There are moments in life when scent becomes memory, and memory becomes a place.
Twenty years ago, I created L’Air du Désert Marocain, inspired by a memory that stayed with me: lying on a narrow bed in a simple Moroccan hotel room, the window open to the warm evening air. The life of the city drifted in with spices from the souk, smoke from distant fires, the sweetness of pastries, and above all, the breath of the desert, dry, warm, infinite. That moment became a perfume.
After many years, I revisited Air du Désert Marocain again. As a perfumer, I have created many fragrances, but I have always had a soft spot for Air du Désert Marocain. Over the years, I often thought about my desert perfume, and the night in the desert was one of many lines of thought. How the landscape changes when the sun disappears. How shadows take the place of mirages, how the air sharpens, how everything becomes more silent, more profound. And this, I wanted to encapsulate in a new fragrance.
Air du Désert Marocain Noir is not a reinterpretation of the original, but a continuation, a deeper and darker step into the same story. I wanted to create a perfume that captures the experience of walking into the desert at night. When the sun is gone, but the stones and boulders still radiate the heat of the day. The horizon is black and empty and there are no mountains, no trees, just a line where sand kisses sky. It is a sinister, peaceful environment, dark and deep.
I imagined this elixir as the scent of a walk into this desert at night. I imagined the warmth of the night. Besides many smaller changes, at the heart of Air du Désert Marocain Noir I have intensified the cistus and the resinous warmth. The amber is drier, more expansive, vast like the night. The perfume is richer, deeper, with strength and with 30% concentration this elixir feels unending.
And then, there are the stars. I imagined their cold, distant, blinking shine. I added more sparkling citrus notes to the perfume formula of Air du Désert Marocain Noir, from bergamot to lemon to petitgrain, to evoke their shimmer, a sharp brilliance that contrasts the depth of the fragrance and adds a fresh airiness.
When I created this elixir, I wanted to capture that feeling: experiencing a desert night that is simply beautiful. Air du Désert Marocain Noir is my invitation to perfume lovers: To walk further into the night.
