Régime des Fleurs Black Spruce: a holiday release for people who are over sugar-cookie perfumes

If your December still smells like cupcake glaze, consider this your intervention. Régime des Fleurs just launched Black Spruce, a limited edition holiday perfume that sounds like a cold walk through a dark forest rather than a mall bakery. I have not worn it yet, but I know this house and I know spruce, and that pairing is already more interesting than another cinnamon roll in a bottle.

Spruce is the chic sibling of pine. On skin it reads as bright and resinous with a crisp terpene edge, less lemony than pine and less gin-like than juniper. Done right, a spruce accord gives a frosty clarity up top, then moves into balsamic sap, damp bark and that breath-of-cold-air sensation I chase when the radiator hisses. In a holiday composition, spruce often plays well with incense, dry woods, smoke or even a quiet vanilla. If Black Spruce follows that path, expect clean lines with a smolder underneath, not a sugar storm.

For reference points, think of the conifer canon. Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles is pine with spice and a glint of candied fruit. Guerlain Winter Delice is a vintage pine and clove postcard. Profumum Roma Arso smells like resin, leather chairs and a fireplace after midnight. Comme des Garçons Wonderwood piles on the timbers, while Aesop Hwyl sketches smoky cypress with restraint. If Black Spruce lands anywhere near those, we are in very good company.

House context matters. Régime des Fleurs has a talent for botanically exacting compositions that feel dressed, not costumed. Their florals can be severe in a satisfying way, and their woods tend to keep air and light around them. A spruce-led limited edition from them reads like an antidote to holiday excess, which is exactly what my nose wants when every shop window smells like frosting.

How I’d wear it if it behaves as the name suggests: daytime with wool and clean lines, or layered at night over a soft vanilla to tilt the forest toward comfort. Either way, this is the holiday mood for people who would rather own the tree than the tinsel. Limited edition means sample sooner, decide fast, and let the needles fall where they may.