The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Jousset Parfums has built its identity on the audacious claim that fragrance should taste like something. Jimmy Bodin, the house perfumer, has a background in confectionery, and it shows. Sooo Exquis is the logical result of a mind that thinks in pastry: what happens when you translate the smell of a maple breakfast into something you wear? The answer is this. A baked pear opening that hits immediately sweet, backed by brown sugar and a lemon cake brightness that keeps things from getting heavy too fast. It's dessert logic applied to perfume, and the 2024 launch makes it one of the house's most recent statements about what ultra-gourmand actually means. This isn't a quiet fragrance. It wants to be noticed, the way a really good breakfast smell fills a kitchen before anyone's even sat down.
The pyramid does something clever: brown sugar appears in the top, the heart, and the base. That's not a mistake, it's the connective thread. Each layer transforms what came before. At the opening, brown sugar reads sharp and bright against the baked pear. In the heart, it softens alongside the meringue, becoming something creamier, more diffuse. By the drydown, it settles into the warmth of tonka bean and the cool mineral clean of ambroxan. The maple syrup note carries the weight here. It's the Canadian touchstone that the community called out directly, and it's rare enough in French perfumery to feel specific rather than generic. Most gourmand fragrances lean on vanilla or caramel. Maple is a statement.
The evolution
The opening hits fast. Baked pear and brown sugar arrive together, sweet and warm, with a lemon cake brightness that cuts through before you can get bored. The lemon doesn't linger, it's gone within the first few minutes, leaving room for the brown sugar to deepen. Then the heart takes over. Meringue softens everything. The sweetness becomes creamier, less immediate, less shout, more hum. This is the longest phase, the one that fills the room without trying. The base is where it gets interesting. Ambroxan adds something clean, almost ozonic, beneath the maple syrup and tonka bean. It's the cool note that keeps the sweetness from getting heavy. The drydown stays close to the skin but lingers for hours, a quiet warmth that someone standing next to you will notice before you tell them what it is.
Cultural impact
Sooo Exquis arrived in 2024 as part of Jousset's ongoing argument that gourmand notes don't need to be subtle. The maple syrup note has drawn particular attention, it's specific enough to polarize, which is exactly the point. Jousset has built a reputation since 2020 on bold, unapologetic sweetness, and this fragrance continues that trajectory. The strong projection makes it a statement choice in a market that often rewards restraint. Wearers who connect with it tend to connect hard.
