parfums*PARFUMS Series 3 Incense: Jaisalmer (2002)
by Comme des Garçons

Comme des Garçons’ Jaisalmer opens on a balsamic-astringent accord that smells a lot like liniment. A dark, smoky frankincense note emerges quickly underneath, but its stony demeanor is tempered by sweet spices. The warm spice and camphoraceous liniment volley back and forth over Jaisalmer’s heart and so manage to keep the nose engaged through their constant, balanced activity.

With all this talk of liniment, I can’t help but mention Heeley’s recent Spirit of the Tiger, which plays the liniment-and-incense game in a more literal manner. So much so that it winds up smelling all too much like Tiger Balm. Now while there’s nothing wrong with the smell of Tiger Balm, why spend $150 US on a bottle of niche perfume when you can get the real thing for three dollars at your local drugstore? Jaisalmer doesn’t fall into this literalist trap, and its more subtle take on camphor, balsam, and frankincense winds up making it at once a more wearable and a more interesting fragrance.

While Jaisalmer is easily the most medicinal scent in the Comme des Garçons incense series, it is also (along with Ouarzazate,) one of the sweetest, and hence most approachable. It’s stimulating, yet also comfortable, with very little of the forbidding austerity that turns some people away from Avignon or Kyoto. A nice introduction to this line, or to incense fragrances in general.

Minty incense? That's what I get. Smokey and cool. Fresh and woody. Not bad.

Pimento berries, cardamom, cinnamon, incense, guiac wood, ebony, amber, benzoin
This surprised me. My preconception is that it would be quite spicy. It is not. Rather, it is a green scent in the sappy/medicinal style. It has a slightly sweet opening, but in no sense is this cloying. There are peppery notes and very good cedar wood notes that are like a sweet, aromatic cedar chest rather than pencil shavings. The amber is very restrained, and the benzoin gives intensity to the overall fragrance. I think this is quite distinctive.

There are clearly people here with more advanced noses than mine, but I would like to add that the cedar smell in this is definitely smokey and burnt (in a good way) - it's not cedar chips in a closet, it's cedar chips smoking in a barbeque.

I bought this at the same time as the Commes Des Garcons Series 8 Lime, because, contrary to common sense, they smell amazing layered together. Honestly, I can't imagine wearing this by itself, but it works really well adding a smoky, woodsy layer to an amazing array of sweeter scents that I have. Try it with rose scents (I like Le Labo's Rose 31). I also use it to tone down Jo Malone's Pomegranite Noir and make it more masculine.

It was totally worth buying the whole bottle, and I find this to be one of my go-to scents.

A freshly sharpened pink pencil.

This is a wonderful wood fragrance. Yes there is some incense, but it's not as important to Jaisalmer than it is to the other frags in this series. This is really a nice spicy cedar fragrance. It's thumbs way up for Jaisalmer, although it would be improved if there was a bit more incense. Layering this with Kyoto is very, very nice.