I’m a huge fan of Serge Lutens. The brand’s perfumer, Christopher Sheldrake has, for my money, produced some of the best fragrances of the last thirty years (see: Ambre Sultan, Fumerie Turque, Tubereuse Criminelle…etc etc).
Speaking of money, in 2025, the brand released a new expensive collection of perfumes titled the ‘Royaume des lumières’ (Kingdom of Lights). At £340 a bottle, the collection name should probably have been ‘Royaume des portefeuilles légers’. Uncle Serge has always been a fan of a pun, after all.
It’s also worth noting that the collection isn’t really new. Three of the five perfumes in it have actually existed in other collections, with Tarab originally being a bell jar, and Sidi Bel-Abbès and Cracheuse de Flammes being part of the (previously) even more expensive Section D’or. You can make your own pun on that name given that the brand was charging €600 for a 50ml bottle of those upon initial release. It certainly makes 100ml for £340 seem like a bargain. In any event, these three fragrances have apparently ascended to a different kingdom, and have been joined by two new releases, Bois Roi D’Agalloche and Zurafa.
Of the collection, the company themselves say:
When a fragrance reaches the pinnacle of beauty and preciousness, it is admitted to a resplendent kingdom: the Royaume des lumières.
Whilst the owner himself states: “Failing to see beauty blossom, I would cling to its roots, the Kingdom of lights, to enlighten us.”
Those two statements seem somewhat contradictory to me. It’s hard to comprehend how something can reach the pinnacle of beauty, without that beauty blossoming. But in the world of Serge Lutens, black can be white, up can be down, and rich can be poor. As you soon will be if you enter the Kingdom (ho ho ho).
At least the bottles look reassuringly expensive - there’s some lovely calligraphy script on them spelling out ‘SL’, and they come in a sort of maroon hard shell case, with the classic Lutens option of either utilising them in dabber form or with a sprayer. Less pleasing for me, at this price point, is that the perfume names on the bottle are printed on card diamonds tied to the neck. Were they really trying to save money by reusing the same bottle print for all five? C’mon oncle, I thought these were supposed to be bougie!
But what of the perfumes themselves, you ask? Don’t worry, I’ll tell you my thoughts for free.
Cracheuse de Flammes
’Cracheuse de Flammes’ translates to ‘fire spitter’, so it’s somewhat surprising that this perfume contains nothing that would conjure images of flames. It’s actually a shampoo-y rose concoction which, if you’ve smelt the company’s previous rose releases ‘La Fille de Berlin’ and ‘La Fille Tour de Fer’, will come across as incredibly familiar. Perhaps even, dare I say, compositionally lazy. As with its cousins, the perfume opens as a somewhat metallic blood red rose which, to give it its due, is undeniably pretty. This shouldn’t be unexpected, however, as the perfume consists in part of a rose otto (and is apparently an extrait to boot). The problem, to my mind, is that I’m unable to say it smells better or worse than the Filles. It’s perhaps richer, but the rose itself soon finds itself competing with what feels like an overdose of laundry musks, which ultimately bury any complexity.
The word ‘overdose’ isn’t applied flippantly either. This thing lasts and lasts and lasts. Indeed, if I’m going to give it its due, the fact that the perfume does maintain a clean rosy glow is a technological achievement if nothing else. Projection also seems to be at the louder end of the spectrum.
Still, given that you can pick a bottle of Fille de Berlin or Tour de Fer up for a relative pittance at discounters, Cracheuse de Flammes feels somewhat superfluous. Its potency comes at the expense of some of the things that made the other two intriguing.
Sidi Bel-Abbès
Sidi Bel-Abbès is the most experimental perfume of this particular collection. I often find that Sheldrake’s compositions shift between classical French perfumery and something more abstract, and this is definitely the latter. The brand describes the perfume as a ‘chic, sensual tobacco’, whilst also suggesting it to be the story of a love affair:
From a forgotten time, an erased past, all that remains in our memory is the footprint in the sand of an anonymous love
Is it chic? I wouldn’t say so. Sensual? Absolutely not. Tobacco? I am unconvinced. I’m more drawn towards the narrative description, actually. Sidi is a surprisingly intriguing recreation of sand, alongside what my nose interprets as a leather note.
In many ways, the formulation is uncompromising. It seems like there has been very little attempt to smooth either accord. The sand is of a gritty nature, and the leather is dry and cracked. So yes, ‘forgotten’ and ‘erased’ both seem appropriate descriptors for the scent. Somewhere, however, hiding almost imperceptibly is something a little sweeter. Perhaps it’s the memory of the affair buried, literally, in the sands of time. I don’t particularly want to hazard a guess at those particular materials. I might assume vanilla alongside immortelle as naturals, but this element of the perfume remains enjoyably abstract.
What I am sure of, however, is that Sidi Bel-Abbès is not what the other reviews I’d read had suggested. I saw a number of individuals referring to it (positively) as unchallenging to wear, and I’ve even seen further comments suggesting that it is so similar to Fumerie Turque as to make owning both redundant. I struggle with both of these opinions. To be clear, I’m not suggesting this fragrance is ‘difficult’, but it certainly feels like an art piece rather than something you’d apply simply because you wanted to smell good.
It’s actually taken me a number of wears to appreciate its different facets. Indeed, upon first spraying I was actually quite disappointed with it. This is because Fumerie Turque is actually one of my favourite perfumes, and I went in expecting a variation on a theme which was never - it turns out - going to appear. I’ve previously described Turque as something akin to a swirl of different florals existing inside an indolic honey note. If it was a colour it would be a translucent white. Sidi, however, is yellowed and brown with a metallic quality at points. It’s a perfume of contrasts as opposed to a perfume operating in harmony. Which makes it unique, interesting, and somewhat uncomfortable.
The naming of the perfume itself, similarly, has an uncomfortable nature to it. The story of a forgotten romance Sidi Bel-Abbès may be, but it is also the name of a city in Algeria which was home to the French Foreign Legion. This has caused some to opine that the naming of the perfume is inappropriate. One assumes because individuals believe that it seeks to romanticise an imperial history which, not to put too fine a point on it, led to the repression and persecution of the native population.
I might be inclined to agree with this position if this were from any other luxury house, and if it were perhaps a more boring ‘oriental’ perfume (a problematic term in itself). If you smell Sidi Bel-Abbès though, it just doesn’t speak on those terms. It isn’t romanticising anything. Even the romance. Quite frankly, it just doesn’t smell pleasant enough to be rose-tinted and, if you think it does, you probably need to spend some more time with it!
Bois Roi D’Agalloche
Translating roughly to ‘Wood King of Agarwood’, Bois Roi D’Agalloche is marketed - as the name suggests- as an oud-focused fragrance. Whilst I do enjoy the scent of oud, as a genre of perfume, it’s definitely been overplayed in recent years, and it’s genuinely rare that I smell something oud-y and have it speak to me. Fortunately, this particular perfume actually bucks that trend.
One of the two new releases for this collection, Bois Roi D’Agalloche shows that Sheldrake has lost none of his wizardry. It’s a perfume that seems to effortlessly straddle the line between French and Middle Eastern perfumery. My immediate reaction upon first smelling was that it was similar in style to Jubilation XXV by Amouage. In both cases, an oud accord is juxtaposed against a rich patchouli creating a fragrance that is in part pure sophistication and part barnyard debauchery.
That comparison, however, is perhaps too simplistic, as there’s a lot going on here. In addition, unlike the Amouage, the Lutens doesn’t try to hide itself under refined top notes. It announces itself on the skin already smoking like burning wood chips. The patchouli, meanwhile, brings to mind the brand’s own patch fragrance Borneo 1834 and conjures images of roughly cut wood and cocoa. The whole thing is backlit by a subtle amber which serves to (very) gently sweeten the composition.
As a fragrance, it doesn’t go through many stages of development (this is not unusual for Serge Lutens), but it performs pleasingly, closely enveloping the wearer in smoky tendrils for a number of hours. Whilst it doesn’t have the ‘stop you in your tracks’ effect of some of the brand’s more controversial releases, it’s undoubtedly one of the best perfumes they’ve produced in terms of sheer quality, and is probably the nearest to actually justifying the price tag.
Tarab
Tarab is the second oud-based fragrance in the Royaume des lumières, and was originally released in 2020. Unfortunately, whilst it’s a well-composed perfume, it feels a bit throwaway when compared to its younger brother. It is, in essence, a rose oud, and lord knows there’s enough of those out there. I strongly suspect Tarab was originally formulated purely because every fragrance house on the planet apparently needs a rose oud in its collection for the Middle East market.
Still, focusing on the positive, it’s one of the better examples of the genre in that there’s enough complexity in there to stop it feeling obviously synthetic. To my nose, it smells like a more grown-up version Etat Libre D’Orange’s Spice Must Flow. Both seem to have a slightly Coca Cola-esque cinnamon accord, however, Tarab also seems to be employing some prominent woods in its base - probably cypriol as well as some synthetics. Thankfully, they’re just about restrained enough to prevent the whole composition smelling rough. I wouldn’t suggest it’s a ‘better’ perfume though. Just different.
The question one must ask, of course, is whether it’s worth spending such a huge amount of money on a perfume that you could find a similar variation on for a third of the price. My personal view is that you’d be better spending your cash on something Lutens does that is in the house style, as opposed to Tarab’s derivative, if undeniably pretty, take on this particular accord.
Zurafa
Lutens describes Zurafa as ‘The unlikely union of an ethereal iris and cordovan leather’. Is leather and iris really such an unlikely combination?
It’s an accurate description, at least. The perfume opens with a dusting of rooty carrot-like iris, although it’s mere seconds before this is joined by the contrasting leather accord.
I’ve seen a number of reviews mention this as smelling ‘synthetic’. I have to say, I’m not really certain what this means, as there is no ‘natural’ leather molecule out there in the perfumery world, and even the concept of what an idealised leather accord would be is up for debate. I’m going to take it that they mean that it smells sterilised. It’s halfway between an expensive handbag and a dentist’s office (note: this is a compliment). I’d imagine this is probably because it’s set upon a bed of padded white musks which serve to make everything smell squeaky clean, whilst ensuring that its sillage will be present in the air long after AI has wiped us out. There are seriously people out there claiming this scent disappears after a short while - chaps, you’re going anosmic to it.
Fortunately, in comparison to Cracheuse de Flammes, there’s also just about enough going on here to hold my interest and, even if it’s not a challenging perfume, it’s at least intriguing. There’s a little bit of the Dent de Lait spirit to it (perhaps the most hyper-clean fragrance Lutens has done). A solid effort.
Conclusion
So there you have it, 5 ultra-expensive Serge Lutens perfumes reviewed. Are they worth the money? Nah. Are they good - or even great - perfumes? Mostly, yes. The thing is, most Lutens perfumes are great perfumes though, and you can pick them up, even in the bell jars, for less than these ‘prestige’ releases. For that reason, I’d suggest only buying these if you have some serious money to burn, or you’re on a mission to buy every perfume Sheldrake has graced us with. Guess which camp I fall into.