Frederic Malle En Passant

Top notes: streamlined lilac; cucumber
Base notes: white musk; cedar

Price $180.00 for50 ml / 1.7 fl. oz. and 260.00. for 100 ml / 3.4 fl. oz.

Description from the website:
A whiff of lilac. In the spring, when women slip on their cotton dresses and warm their skin in the sun, a soft breeze, full with the scent of budding lilacs, sweeps across the countryside. A breath of cucumber absolute in a streamlined lilac accord gives the perfume an airy freshness, while the scent of a woman’s skin is bound up in wheat, cedar and white musk. Created by Olivia Giacobetti in 2000.

I continue to be let down by Frederic Malle's fragrances. Every one I have ever owned i have never repurchased.
When first applied the scent is of pure, lovely lilac to me. Unfortunately, that fades fast, after about 10 minutes then the cucumber kicks in and ruins it. The lilac does not become fresher and crisper in the presence of the cucumber. After a while the lilac starts to weaken and the scent becomes mostly sharp green with a touch of flowers in it. Very poor sillage. After 30 minutes or so, I have to rub my nose on my skin to get a whiff of it. If you want sillage you better be prepared to douse yourself in it and at this price, not something most will want to do. It practically disappears to nothing within 2-3 hours and the lilac is about totally gone after 30 minutes on me. It's a pretty fragrance, not cloying but certainly nothing to rave about either, not for me. It's not a scrubber but I don't find it pleasant at all after the first 15 minutes or so when the burst of initial lilac is gone. It turns into a watery cucumber with a tiny hint of lilac and not a good lilac at this point. A musty, almost aquatic green. This is a pass for me. But get a sample, use it all, see what you think. Everyone's skin and nose are different so it may smell different on you and your nose may detect lilac late in the game, but I doubt it.

I don't get It.
Very light scent, the lilac is clean but very shallow; it could be richer and more pronounced.
The cucumber adds a nice aquatic touch, but the freshness and ozonic quality is ruined as the wheat turns yeasty on me and the whole thing becomes mismatched. I really don't care for the combination of these notes on me.
Call me a fragrance simpleton, I am, but to me this is lackluster. I love simplicity but this does nothing for me, it lacks presence, it doesn't last on my skin and doesn't project. I will give points for its momentary, almost perfect capture of the chilled electricity that occurs in the air just after a spring storm. That part is brilliant and so close to being evocative...But the wheat ruins it, full stop.

Always sample before you buy. On paper I should have loved this. Glad it works for so many others.
Final gripe - this only lasts about an hour on my skin. At $175 a bottle. Never mind that I don't care for the scent, but just considering the poor sillage and longevity, the price is insulting. Subjevtivity only goes so far.

I got a bottle of this and thought that it was a dead ringer for Glade air freshener. Sold it immediately on Ebay. Happy for those who can wear it, but I don't particularly want to smell like bathroom spray.

In one word, ambivalent. Is this the faint image of a slightly honeyed, heady, lazy lilac in a hot country or a crystal clear picture of a dewy lilac in the spring? On me, En Passant is both. However, if I catch wafts of it, it's usually the former. En Passant opens with an airy accord on me, unfortunately a bit ozonic or perhaps even gassy. Soon a beautiful watercolour of lilacs emerges, with cucumber adding a heavenly lightness. The overall image is not something earthy but I can sense the stems, dew and all things natural that seem to surround this lilac. After than there is this push and pull on my skin, revealing new depths and dimensions responding to my body temperature. It makes me think of English florals. Pleasant but not me.

This brings me all kinds of childhood memories of fresh air and lilacs in the sun. It makes me happy every time and can be the highlight of my day when work is rough and the grey London winter drags into its rainy continuum. I like that it's light and clean but still evocative and long-lasting on my skin, impregnating my clothes in the most amazing way without gassing everyone else. It smells so lifelike that I don't like to wear it in winter.

my o my....this is lilac christaline overload....magnificent spring-ey huuuge almost soliflore....
is reminds me of Diptyque's Ofresia...not that they're alike scentways, but thea both hve a gigantic floral,clear,moist quality....whereas Ofresia is all about white flowers, En Passant is a garden of lilacs...with a milky,creamy undertone (Paul&Joe-Blanc, very simmilar)
oh, this is soooo wonderfull.....if I didn't know who did it I could swear this was made by JC Ellena...

very heavy on sillage and drydown is just as same as the topnotes...it vaguely changes through time...worth having that's for sure...

I thought Olivia Giacobetti's scents were not my cup of tea, but then remembered all the nice L'Artisans she made, as well as Hiris, which is a terrific scent. I guess having a limited range of notes and exploring them in a watery, ephemeral way is not my kind of thing.
This was lilac-cucumber water with a woodsy dry down. Not terrible, but not the type of thing I'd buy at Malle prices. A few of my MUA friends like this, I understand why, but on me it feels flat and lifeless.
The dreamy, delicate beauty stuff just doesn't register; on my skin it's insipid and wimpy -- I do like the lilac note, but that one feature isn't enough.
I don't think it's her best work, much like Carnal Flower doesn't seem to me to be Ropion's best work (and I'm a huge fan of his perfumes and tuberose). I always recommend En Passant for MUA fragrance-boarders who want lilac, because it's a popular choice and, given the perfumer's other great works, it should be given a fair chance, tested on skin.
But for me -- eh -- I'm not sure less is more. It has no 'body', it's a thin, dispirited, floral cologne, albeit an unusual one. The lasting power is better than many of the traditional Guerlain colognes (if I recall correctly, it's been a while...) and the lilac is not all that synthetic smelling or overly sweet, which is great for people exploring this note. But I don't like it. I get the hype, but will never pay niche prices for this. For me, the best summer scents manage to be fresh, a little more 'full' on the range of notes but not cloying, and if it's fairly linear (which En Passant is, on me) I prefer that the centrepiece note is handled with more panache and personality.

Just an idea about what summer scents are all about for me: Bergamotto Marino (Bourdon) which has a middle of great wet florals -- orange blossom and lily I think -- that aren't too loud and a marine overlay, so to speak. Eau de Lalique (Copperman & Ellena, iirc) a much ignored scent, maybe better appreciated by the chaps on Basenotes (beware the dill, some people hate it, I love it). A great pared down summer scent is a LE released a while back, a novelty -- Bombay Sapphire (the gin people) Infusion perfume. Herbal and fizzy, with juniper. Lovely stuff. And if you're interested in Giacobetti, I think her highly original, very dry and papery Hiris is probably the most interesting iris scent ever -- great for summer. Her Navegar is also terrific -- marine-ish without being sickly -- she captured a sea voyage concept rather well.
I wish she'd done with En Passant what she did with Navegar -- that is: supported the featured note with a more interesting framework. As far as 'pared down elegance' goes, it's difficult for me to imagine making something that surpasses Hiris.

This is a beautiful fragrance. Quite unusual too. I am generally not a huge fan of florals, but i fell in love with this scent. It really smells like fresh lilacs. When the initial flowery fresh note kind of wear off, it turns into a clean scent. Very pleasant and feminine. I can smell the cucumber in the dry down. Unfortunately it does not last long on my skin, but i noticed it lasts very long on clothes so i spray it on and then get dressed straight away so the clothes soak up a bit of it.

Lilac and cucumber - who would have thought that such a simple accord could be so evocative, even hypnotic?

Olivia Giacobetti, that's who. In her characteristically limpid style, she's managed to bottle the essence of spring. The lilacs are "wet," but there's nothing remotely aquatic about this fragrance. It's fresh, but its freshness is so elegantly rendered that it puts all of the vapid fresh scent clones on the market to shame. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

I love lilacs. Nothing better than driving through New England in the spring and smelling the lilac bushes, many of which have endured more than a hundred years. (Lilacs don't fare well here in Washington, DC, and those that do have an insipid scent.) I was so anxious to try this scent that I called the Frederic Malle store in Manhattan and was graciously sent a sample. I couldn't detect lilac at all...just, oddly, mothballs. And I tried wearing this a number of times. Tragic, considering the many rave reviews. Just more proof that fragrance is highly individualized to each person's chemistry. I would never buy a fragrance without wearing it for a while.