Comme des Garçons 3 (2002)
by Comme des Garçons

Another pleasant, green and clean scent from Comme des Garçons, which (like all their other scents of this ilk) smells somewhat synthetic and lacks any real presence.

I’m still looking for a Comme des Garçons scent that I can truly fall in love with…

[Original submission date: 04 January 2007]

Hmm. Comme des Garçons 3 smells a lot simpler than all those notes in the pyramid suggest. It goes on with some odd sour candy-style fake fruit, acerbic green notes and one small sweaty sock. It's an aggressively harsh, synthetic opening, but purposefully so: an olfactory challenge rather than an accidental miscarriage. Come to think of it, #3 has the kind of off-kilter, confrontational opening that's often ascribed to Caron's much less iconoclastic L'Anarchiste. I kind of like it - too bad that what follows is a lot less interesting.

The Jolly Rancher top notes bow out once their shock value is exhausted, and their place is taken by a more conventional citrus note. The dirty sock meanwhile softens and blends into a well-worn shoe leather and cedar background. The tart citrus plays against the leather and woods not so much in harmony as in olfactory polytonality, or maybe an oxymoron in scent.

The effect is terribly clever, if also a bit self-conscious and stagey. Comme des Garçons 3 goes on this way for an hour or two, until the citrus quits and leaves the drydown to some cedar and animalic leather. In the end it strikes me as mildly absurd, like a self-regarding college drama major in a silk scarf, with delivery that never quite lives up to his theatrical entrance. Just like that drama major, Comme des Garçons 3 projects reasonably, but does not last.

this might be my most difficult review yet... I have been waiting 3 weeks for this to arrive from kuwait, and the anticipation nearly ended my life... i had to refrain from tearing into the packaging on the way home from the post office, and had the shakes after I got home and tried to remove the hermetically sealed (or almost) bag containing this most lusted after juice... I have a strange fixation with anything labeled "ethereal" or "other-worldly"... Previous reviews prompted me to buy blind, and although I wasn't stricken by the "odeur" series, I just had to see what an "imaginary" or "ethereal" flower smelled like... This is my third wearing of the day, and I'm still at a loss trying to decide if this is a quick swap or something I want to have on me forever...
For half a heartbeat out of the bottle I caught the plastic synthetics of the odeur series, but once it settles on my skin the confusion of trying to pinpoint the individual notes drives me absolutely nuts... The rapid descent from topnotes to middlenotes is as difficult to discern to the nose as trying to slow down the image of a lightning bolt to the eyes... there is the omnipresent "frootloops" accord, but that might just be the civil war of floral vs spice overpowering each other in 32x speed... The only image I can conjure up would be twenty ghosts jabbing at me in rapid succession, each and every one coming so close to manifesting an absolute image before being replaced with another fleeting whisp... As the avalanche of "WTF" rolls down into flat terrain the dichotomy of this fragrance is magnificently apparent, and yet the chaos continues to distort any real chance at fully understanding the experience... Try to imagine... Twenty people are running in one direction, but all the while they are weaving in and out of each other... some people fall down along the way, but they are quickly picked up and thrown back into the maelstrom that is the collective stampede... All of a sudden, without warning they all come to a grinding halt... you have roughly ten seconds to try and identify their shrouded faces, but before you can pinpoint anyone with certainty, their faces change, and they begin to run in the EXACT OPPOSITE DIRECTION... these new faces share the same random movement... it seems no one wants to draw attention by taking the lead... they are each content in the blurry exodus that is their raison d'etre. The worst part is by the time they have reached the finish line you are just too tired to congratulate the winner... even a couple hours after the race is over you are still contemplating what the hell just happened... all in all, while buying something blind based on the notion of an "imaginary flower", I received a generous helping of humility and yet another reminder that perception is absolutely subjective, and any attempts at generalizing a "scent pyramid" are useless... Another thumbs up for reminding me that I am a "noob"

Yes, an imaginary flower. The luckyscent.com description gets very effusive, incandescent flower on another planet, yadda yadda, but I think CdG, as they so often do, hit their target. It really does smell like that.

It smells like a vibrant, bright purple flower, growing in the dark. It is sweet, captivating, and beautiful, but not awe-inspiring, for me at least. Nonetheless I really like this scent.

I only had a small sample, kindly provided by The Perfume House, here in Portland, but enjoyed wearing it during an afternoon barbecue. It's not very manly, at all, but it still made me feel very comfortable, kind and personable. It's my pleasure to recommend Comme des Garçons #3 to anyone seeking a lovely and unique floral scent.

I like the concept of this fragrance. I like the fact that CdG tells you what they were thinking. If only more design houses would do that instead of just selling sex. Like is Calvin Klein decided to say "Obession for women was created for the old biddies". Anyways, the combination of notes smell like an ephemeral flower from space. It's very, very light but a thumbs up for concept.

This fragrance is a little hard to comprehend at first... Overall, to me this smells closest to a light, watery, ethereal chypre. I think the chypre accord is there - citrus from the mandarin, woods and amber - particularly in the dry-down. However, its nod to chypre is more as a bearer of complex narrative rather than through any customary notes, which are displaced one exotic step before herbs, flowers, fruit, and spices thrown into the mix. It's incredible with this eclectic melange that the whole thing hangs together with such airy simplicity. For those most comfortable with quiet, aqueous scents, this has a definite intrigue and mystery that stretches beyond usual territory. CdG3 is pleasantly unusual and one of the brand's best offerings.