A La Carte No 6

A La Carte No 6 is the gourmand in the Lengling range, and it is built the way the house builds everything: two halves pulling against each other. The sweet side opens with pink pepper and roasted pistachio, a nutty, faintly salted green note that is far more distinctive than the usual almond or praline shorthand, and it is the thing most people remember about the perfume. Toffee follows, buttery and slightly burnt at the edges, and the drydown fills out with vanilla absolute, tonka and labdanum absolute for depth. Left alone that would be a dessert, but the LENG half is deliberately dark: naturally cultivated Thai oud, Australian sandalwood, styrax and olibanum over cedarwood. The oud is used as a resinous, leathery shadow rather than a barnyard blast, and the sandalwood keeps the whole thing creamy where the incense would otherwise dry it out. Performance is the strongest in the range. Eight hours plus is normal at extrait strength, with real projection in the first three, so a light hand pays off. Wear it in autumn and winter, in the evening. It is a date perfume before anything else, and it dresses up well for dinner or a formal evening. It is too loud and too sweet for most offices, and hopeless in heat, where the toffee turns cloying.