Bottle drawn in the shade of the fragrance
Not a Perfume
Eau de parfum
A single ingredient, Cetalox, for a dry, woody, ambery skin scent.
- House
- Juliette Has a Gun
- Family
- Woody
- Perfumer
- Not disclosed
- Year
- Not disclosed
Not a Perfume takes the opposite view to classic perfumery: instead of a pyramid of dozens of materials, a single molecule, Cetalox, usually relegated to the base of formulas. Here it takes up all the space, from top to base.
The result is minimal and limpid: a musky, woody, ambery impression, like clean, warm skin. The house has made it its emblematic fragrance, designed to accompany the skin rather than cover it.
Olfactory pyramid
Notes as published by the house. official source (new tab)
Main accords
Volute’s reading: the intensity of each accord.
Seasons
- Spring
- Summer
- Autumn
- Winter
Moments
- Day
- Night
Not a Perfume in detail
Juliette Has a Gun, Romano Ricci's Parisian house, loves bold fragrances, sometimes built around a single material. Not a Perfume is its most radical example: a fragrance made of a single ingredient, Cetalox, which gives an impression of clean, dry, warm skin.
The house lists the same ingredient at all three stages of its pyramid: Cetalox is the top, the heart and the base at once. This trade name refers to an amber molecule that evokes one facet of ambergris: its scent is woody, musky and slightly mineral. With no flowers or fruit, the fragrance melts into the skin and changes very little, making it a kind of second skin.
Not a Perfume can be worn in any season, by day or by night: it is one of the few fragrances in our catalogue that Volute associates with all four seasons.
Three woody fragrances in our catalogue belong to the same family without sharing its note: Oud for Greatness by Initio Parfums Privés, more intense, Abu Dhabi by Memo Paris, spicier, and Afgano Puro by Sospiro, between cedarwood, patchouli and tobacco. For another amber molecule in the spotlight, see Another 13 by Le Labo, built around ambroxan.
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Text written with the help of AI, based on official information from the fragrance houses.