Nuit de Bakélite

History

Nuit de Bakélite was released in late July 2017 by Naomi Goodsir, the niche perfume house founded in 2012 by the Australian milliner of the same name, who trained in Sydney (Australia) before splitting her practice between Sydney and Paris (France). The fragrance launch was staged at Pitti Fragranze in Florence (Italy) on September 8, 2017, with an installation titled Insomnia designed around the perfume's nocturnal, lacquered atmosphere (Naomi Goodsir blog, Fragrantica news, accessed 2026-05-25).

The composition is signed by Isabelle Doyen, the French perfumer historically attached to the house of Annick Goutal, where she contributed to several recognized releases including Songes (2006) and Encens Flamboyant (2007). Nuit de Bakélite marked her first collaboration with Naomi Goodsir and stands as one of the rare contemporary niche compositions to bridge the Goutal lineage with the materials-led aesthetic of the Australian-French house (Fragrantica designer page, ÇaFleureBon profile, accessed 2026-05-25).

The narrative inspiration is both material and cultural. The name Nuit de Bakélite refers to bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic invented in 1907 by the Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland and widely used in Art Deco design through the 1920s and 1930s. The composition translates the dark, lacquered surface of that material into an olfactive register, with the radical green tuberose standing in for the rigid geometry of Art Deco objects and the leathery base for their patinated depth (Naomi Goodsir official product page, Now Smell This review, accessed 2026-05-25).

Critical reception in the niche community was immediate and lasting. Reviewers on Now Smell This, Kafkaesque, ÇaFleureBon and Fragrantica positioned Nuit de Bakélite as one of the defining green tuberose compositions of the late 2010s. The perfume was selected by the French journalists of Nez la Revue among the 111 perfumes to smell before dying and listed by Auparfum among the top niche releases of the 2010 to 2020 decade. It remains available in 2026 in its original formulation through Naomi Goodsir's selective distribution.

Olfactive pyramid

The architecture of Nuit de Bakélite is green, vegetal and dark. Isabelle Doyen builds the composition around the small peduncle that connects the tuberose flower to its stem, treating the tuberose as a living plant rather than as the carnal flower of perfumery tradition. Notes documented on the Naomi Goodsir official site and confirmed on Fragrantica, Parfumo and Basenotes.

Evolution on skin is progressive and radical. The opening reads as pure cut stems: vegetal, wet, sharp, almost acidic. The heart drifts into a tuberose treated with surgical restraint, lifted by ylang-ylang and grounded by orris, carrot seeds and karo karounde. The base extends eight to ten hours on skin, with leather and styrax driving a dark, gothic drydown that reviewers consistently single out as the perfume's most polarizing signature.

Composition

The technical signature of Nuit de Bakélite rests on a single decision: read the tuberose as a stem rather than as a flower. Isabelle Doyen reverses the codes that govern most niche tuberoses, where the bloom is amplified through indolic, creamy or coconut accents. Here, the galbanum overture, the tomato leaf and the violet leaf foreground the latex sound of broken stalks. The tuberose absolute that follows is restrained, almost austere, and reads as the wild Persian tuberose evoked by the house's own copy rather than the sun-warmed flower of classical perfumery (Fragrantica notes pyramid, Naomi Goodsir official site, accessed 2026-05-25).

The aromatic heart is built on materials that prolong the green register without sweetening it. Carrot seeds add an earthy depth that anchors the floral core. Karo karounde, a tropical floral note rarely used in mainstream perfumery, contributes a metallic indolic edge. Cardamom and ylang-ylang lift the heart without tipping the composition into the gourmand or solar register. Orris reinforces the powdery, almost cold reading of the tuberose. The result is a floral core that refuses the comfort codes of the family.

The gothic drydown stacks leather, styrax, tobacco, artemisia, guaiac wood and labdanum. The leather is prominent and provides serious heft, which makes Nuit de Bakélite a stark counterpoint to the bubble-gummy tuberoses of mainstream perfumery: a studious, dark, gothic tuberose, in the words of one widely circulated review. Styrax and labdanum contribute a balsamic, lacquered quality that reads as the namesake bakelite surface. The composition deliberately avoids vanilla, benzoin, white musk and the rounded sweet materials that anchor most contemporary feminines (Kafkaesque review, Now Smell This review, accessed 2026-05-25).

Halfway from Annick Goutal to Comme des Garçons, a tuberose treated like a living plant: vegetal, wet, sharp, gothic in its drydown.

Key characteristics

Cultural legacy

Nuit de Bakélite consolidated Naomi Goodsir's standing on the international map of independent niche perfumery and contributed to the broader rehabilitation of green floral compositions in the late 2010s. The French journalists of Nez la Revue selected it among the 111 perfumes to smell before dying, in a corpus that spans 130 years from Jicky (1889) to Nuit de Bakélite (2017). Auparfum listed it among the top niche releases of the 2010 to 2020 decade, drawn from a field of almost 20,000 launches (Nez la Revue, Auparfum, accessed 2026-05-25).

The composition's narrative precision contributed to its critical standing. Where many tuberose niche releases of the period sought to extend the Carnal Flower or Fracas lineage, Nuit de Bakélite names a specific reference object (Art Deco bakelite) and a specific botanical reading (the tuberose as a wild plant) that together gave reviewers a clear vocabulary for discussing the perfume. That narrative specificity, paired with the legibility of its leather and styrax base, made the release a frequent reference in fragrance criticism whenever the green tuberose category was discussed.

The Naomi Goodsir house has continued to release perfumes in the same materials-led tradition since 2017, while Nuit de Bakélite remains the most cited Goodsir composition in international niche literature alongside Bois d'Ascèse. The pairing of Isabelle Doyen's Goutal-trained sensibility with the house's Australian-French artisanal aesthetic remains a singular bridge in the contemporary niche landscape (Bois de Jasmin reviews, Persolaise reviews, accessed 2026-05-25).

Frequently asked questions

See also