Alluring, unsettling, assertive galbanum leather. The nose (perfumer) behind it, Isabelle Doyen, calls this scent an “insomniac tuberose… a sleepless flower stripped of its solar finery. I had this image of a flayed, wounded tuberose in my mind, seeping its perfume like sap.” The idea of insomnia is a perfect fit. Nuit de Bakélite has the wakefulness of a green perfume but none of its well-rested freshness. This is also, it turns out, a tuberose, which I find difficult to reconcile. Nez magazine reviewed the perfume in issue 4: “A rooty galbanum with intonations of pea, carrot and green pepper spits out a scent of crisp, aqueous, almost poisonous sap like that exhaled in exotic hothouses. [Doyen] colours this with a buttery iris and verdant violet, tracing the broad but defined contours of a vintage green chypre. The tuberose’s spices are then layered over a smoky tobacco, submerged in hot resins, distressed leather and milky musks. Secreted behind its eccentric opening are the perfectly executed seams of Nuit de Bakélite. Like a brazen dancer dressed in a loud green veil, twirling like the visionary Loie Fuller. After a slow striptease, she reveals her houndstooth suit; fitted jacket and pencil skirt, classic and well-tailored. Suddenly chastened, she blows clouds of smoke in your face, drawn from her cigarette holder… made of bakelite, of course.”