Les Belles de Ricci: Amour D'Amandier (1999)

Les Belles de Ricci Amour d’Amandier by Nina Ricci was launched in April 1999 as one of three youthful Eau de Toilettes in the renewed Les Belles de Ricci collection. Intended for girls and young women of roughly fifteen to twenty, it represented the tender, romantic side of the trio: Liberté Acidulée was the lively, tangy green scent; Délice d’Épices the warm, adventurous spice fragrance; and Amour d’Amandier the soft, sweetly affectionate “romantic blue” expression. In Japan it was marketed as Almond of Love, while African advertising used the more immediately descriptive Almond Blossom.

The name Amour d’Amandier is French. Literally, it means “love of the almond tree,” though its intended poetic sense is closer to “almond-tree love” or “the romance of almond blossom.” It is pronounced approximately, “ah-MOOR dah-mahn-DYAY.” Amour gives the name its emotional heart—love, tenderness, first romance, and affectionate longing—while amandier, meaning almond tree, brings the image of a tree in early flower. The phrase does not suggest an imposing or dramatic love affair; it evokes a shy, soft, springtime kind of romance, as delicate as pale blossoms against a clear blue sky.

Parfums Nina Ricci chose the name because it perfectly suited the house’s message of youthful feeling. The Les Belles de Ricci advertising presented adolescence and early womanhood as a time of shifting emotions: tenderness, impatience, playfulness, uncertainty, confidence, and passion. Amour d’Amandier gives that emotional world a gentler, more romantic form. It suggests a girl who is sentimental without being old-fashioned, dreamy without being passive, and beginning to discover both her own desires and the excitement of being desired. It was a perfume name that could feel intimate and feminine while remaining innocent, cheerful, and approachable.

The name evokes almond trees in blossom, their pale pink-white flowers appearing at the first promise of spring; sugared almonds at a celebration; a blue ribbon; a handwritten note; soft sweaters; and the happy flutter of a first crush. Its emotions are tender and lightly nostalgic, but never melancholy. The blue bottle reinforced this idea of “romantic blue”—a cool, dreamy color that tempered the warmth of vanilla, musk, and sweet almond-like notes. Where the original Les Belles de Ricci had been vivid, green, and tomato-bright, Amour d’Amandier recast the line’s youthful spontaneity in softer, more caressing colors.

Its 1999 launch came at the close of the 1990s, during the turn-of-the-millennium period often associated with Y2K optimism, pop culture exuberance, and a growing teen market in fashion, music, beauty, and fragrance. Style mixed minimalism with girlish playfulness: slip dresses, baby tees, denim, platform shoes, pastel colors, shiny fabrics, and candy-toned accessories appeared alongside the sleek, futuristic surfaces of the new millennium. Teen pop was ascendant, while beauty advertising increasingly treated young women as individuals with changing moods rather than as miniature versions of older, more formal consumers.

Perfumery was undergoing a related shift. The watery, transparent, citrusy, and green fragrances that had defined much of the early and middle 1990s remained fashionable, but sweetness was beginning to take a more prominent role. The success of Thierry Mugler’s Angel in the 1990s had opened the door to modern gourmand perfumery: fragrances that evoked edible pleasures such as vanilla, caramel, chocolate, fruit, sugar, and confectionery. The later 1990s therefore saw an increasing appetite for scents that were comforting, playful, and delicious as well as floral.

Amour d’Amandier belonged squarely to this emerging gourmand current, but expressed it in a much gentler and more youthful way than the dramatic, darkly patchouli-laden Angel. Its advertised blend of almond-tree blossom, kiwi, heliotrope, icing sugar, vanilla, sandalwood, and musk suggested a soft floral confection rather than a rich dessert. Almond and heliotrope together imply the powdery, marzipan-like warmth of almond pastries; icing sugar adds a sparkling sweetness; vanilla gives creamy comfort; and musk and sandalwood keep the fragrance skin-soft and wearable. Kiwi brought a fashionable 1990s fruit brightness, ensuring that the composition remained fresh enough for an Eau de Toilette and for the line’s young audience.

For women and girls of 1999, a perfume called Amour d’Amandier could have felt like a scent for a particular mood: the moment one wanted to be tender, feminine, and a little dreamy. It was neither a conventional grand floral nor a severe, adult perfume. Instead, it promised an affectionate veil of blossoms, powder, fruit, and sweetness—romance expressed with a light hand. In the Les Belles de Ricci collection, it was the gentlest of the three personalities: youthful love made fragrant through the fantasy of an almond tree in bloom.

Fragrance Composition:

So what does it smell like? Amour D'Amandier is classified as a floral fruity gourmand fragrance for women, based on the original 'Les Belles de Ricci' but with strong almond and vanilla notes.  

• Top notes: mandarin, lemon, kiwi, peach, almond and almond tree blossom
• Middle notes: icing sugar, marzipan and heliotrope
• Base notes: vanilla, white musk and sandalwood

  

 

Scent Profile:

Amour d’Amandier takes the lively, youthful spirit of the original Les Belles de Ricci and turns it toward a softer, sweeter, more confectionary mood. Its opening is bright with mandarin and lemon: mandarin gives the juicy, easy sweetness of a freshly peeled citrus, with its sunny peel and faint floral softness, while lemon brings a clearer, more sparkling tartness. Together they prevent the fragrance’s almond-and-vanilla theme from becoming heavy, creating the sensation of sugared fruit served in a spring garden.

Kiwi contributes a cool, tangy green-fruit effect, somewhere between melon, gooseberry, and freshly cut tropical fruit. Its recognizable scent is not obtained from a conventional kiwi essential oil; it must be created as an accord, using carefully balanced fruity, green, watery, and lightly floral aroma materials. These synthetic facets are what give kiwi its fresh, juicy radiance in perfume, allowing it to feel crisp and modern rather than cooked or candy-like. Peach adds a velvety, sun-warmed softness, recalling fuzzy skin, pale golden flesh, and gently sweet juice. Natural peach essence is not a practical perfumery material, so the note is typically formed with fruity lactones and related aroma chemicals. Their creamy, skin-like quality makes the peach feel plush and tender, a graceful bridge between the bright citrus opening and the powdery gourmand heart.

Almond appears as the fragrance’s central fantasy. In perfume, an almond effect can be inspired by the bittersweet scent associated with bitter-almond materials, yet it is most often constructed rather than relying on a literal almond extract. Benzaldehyde-like facets give the characteristic almond-cherry-marzipan smell, while softer powdery and vanilla-like materials round its edges. The almond-tree blossom adds a more delicate, floral interpretation: pale petals, a touch of honeyed pollen, and the sweet promise of the nut to come. Almond blossom is not usually available as a simple distilled essential oil, so its scent is recreated through a floral-almond accord. This allows Amour d’Amandier to smell not merely like a sweet almond confection, but like an almond orchard in flower.

The heart becomes almost edible. Icing sugar gives a fine, crystalline sweetness, like a dusting of sugar over warm pastry or fruit. It is an abstract perfume effect rather than a natural extract: airy vanilla, powdery musks, and delicate caramelized or cottony aroma materials can create the illusion of sweetness without the literal weight of syrup. Marzipan deepens the almond theme, bringing the soft, pliable, slightly rosy aroma of ground almonds worked with sugar. It has a richer, more rounded character than the opening almond, suggesting little sugared fruits and festive almond cakes rather than a bare nut.

Heliotrope gives the gourmand heart its powdery floral soul. Its odor is one of the most comforting in perfumery: almond-like, faintly cherry-toned, softly floral, and reminiscent of face powder, warm pastry, and vanilla custard. Heliotrope flowers do not yield a widely used natural essence with this familiar perfume character, so the note is usually built around heliotropin, also known as piperonal, along with floral and powdery materials. Heliotropin provides the distinctive creamy almond-powder effect, enhancing the almond and marzipan notes until they feel gently enveloping rather than simply sweet.

Vanilla forms the warm, lingering base. Natural vanilla absolute, obtained from cured vanilla pods, can give a dark, rich scent of balsam, dried fruit, rum-like warmth, and softly leathery sweetness. Yet the clear, comforting vanilla impression most people recognize in fragrance is often reinforced with vanillin and related aroma chemicals. These materials lend brightness, consistency, and diffusion, allowing vanilla to glow through the composition without overwhelming the more delicate fruit and floral notes. Here, vanilla makes the perfume feel like skin warmed by a soft cashmere sweater, sweet but not oppressive.

White musk adds a clean, silky veil beneath the vanilla. Unlike the animal musk historically used in perfumery, modern white musks are synthetic aroma materials. They were developed both for ethical reasons and for their exceptionally smooth, clean, skin-like character. Depending on the musk family used, they can suggest fresh laundry, warm skin, soft powder, or a gentle, almost creamy haze. In Amour d’Amandier, white musk keeps the gourmand notes airy and intimate, making the sweet almond-and-vanilla accord feel like a personal scent rather than a dense dessert.

Sandalwood completes the base with a quiet, creamy woodiness. True sandalwood oil has a naturally smooth, milky, gently spicy aroma, with a warm, almost rose-like softness that blends beautifully with vanilla and musk. In modern perfumery, natural sandalwood may be supplemented with sandalwood aroma molecules, which preserve its creamy, radiant effect and help the note last. Its presence gives the fragrance structure and polish: beneath the citrus, kiwi, peach, almond blossom, marzipan, heliotrope, sugar, and vanilla lies a pale, velvety wood foundation.

The overall effect is a youthful gourmand floral rather than a heavy dessert perfume: sparkling fruit at the opening, an almond orchard and sugared marzipan heart, and a soft trail of vanilla, white musk, and sandalwood. Its constructed kiwi, peach, almond-blossom, icing-sugar, marzipan, and heliotrope effects are essential to its charm, lending a vivid and lasting imagination to ingredients whose true scent cannot simply be bottled.

 

Bottles:

Amour d’Amandier was housed in the same exuberant spiral form used for the Les Belles de Ricci collection, but translated into its own “romantic blue” color story. The bottle is a plump, curling coil of blue lacquered glass, its rounded silhouette resembling a coiled serpent, a ribbon caught in motion, or a generous swirl of ice cream. Designed by Elisabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti, it rejects conventional perfume-bottle formality in favor of fantasy, humor, and touchable sculptural charm. Its lively shape perfectly suits the collection’s idea of fragrance as emotion: not a rigid symbol of adulthood, but an object of play, mood, and imagination.

The blue body gives Amour d’Amandier a softer, dreamier identity than its green and orange sister scents. It suggests a clear spring sky above almond trees in bloom, a ribbon around a small gift, or the cool blue of romantic daydreams. The lacquered glass makes the color feel rich and tactile rather than merely transparent. Its velvety, smooth finish turns the flacon into something almost sensuous in the hand: rounded, glossy-soft, and inviting to hold, just as the press material encouraged—an object meant to be handled and enjoyed rather than admired at a distance.

Crowning the spiral is a five-petalled flower stopper in metallic anise green, arranged around a small central pistil. The cool, tart green of the cap provides a vivid, playful contrast to the romantic blue bottle, like a fresh leaf set against a blue sky or the first green shoots beneath flowering almond branches. Its metallic sheen gives it the festive sparkle of a small ornament, while the flower form echoes the almond blossom suggested by the fragrance’s name. Together, the blue coil and green flower make Amour d’Amandier feel like a cheerful fantasy garden object—sweet, youthful, slightly surreal, and entirely in keeping with the joyful spirit of Les Belles de Ricci.

The clear colored bottles came out in 2005 and replaced the lacquered bottles.

Fate of the Fragrance:

Discontinued, date unknown, probably by 2010.