Malmaison (1830)
by Floris

To my nose, the use of cloves in Malmaison make it one-dimensional, linear, and causes cloves overload. It’s an even sharper cloves note than I’ve seen in other fragrances with the same problem — Geo Trumpers’ Bay Rum, for instance. The clove gets its extra sharpness, I believe, from its combination with the cinnamon and pepper. Maybe even the carnations add their spiciness to the accord, too. At any rate, Malmaison presents only this spicy cloves accord to my nose. It’s much too strong… and for me it takes over sixty minutes for the intensity of the cloves to ameliorate enough for me to tolerate. It becomes a skin scent at the end — a nice scent but very close to the skin. To recap: linear, one-dimensional, and cloves / cinnamon spice bomb. Then it morphs into a skin scent. If you like the smell of cloves, you’ll probably like this.

Malmaison is one of my favourite fragrance ! But.. I'm not a woman. The very spicy clove note makes it a very unclassic masculine scent. Floris does not present Malmaison as a fragrance for woman.

Perhaps it's the black tea, perhaps it's the heavy-duty clove, but this is one of the few carnation scents I find bitter (not sweet on me) and unwearable. I swapped it away.

It does smell lovely if you have the right chemistry. I think of it as a more masculine than feminine scent.

Yes clove overwhelms carnation in Malmaison and it's frustrating.

Today I tested it alongside Villoresi garafao and Santa Maria Novella carnations and noticed that it (Malmaison) definitely also has unmistakeable notes of black tea. It's very very sweet.

SMN is wonderfully pure going on but is gone within an hour of application. If it could have kept the opening up I would have, well, swapped for it by now actually!

Of these three the Villoresi is surely the victor for me. Supposedly clove is not one of the notes but definitely it seems to be a take on the classic clove 'n' carnation combo. And it's the longest lasting of the 3 as well.

Actual rating 2-1/2 stars. Malmaison was suggested to me on the MUA Perfume board when I was looking for Carnation based scents. I really wanted to love this one. On my skin Malmaison is a mishmash of notes where the cinnamony cloves overwhelm the beautiful soft carnation base. After 30 minutes the clove does soften, but not nearly enough to appreciate the carnation. On the plus side, if you enjoy Malmaison it is very long lasting.