Parfums MDCI has launched Péché Cardinal, a new fragrance for women:
Péché Cardinal is an enticing froth of sinful and sweet, blending luscious fruits and mesmerizingly heady white flowers into a siren song. Warm, rounded and alluring, this Bellini-esque scent opens with a juicy, light-hearted sweetness that belies its intoxicating nature. As it warms on the skin, it becomes boldly flirtatious— this is the perfect scent for the belle of the ball.
The fragrance notes feature davana, peach, coconut, blackcurrant, tuberose, prune, lily, cedar, sandalwood and musk.
Parfums MDCI Péché Cardinal is available in 60 ml Eau de Parfum, in the crystal flacon shown above ($610) or in a glass refill bottle ($235). It can be found now at Luckyscent.
Update: Parfums MDCI Péché Cardinal was developed by perfumer Amandine Marie.
Here are the original comments for this article, which were not properly imported when we moved to a new domain in 3/2009:
On February 7, 2009 joe805 said:
I somehow missed the whole MDCI phenom, but coincidentally I was just reading about this one last night, and of course my first reaction was…. 610 DOLLARS?! OK, whatever. Let ’em eat cake.
Also, I think it’s interesting how easily confused the words “péché” (sin) and “pêche” (peach) are — and the fact that this contains a peach note. Maybe that was not just coincidental as they considered that many English speakers might assume that it’s peachy? Anyway, I hope people enjoy these; the likelihood of me ever sniffing one at those prices is pretty darn slim.
On February 7, 2009 NowSmellThis said:
Yes, although if you don’t need the fancy bottle, you can of course get the refill — which is still expensive, but not so very expensive!
And yes, assume it was meant as a play on words…
On February 8, 2009 Bela said:
There is only a play on words if one doesn’t write the accents in. Péché (sin) is pronounced ‘peh-sheh’ (the ‘é’ sound being ‘sharper’ – more like an ‘ee’ – than it looks in this transcription) whereas ‘pêche’ is pronounced ‘pehsh’ (as it looks) and no French person seeing the word ‘péché’ would think of ‘pêche’.
However, since the Internet has somehow made accents optional (which they are most definitely not in French), Peche Cardinal conjures up both words.
On February 8, 2009 bergere said:
Actually, there are a few French puns that do play on the similarities between “sin”, “peach” and “fishing”–same letters, different diacritical marks, so it’s probably occurred to them.
On February 9, 2009 Bela said:
Actually, I am French, and if there were puns on ‘péché’, ‘pêche’ (peach) and ‘pêche’ (fishing), I would know about them. There aren’t any.
One could make puns on the similarities of *some forms* of the verb ‘to sin’ (not the noun) – like ‘je pèche’, ‘tu pèches’, ‘il/elle pèche’ (the diacritical marks are different, but the words are pronounced the same) – and ‘pêche’ (peach) and ‘pêche’ (fishing). One could also have puns on the *infinitive* forms of the verbs ‘pécher’ (to sin) and ‘pêcher’ (to fish), and ‘pêcher’ (peach tree), but that’s it. There is no way you can have a pun on ‘péché’ and the other two nouns. As I said, the pronunciation is *completely* different.
HTH
On February 9, 2009 NowSmellThis said:
Will just add that if you see today’s post at Perfume Posse, apparently the owner of MDCI did mean it as a play on words…
On February 9, 2009 NowSmellThis said:
I will stay out of this, as I know nothing about it…
On February 7, 2009 bergere said:
I wonder if that was part of the joke, that the dessert, peches cardinal (a compote of peaches with a pureed raspberry sauce, probably named because of the red sauce) also recalls peche cardinal (cardinal sin) (sorry, I can’t get my keyboard to generate the proper diacritical marks for posting). Not that I’ll ever be able to tell how close the perfume is to the dessert, not at $235 for 60 ml.
On February 7, 2009 NowSmellThis said:
I assume so! And yes, it’s pricey stuff.
On February 7, 2009 nlb said:
The “Parfums MDCI” scents are pretty, but hardly distinctive enough to warrant such a price. I liked “Rose Di Siwa” but you can get a similar sensation from “Coco Madmoiselle”. “Enlevement au Serail” could’ve just as easily been called “Yria” by Ives Rocher. “Promesse de L’aube” is a dead ringer for Chanel’s “Allure”. Rarely do I find a group of scents that could almost be clones of other ones; with “Parfums MDCI”, it seems part of the fun is finding their matches.
On February 8, 2009 NowSmellThis said:
You know, I can’t really think of *any* perfumes that justify that price, but that’s just me. Lots of people loved these. I thought they were really well done, but even $210 is too much for me.
On February 9, 2009 Fuddy Duddy 101 said:
I guess these scents are not intened for the masses…”let them eat cake” is spot on! LOL! It’s really a shame though as the scent does sound lovely and enticing but the price is very prohibitive. And as much as I admire the bottle, that better be 14k gold I see on it to justify the $600+ cost!
On February 9, 2009 NowSmellThis said:
You might want to see today’s post at Perfume Posse…apparently there *might* be a cheaper bottle in the works.