Reviews of Navegar (1998)
by L'Artisan Parfumeur

My experience of the L'Artisan Parfumeur line is sharply divided. There are some I adore (Fou d'Absinthe, Tea for Two, Méchant Loup, Dzongkha); some I detest (Timbuktu, Bois Farine, Piment Brûlant, Fleur de Narcissus); some that disappear so quickly that I can't tell what I think (Dzing!, Passage d'Enfer); and several that just bore me (L'Eau d'Ambre, Ambre Extreme, Safran Troublant, Anans Fizz). To the last group I now add Navegar. On my skin Navegar starts out as a standard issue aquatic, with quiet cucumber-melon overtones and just a hint of floral sweetness in the background. Cedar, and then vanilla enter the mix within a few minutes, and there the fragrance stays for an hour or so, before exiting on a flimsy cedar raft. It's pleasant, it's inoffensive, but it's nothing I can get myself worked up about.

The opening was above average - an arid yet slightly tropical pepper and cucumber (the latter of which must represent some sort of sleight of hand judging by the listed notes) layered over cedar. Visions of walking the plank somewhere out in the Carribean with Blackbeard's cutlass gouged into your back spring to mind.

But, just when I was getting interested - POOF! - it was gone. We're talking within the first 90 minutes. I mean, they should call this juice Blackbeard's Ghost, it's so fleeting. I must note that I applied it rather generously from an open-ended sample vial; perhaps dowsing myself using an atomizer would have produced better results, but who's going to pay L'Artisan prices for that?

In summary, the opening (which is really all there is) is okay, but the longevity is absolutely criminal. Spend your well-earned bread elsewhere.

Edit 24 July 2009

I like this even less now that I've tried it during the summer months. Not only is the longevity subpar, but I find the lack of projection off the skin incredibly disappointing as well. I just don't understand the purpose of this fragrance. Utterly forgettable - another half-used vial for my brother.

I find this fragrance to be rather refreshing. I bought a full bottle and didn't regret the choice. To me, the subtlety is charming. It's a lush aquatic with the characteristic spicy pepper notes. I think it works all year round, but I will admit that it has a distinctively fall-like character to it. Almost like the smell of a November rain. The sillage is weak, and the lasting power is rather pathetic, but I don't think that's all there is to this fragrance. For some people, the fragrance is meant to be enjoyed by the wearer, and not everyone within a 10 foot radius. That's the way I feel about this one. I don't care if other people can smell it. I have a personal relationship with this one. I wear it when I want something cooling and calming. I don't think it's half bad at all, honestly.

Completely useless fragrance with boringly shy character. Lime note comes out quite nicely but then if I want lime there are much more delicious options available.

Navegar is one of those “little bit of this little bit of that” scents which leaves no impression of whatsoever.

Slightly citrusy fresh, slightly spicy, slightly woody. Weak with minimal sillage. Nothing to get hold of.


For Navegar I have a big fat yawn and thanks for the waste of time.


Stupendously tiring niche fragrance.

Slightly aquatic on application, this fragrance quickly becomes dry and peppery. It is a staid, serious scent- evoking black tea, an old suit, the office of some high offical. Thankfully it eventually lets down its guard, and a sweet menthol (anise?) eases its way in. At this point the fragrance smells wonderful, the scent of a barbershop where men are being shaved. Finally, a gentle, not-too-spicy incense changes places with the pepper, and quietly fades away.

A wonderful, mature scent which stays close to the skin.

The pyramid lists incense, but it should more accurately list Frankincense to avoid any confusion.
The base smells of very high quality lemony frankincense tears with cedar in the back.
Spices never take away from the freshness that Navegar has from start to finish.
I've seen this listed as green and grassy, and I disagree.
It starts off with cucumber, black pepper and citrus, this works somehow.
The aquatic/cucmber note lasts well into it's development, when it becomes more herbal and drier, but still fresh and clean.
Finally it becomes dominated by a very pale and fresh frankincense, that others may have confused with juniper/lime, as the best frankincense can do.
A very different "Fresh" scent.

This is a lovely fragrance - like an evergreen wood next to the sea. The sillage is not great but that is not a big problem to me, so long as I can still smell it then I'm happy. A good fragrance to wear on a warm day.

Peppery cucumber with a waft of ocean breeze. After it dries down it softens to a very soft woodsy and salty scent, like the wood from an old rowboat that has become waterlogged and is sitting in the sun. The spices show up a little later, stay subtle, and add warmth. I agree with others--Navegar does stay very close to the skin, but that's just fine with me, since I work in the medical profession and need to be very sensitive to that aspect of fragrance! Really, this has become one of my favorite L'Artisans. FBW!

This is unbelievable -- firstly an aquatic + spicy burst (no joke) which quickly changes into a cedary/incensey aroma. Errr, then it's Mechant Loup for a while and then it just bounces all over the place with ginger, star anise popping in and out amongst the deep nuttiness. A liberal spray produces good longevity and sillage on me. This is a very mood driven fragrance I think, but astonishingly brilliant. Becoming hard to find outside L'Artisan stores, but needs to be hunted down for sure.

Kaern

Peppered licorice wood. Very cooling yet spicy. Unique and distinct. A good one.

Navegar opens for me with a huge blast of cucumber. After a minute or so, it falls to the background along with some wood and lime takes center stage. It's a great smelling lime, pure, crisp and refreshing. As time goes on, the lime becomes a little less pronounced and the fragrance gets a little more spicy. Quite a nice scent overall, it strikes me like it would be best worn in the spring/summer. Unfortunately, Navegar suffers from some serious sillage and longevity issues. As others have noted, the scent stays close to the skin, and not for very long I might add. I get about 3 hours out of it, which is much too short for a scent this pricy. It's a pity, because when you can detect this, it's a real winner.

The noticeable opening of Navegar is the pepper. A couple kinds of pepper fill the nostrils followed by ginger, star anise, cedar and juniper, The mix of spice and woods smells oddly of filbert nuts. The warm nutty spice scent has a slight green base from lime/juniper. This is a great everyday fragrance that has a warm and spicey smile opening + the aura cleansing aspects of juniper oil in the base. One of the best all around daily wear fragrances I have found.

Olivia Giacobetti is the nose behind this fragrance.
Notes: Lime, Pepper, Ginger, Star Anise, Cedar
A fresh, slightly chypré scent with a simple opening and a smooth drydown. The notes remain throughout in harmony; though the combination of notes gives a feeling of complexity,the scent is essentially linear, with even the lime note persisting into the drydown. Essentially close to the skin, the sillage diminishes fairly quickly,but the impression reemerges with moderate exertion. Simple, elegant, fresh; this is a great scent for work.

Foetidus really nailed it -- this is Bois Farine's older brother. I suppose one could add "seafaring" in that description, but the "aquatic" nature of Navegar is truly debatable. There is a green cucumber note here, yes, as well a pepper note for a little "punch." Still, it's all layered over that funny peanut note (what IS that?), with more greens and leather below. Either my nose is terribly unrefined and/or this one's a helluva chameleon.

A big thumbs up for complexity (enigma, even), but longevity COULD be better. Low sillage, IMHO -- this one sits very close to the skin. That's OK, though -- I think that this is a frag best enjoyed in solitude.

I don't know what everyone else is getting out of this that I'm not. It smells well made - everything by L'Artisan does - but I don't like the notes. I can't detect any rum or lime. If they're in there, they're dominated by this vegetal note that's an unpleasant cross between wheat grass and celery salt. Regardless, this doesn't last long.

Cool, like seaspray! Notes of ginger, rum and lime open this refresher. Almost immediately, heart notes of incense and star anise burst forth. I personally LOVE anise notes in perfumes and this one reminds me of Guerlain's Aqua Allegoria Anisia Bella, only Navegar's anise is a bit more tempered. Quietly, the incense/spice mellow. Cedarwood and Juniper anchor Navegar's cool freshness. For me, the cedarwood does'nt come off warm at all, in fact, it smells as if a saw has just ripped through a cedar timber - kind of moist. It's the incense that carries a certain dry aspect. What a fabulous balancing act! My only complaint - yep, you guessed it - poor to moderate longevity/sillage. It's not the most fleeting L'artisan I've come across, but it is extremely light. Overall, I have to give this treasure a thumbs up!

Like most l'artisan, I love it but agree with robyogi that it is really short-lived on me. It is warm, fresh, and peppery while it is there, but after about an hour it completely disappears on my skin (as opposed to other l'artisan's like Tea for Two, which seems to stay on me forever). NEvertheless, it is still worth a try.

I’m impressed. By the fragrance and by the reviews here. The first time I tested this, I agreed with the reviews that said it is light, fresh, green, sea accords with great longevity. A week later when I re-tested it, it was like I was experiencing a completely different fragrance. This time it was Bois Farine’s ‘darker brother’ with no longevity. From Bois Farine, I get raw peanut butter cookie dough, and this second time with Navegar, I got baked peanut butter cookies, i.e., Bois Farine’s older brother. And when the woods popped up, it WAS like opening ‘an antique chest in some forgotten attic.’ Through subsequent wearings, I have gotten a strong black pepper note, definite tobacco, leather, more light green, some oceanic, some incense, strong wonderful woods, and a partridge in a pear tree. It IS an intelligent and intriguing fragrance—it IS ‘poetic and imagistic’. It is one that I certainly will not easily tire of.

I really love this scent. Cedary with spicies and green notes. Its very light and can be used anytime, but is better in the summer. It last a long time on me (thankfully!) and I wear this one a lot.

wow, I was suprised how such a light fragrance can smell soo good (Im not much of a light scent person ie burberry touch or T Mugler cologne)

But this one has some earthy cedary (a word?) notes that I love can't put my finger on the notes though....smelss aquatic at first but quickly dries to earthy, dirt like tones that are awesome!

I find this one to be wholy misnamed, and it’s a shame, as its appellation will make many a sniffer who is bored to death by the “me-too aquatics” pass right by this gem. Navegar is, in fact, completely landlocked. I sense nothing aquatic or blue or oceanic in it whatsoever. Quite to the contrary, it is an earthy green pleasure. In classic L’Artisan fashion, Navegar is poetic and imagistic: the topnotes are grassy like lawn-clippings on a humid August day, while the basenotes are composed of the lightest woods imaginable, evoking with uncanny precision mulch drying in the sun after a downpour. In between you have some just-rinsed-vegetable notes and some fresh pepper. The scent’s humidity is not, however, a static hanging swamp, rather it is breezey, brisk and very clean. It reminds me of taking a break from yardwork in the shade of a leafy green tree during one of those sudden summer deluges. Its changing nature is duly noted too, as other times it strikes me as (paradoxically) very very dry, like standing inside an old wooden barn in the sun.

Navegar is almost preternaturally organic-smelling, and my nose has never actually corroborated a niche house’s claim to use “all natural ingredients” before smelling Navegar. Very rustic, very outdoorsy. Being from Boston, this smells to me like New Hampshire. If you are from NYC, it’d smell like Upstate. It’s the earthiest vetiver-less scent I know of and an absolute knock-out choice for summertime. Gorgeous like a rainbow after a rainstorm.

Navegar is a future full bottle purchase for me. I love it's freshness and it's depth. It's a perfect ocean fragrance that captures many moods of water, and earthy notes of plants surrounding water. I love this on my husband, as well, and he, for once, enjoys a fragrance. This is the only fragrance he's asked me to purchase for him!

This is another scent I bought blind based on the rave reviews. I find this one to be thin and weak on me. And unfortunately, unlike some other reviewers, I get exactly the same scent every time I wear it. It smells like I opened a cedar chest and found a stale spice sack inside. It's also very short-lived on me - a few hours at most before it's just a whisper on my skin.

Navegar is one of the most surprising fragrances I own. It's like having several completely different colognes in one and the same bottle. One day it's a deep, green, cool and long-lasting scent with a dominant citrusy, leafy note. The other day it's a semi-gourmand, ginger-anise dominated scent, like a mysterious, darker brother of Bois Farine yet with a longevity near zero. I can't explain these changes of character and staying power - does it depend from weather, body chemistry, or whatever? But every facet Navegar has revealed so far was a very pleasant one - this is one of my favourite L'Artisan's.

I'm having a hard time with this one - I usually get a whiff of lime and then it's all cedar and pepper. Thankfully, I don't get the anise. Some days it's soothing and masculine, other days it disappears in moments. The verdict is still out - waiting for summer with this one.

Not a personal favourite - but great craft nevertheless. Truly very green, has almost a vegetable feeling to it. Maybe I should rephrase that on second thought, vegetal is probaly more correct. Dry and green, and unlike Zhoya it lasts all day on my skin.

It is like opening an antique chest in some forgotten attic. The chest itself is empty. It bears only the memories of the treasures it once contained: a fragrant space filled with the imprint of the exotic spices which once lay within it, mingled with the smell of precious woods of which the chest itself is made. Like so many of the creations of L'Artisan Parfumeur, the finest quality meets the purest poetry.

Navegar-- bay rum, planter's punch, pipe tobacco, old leather; what's not to like here? Deliciously different, hard to find, uniquely intelligent. Carry a refresher if you like intensity-- it fades fairly quickly.

A very pleasant surprise. Navegar is to my tastes the best L'Artisan that I have tried. Similar in some ways to CK Truth (or vice-versa) but less in-your-face - a sophisticated take on "green".