Le Parfum Eau de Parfum

Lolita Lempicka Le Parfum Eau de Parfum is the eau de parfum reading of the scent that made this house famous, and the liquorice and violet pairing at its centre is still the thing nobody else does as well.

Anise opens it, sweet and cool and faintly medicinal, with cherry alongside, and the cherry is the confected kind rather than fresh fruit, closer to the inside of a boiled sweet. Together they are unapologetically pretty and they tell you within seconds that this is not a restrained fragrance.

The middle is where it becomes unmistakable. Violet is powdery and slightly green, with that strange quality of smelling simultaneously of flowers and of makeup, and orris sits beneath it adding a cold, chalky, rooty depth. The combination is what gives the house its signature softness.

The base makes it edible. Liquorice is dark, sweet and faintly bitter, exactly the right counterweight to the violet above it. Tonka bean adds a dry, dusted sweetness like a pastry case rather than the filling, and white musk cleans the whole thing up so it reads as soft rather than sticky. This concentration will hold eight hours and leave a trail that people recognise immediately.

It suits cold weather, evenings out, teenagers and women in their sixties alike, and it reads unmistakably feminine. Lolita Lempicka was a French fashion label that turned almost entirely to scent, and its first perfume, from 1997, was built on exactly this liquorice and violet idea and remains the signature of the house. The range now runs to Fleurs, Mon Premier Parfum, Elixir Sublime, Lolitaland and the two men's scents.