Parfum
- Year
- 1951
- Perfumer
- Élise Verdier
- Batch size
- 25 litres / season
- Top notes
- Bergamot, mandarin
- Heart notes
- Rose, labdanum
- Base notes
- Oakmoss, patchouli
The chypre family takes its name from Cyprus, where Coty is said to have sourced the labdanum and oakmoss for the 1917 composition that established the accord — bright citrus over a dry, mossy, resinous base, a contrast that reads almost architectural on skin: bright ceiling, dark floor, very little in between. Élise Verdier’s 1951 version leans the heart harder into rose than most chypre formulas of the period, which is the house’s one real signature inside an otherwise classical structure.
Oakmoss has become harder to source at the concentrations older formulas call for — IFRA restrictions tightened over the decades that followed this formula’s writing — so the modern batch is compounded to the closest legally compliant approximation the current perfumer could get to without simply thinning the whole accord.