Beauty Care: Stephane Humbert Lucas Mortal Skin Perfume Review

Stephane Humbert Lucas Mortal Skin Eau de Parfum has a more memorable opening with juicy, slightly sweet-tart blackberry, ink (almost has a varnish-like translation), and myrrh. It is smoothed out with buttery iris, lightly spiced with cardamom, and then later, slightly salty, resinous, and aromatic with woods and soft musk.

Mortal Skin Notes

The notes are listed as:

top notes: ink, blackberry, incense, labdanum
heart notes: myrrh, opoponax, iris, cardamom, artemisia
base notes: styrax, ambergris, atlas cedar, cedar, birch, sandalwood, musk

What does Mortal Skin Smell Like?

It opened with dark, inky blackberry juice, slightly tart with an underlying soft, berry sweetness that gets deeper and sweeter as the myrrh came through. It did, in fact, seem to have an inkiness to it that made the blackberry seemed chilly. There was a light powderiness and hint of green that popped up after five minutes of development. The sweetness became more resinous and lightly spiced, blended well with the blackberry.

After 15 minutes, there was a subtle, leathery quality that tempered the fruitiness to a moderate degree. The blackberry dripped over a soft, smooth leather, slightly animalic, and sticky, spiced resin with a mere hint of buttery iris.

After two hours, the tartness of the blackberry felt like it dissipated over time, as if the blackberry juice was reduced with sugar and made thicker, more syrupy but stretched over a buttery base of iris. It was smooth, blended, and sweet with golden resin and spiced woods. The woods intensified over the next few hours, until the drydown, which was ambery, lightly musky, and wood.

Longevity

It lasted for eight hours until it was a skin-scent and about 12 hours before it was quite difficult to detect on my skin. The sillage and projection were moderate with the sillage dropping faster than the projection within the first hour of wear.

Testing Methodology

For testing, I used 1/3 of a 0.7ml sample vial dabbed to the underside and topside of my wrist area. I used an unscented moisturizer prior to applying the scent as I found scent did not hold well here otherwise.

I purchased my sample in January 2022; fragrances are known to be reformulated over their lifetime, so be mindful of when a review was made, e.g. a review from 2010 may not reflect what the same-named perfume smells like in 2022.

Availability

Mortal Skin is available for $290/50ml.

If possible, I highly recommend trying a fragrance before purchasing a full bottle because fragrance can wear differently just because of skin chemistry. Skin chemistry can effect not just the longevity of a fragrance but also what notes are prominent or hidden.

Mortal Skin Samples

We recommend the following retailers for purchasing decanted samples (typically 0.7ml to 2ml in size). This is a fuller list, so individual availability may depend on inventory.