Creed Aubepine Acacia

I really thought I had found my signature scents. Two perfumes that were perfect, both familiar and beautifully unsettling, and between the two of them suited to my every mood. Ah but then I was foolish and had to go and open up a bottle of Aubepine Acacia. Created by Creed in 1965 for Brigitte Bardot, it evokes dry, scrubby pines, honeyed mimosa and powdery hawthorn blossoms in a rocky, sunbaked Mediterranean forest. I get a lot of beeswax and pine sap in at first sniff - not a masculine, green pine but a drier, more arid kind. The beeswax settles into a beautiful honey scent, with notes of bright citrus, fragrant hawthorn and sweet mimosa - though all the floral notes are very dry and sunbleached, all the greenery tart and almost astringent.

The Bardot this was created for and worn by isn't the pin-up we all know so well, but the much more real one - the Bardot strolling barefoot down a dusty path in the hills above St Tropez, pants rolled up and flowers in her hair, a baby lamb under her arm and a dog or two trotting at her feet. How could I not love a scent that evokes all that? It's me. Well except for the great hair and the St Tropez part....

This reminds me just slightly, in it's dry hay-like accord, of the lovely Santa Maria Novella Fieno- though this a very different combination of notes and to my mind even lovelier, they do share a sunbleached and aromatic character. I was completely floored by how much I love this scent - I thought I had found my perfect signatures, but this may have found the heart of me more than any before.

There is a hitch in all of this I'm afraid. Always amongst the Private Collection and therefore difficult to obtain, Creed has now discontinued Aubepine Acacia. I lay on the floor and beat my fists and yelled, but it didn't change anything, and I've had to face facts. Clearly the fact that this scent feels so personal to me means it probably didn't suit a lot of people. Or possibly people are idiots, which is probably more likely. Either way, I haven't just introduced you to this gem to snatch it away from you so cruelly - you can still find decants at online boutiques like The Posh Peasant and The Perfumed Court. If you'd like to sample its loveliness, by all means, go ahead. Just make sure you don't clean out all of their stock, or you'll have me to answer to - I had better be left at least enough to last me through copious spritzing for the rest of this lifetime.

pics via pinterest