The man I forgot and the scent I kept: falling for Diptyque L’Eau Trois

I still remember the room, not the man. Brick walls, velvet sofas, glasses sweating under dim lights. He leaned in to say hello, then vanished back into the noise. What stayed was his perfume, the kind that slips under your skin and refuses to behave. A few weeks later, I made it mine. Diptyque L’Eau Trois has been the troublemaker on my vanity ever since.

If your idea of a signature scent is clean musk and polite citrus, walk on. L’Eau Trois opens with resinous bite, a halo of myrrh that feels both sacred and feral. Then the herbs crowd in, not garden-fresh but sunburnt and crackling: thyme, oregano, laurel, a brush against rosemary. There is rockrose smoldering like warm labdanum, and a dry resin-pine accord that smells like a chapel door left ajar on a hot afternoon. No sugar, no soft-focus florals, no safe base stitched with vanilla. It is arid, salty, stubbornly beautiful.

I wore it through winters and bad decisions. On skin it sits close, more secret than shout, which is exactly the point. It lasts five to seven hours on me, longer on scarves, where the herbs turn to warm dust and the myrrh hums. It gives power to a black turtleneck and sharp boots, but it also works with lipstick smudged on a coffee cup and a 2 a.m. taxi. Unisex, sure, but it leans austere. Think linen shirt, sleeves rolled, no apology.

People call it “old world” as if that’s an insult. I call it honest. It smells like place, not product, a strip of Mediterranean scrubland baked into a bottle. You won’t win a popularity contest wearing L’Eau Trois. You might win yourself back.

Is it easy to find? Not always. Bottles surface if you look with intent, and they’re worth the hunt. If you ever catch a drift on someone walking past, follow your nose. You’ll forget the face and remember the scent. That’s the kind of myth Diptyque accidentally wrote here, and it still reads like a secret.