parfums*PARFUMS Series 1 Leaves: Calamus (2000)
by Comme des Garçons

Big thumbs up for Calamus! The first time I tasted it it was in 2000 when it was just released and totally got impressed. I got a bottle and used it daily for several monthes. After that I decided to move to other kind of perfumes and so I completely forgot about this frangrance since a couple of monthes ago when a good friend of mine came to visit me and was wearing Calamus. I didn't smell it since years but my reaction was the same I had 10 years ago: love at first sight! This is exactly my type of green scent (together with Victrix by Profumum). A great opening with dry bamboo surrounded by bitter citric notes and vivid green undertones. Very distinctive (it's not easy at all in this kind of scents) and unique but at the same time weightless and easy to wear. Honest and simple yet genuinely fascinating. A favourite!

6th March, 2011. (Last Edited: 28th October, 2011.)

My positive rating is due to the success of the fragrance in fulfilling its mission. This is an quirky unconventional fragrance so may be best judged on its own merit, rather than in comparison to classically-styled fragrances. This is REALISM..the wearer brings his or her own romanticism to the equation. Others have described the green...and the grass...and the leaves. Yes. This thing floats on a field of dewy summer grass. But its main facet, I believe, is the grey-iris core with rain water hitting dusty stones. (flinty-mineral) That's a very fleeting moment in real life and is quietly captured here. It lasts quietly for a few hours on my skin. I find it incredibly evocative.

27th January, 2011.

Bertrand Duchaufour rarely composes a green fragrance, so Calamus is an item of particular interest to me. It comes on as a very bright green scent indeed with tart citric notes and just a hint of camphor. This opening is extremely refreshing - maybe even a bit sharp. The citric note, which I take for the rose hips listed in the pyramid, soon sorts itself out, and the central accord emerges as a brisk, unsweetened green that's simple, clean, and unpretentious. It's also blessedly free of the now commonplace ozone-aquatic notes. Calamus is olfactory minimalism of a high order and offers a pleasant alternative to all the vapid "fresh" scents crowding today's designer fragrance market. Delightful!

5th January, 2010.

First, I have to confess that I'm reviewing this without the slightest idea of what a calamus leaf should smell like. Yeah, I'm that guy...

This is a pleasant and distinctive fragrance that does indeed smell strongly of leaves. They smell like the lightly bruised green leaves of a foliage plant. Not herbal, and not the bright, airy greenness of cut grass. The initial blast is pretty leafy, but it soon settles down to a powdery/milky base with notes of leaves and chocolate. In fact, it smells a lot like I would imagine instant hot cocoa mix would smell if you removed three quarters of the chocolate and added a few crushed leaves. Unusual, enjoyable, and very light.

I applied about 0.5ml from a sample vial, and the scent was only perceptible for about two hours. I'm a few more hours in now and it's all gone except with direct nose-to-skin contact. Even at the beginning sillage is pretty slight.

6th November, 2009.

This one is a nice green, fresh and dry scent, which reminds me of fresh cut grass,
BUT....
only for the first 15 or 30 minutes!

It changes very abrupt to a creamy (milky?), sweet, almost floral middle note.
(Is there a cacao note in it, too?)
I would not go as far as Calta and consider it as puke, but it's definitely no more fresh!
This sweet and creamy (it's subtle not intrusive) note lasts for about 3-4 hours and than fades away....

As a conclusion I would not regard this fragrance as fresh and green, but as sweet and floral.
One of the weeker scent of CdG.

15th July, 2009.

The perfume of the sweet flag grass leaf written about in Walt Witman's Leaves of Grass collections. It is a green floral milky fragrance that would be great if you were surrounded by nature out in the middle of nowhere with just the grass and reeds buzzing in the wind. It's a nice smell.

13rd June, 2009.