Reviews of Dzing! (1999)
by L'Artisan Parfumeur

Heaven in a bottle. This is a buzzy, bubbly vanilla that mellows out and lasts forever (12 hours on me, althought I always moisturize), has perfect sillage with 1 or 2 sprays, and garners compliments from everyone. I get a bit of leather and smokey odors, along with the vanilla/burnt sugar note, but words don't describe it. My new found staple.

After speaking with a sales rep, I found a very interesting way to wear Dzing for those of you (female) who believe that this scent is a little too leathery, dry and has no staying power. Combine Dzing with La Chasse aux Papillons. It sounds strange and it sounds like it won't work, but it does. It smells like leather and lace and the Papillon gives it more staying power

Oh wow! This really does smell like animal bedding and cotton candy. I don't know how I am supposed to react to this - the "zoo"-like smells are so obvious from the first spray. It also smells a little bit like the fur of your pet cat after it's been lounging in the sun for a few ours. All very interesting, but not something I would spray on myself. A little too reminiscent of other kinds of "sprays".

Another in the series of olfactory explorations that works as a story incredibly well, but - for me anyway - completely fails as a perfume.

“At last!” I though, admiring Dzing!’s acrobatic artwork, “A fragrance to revive my childhood fantasies of running away to join the circus!”. However, with the anticipation of feathers and sequins, colorful choreography and some playful clowning, I was sorely disappointed. … Nevertheless, Dzing! is memorable for having more chutzpah than you can shake a juggling club at. In Dzing! is the essence of the lion tamer: under his feet is burnt popcorn ground into the sawdust of the ring by skittish showhorses; around him are the fur and fluids of wild animals; in the air is the fearful adrenaline of a hushed crowd; all these are mastered by the single bold crack of a leather whip. Dzing ! is not for pretty showgirls: it is for courageous artists with wild spirits to tame.

Bulgari Black was walking along one day, but it was the weekend, so instead of stopping at its usual destination of the tire fire, it decided to go to the circus. There, it was covered in light fur and a leather saddle was thrown upon its back and it was thrust into the proceedings. It's smokey vanilla sweetness is better suited here anyways.

I think the exclamation mark is needed. This reminds me of Mechant Loup without the wet honey. This still smells saturated but more like ink instead of water. Like printed cardboard. Maybe it's the smoky sweet smell that reminds me of paper goods.

Leather, shiny but dusty leather. its one of the truest leather scnet available. would be kinda difficult for me to wear on a daily basis..but this ones subtle and makes one feel he is wearing a dusty leather jacket, not a bad thing and i meant it in a good way. somethin remarkable, unique and definitely a must have for those special occassions.

a neutral coz its not something i would go for on a regular basis.

I get the circus right off. No, not the circus, the stable where the horses are kept. Hay and some manure. Then cotton candy arrives a little later-very weird, as well as leather saddles for the same horses that provided the manure. Other notes: popcorn, browned butter, canvas, parchment. Strange and wonderful, but not a fragrance to wear. I can't imagine enjoying this on someone else! Still, as already mentioned, many points for creativity! Hence the neutral, not negative!

It's paper! It's leather! It's Dzing!!

The opening is boozy and leathery as all hell, but it soon mellows down into something sweeter and more playful. I generally don't like sweet but somehow this manages to pull it off, partly because it's offset by that (literally) animalic barnyard note.

I smell both the leather and the paper that people talk about, but what's odd is that they are ONE AND THE SAME SMELL, which smells like paper or leather depending on what you happen to want it to smell like at that moment, kind of like an olfactory Rorschach test. How Olivia Giacobetti manages to achieve this effect I don't know, but it's brilliant and only adds to the mystery of this already uncanny and sublime masterpiece: A saddled unicorn in a second-hand bookshop.

Wordbird says he wouldn't wear this to church. No worries I say, I'm prepared to found a Church of Dzing!

Did I mention I don't generally even like perfumes like this?

i want to delete this but it won't let me.

Just recently bought this.... and I have fallen in love with it. I get no sweetness.. and the smell isnt dirty per se .. its the smell of a soiled cat.. i.e. a cat's unwashed body.. the fur... very animalic in character.. plus that DENSE smokiness... with that strange "dirt" and cardboard..whew.

I gotta be careful though... my girl probably wont like Dzing largely due to its animalic nature.. like i've been sleeping in my cat's bed but that isn't stopping me from wearing this gem :thumbup:

I don't know what to say. Even after a few wearings, I can't get used to this one, partly because the drydown turns sour on me (my skin does this to a few scents that would otherwise be perfect). It's a funky leather, verging on cardboard, with hay and a little sugar. It's like someone tried to put up a model stable with papier-mache and decided to make it smell vaguely like a zoo. Not to say that the overall effect is unpleasant, not at all.

Certainly it's like nothing I've ever smelled so far, so points for originality - in fact, this one so came out of the blue that it's humorous, like a good joke, and it made me smile. On the right person, I can imagine it would work well.

it smells like its alive.sweet wet leather. one of my favs

I love this scent on my husband. Leathery, sweet and smokey. It dosn't smell like any circus I have ever been to!

Ah, a fragrance that lives up to the hype.
I didn't get any candyfloss (cotton candy) but I got the animals - the tigers, the horses, the dung, the fur and sweet hay. Fantastic. Not a perfume to wear to church, but all the more wonderful for that.
I wish Santa would bring me a large bottle.

I think I love this fragrance. On my skin it just smells like fresh, clean leather. The smell I experience when I am cleanig my saddle, but not a soapy smell...just very fresh. I don't smell anything that resembles the smell of my horse by the way ( although I love the way he smells and was hoping for a little of that in Dzing!)

Smells like my Doctors surgery waiting room. I do not rate this very highly.

I like it. Mildly. I get an immediate smokey accord that reminds me strongly of CdG 2Man. This is followed by a dryish kettlecorn note and a bit of leather. I don't get any of the allegedly "animalic" stuff. If you've ever used power tools and know the smell of the contact between hot spinning metal and fresh wood, then you've probably got a reasonably accurate idea of what this one smells like.

Um, am I the only one on whose skin it smells like Fahrenheit by Dior?
I like it, I like Fahrenheit a lot - but I was a bit puzzled because it smelled so familar.

damp fur,sawdust and cottoncandy fresh from the mixer. sometimes it feels alive. animalic and something different. beautiful

DZING! is one of those scents which is famous and infamous for both the same things: Cotton candy + sawdust + gasoline + wild animal excreta.
Both the haters and lovers of this amazing fragrance will usually detect these very frankly... But this just proves that beauty is in the nose of the beholder... For many, this curious foursome of notes conjurs up funfairs and circuses; other people cannot get past one or two of the notes... This is a fragrance for Advanced perfume lovers only... it's modern and evocative in evety way. In a way, mixing animalic notes with balsams and sweet vanillic components is a time-honored formula in Western perfumery... This one just does it with a new postmodern twist...
I do agree tat this fragrance is too evanescent... But were it any stronger, folks might just start wondering where is the tiger who peed on you.
Love it!

Though there are a number of things going on in this scent, I just can't get over the smell of animal. I recognize that for some people this can be nice, but if you grew up in the city with no pets (like me) there's a good chance you're not going to like this. Animals to me smell dirty and unwashed, and that's how this scent made me feel. Luckily the longevity wasn't very good on me.

Sawdust and feces at eh circus, like the description says. Sweet benzoin throughout, like a whiff of cotton candy. The castoreum is right out front, unadorned. Fecal notes do not deter me in a perfume; I find that animalic notes add to the attractiveness of a fragrance. However, these are the centerpiece of the fragrance. I wait for the development of something pretty, but all I get is sweet fecal notes. Later, some leather or latex creeps in. Overall Dzing smells like horses on me.

I tried this one a few days ago. At first I wasnt that impressed but a few hours later when I was on my way home I felt a lovely scent surrounding me. I first wondered what it was since I had tried several scents that day but then I remembered I had sprayed some Dzing on that hand. It is a very different, alluring and somewhat ambigous scent. Can definitely recommend it. It is one of the best in its genre. Thumbs up.
benb

Confused, though not terribly interesting, for the 30 seconds it lasted on my skin. My curiosity is sated. I don't have to try this one again.

I love this perfume, its basenotes of leather and spicy its very sexy.

Dzing! is misnamed, although I cannot come up with a suitable alternative. This is not a frantic perfume, bursting through stage curtains. It's much cleverer and more subtle: it begins slowly and soon grows to fill the room with an airy smokiness such as one would get from burning flowers.

To me, this is the best offering of the L'Artisan line.

if Luca Turin says that Dzing! smell like cardboard, I'd love to meet the maker of his cardboard and tour the plant.

I can only imagine what the other paper products will smell like if the cardboard smells this good.

there has been already said a lot.....
interesting opening that ends in hell-bad leather scent-disgusting,stinky and nerving!If you really wanna smell leather then choose cuir de russie of chanel or bandit by piguet-but dzing is dzing-what a poor name...very sad and boring water....this is definitely not a perfume......

Should be called Leming. I own it and was lured by the craze to buy it untested, but never have I seen such hype since "Coty001" (The "digital" fragrance with a note of "electrostatic accord" launched as an experiment by an Advertising man at Coty in 2001). Such a backstory!

I am a fan of rubber, but what others read as rubber comes to me as syrupy sweet amber. Dzing does not contain elephant. I was taken to no circus by this one. No imagery of trapeze-flying women occurred to me. I was taken to another amber vanilla wanna-be that made my co-workers scratch their heads and hesitantly say, "James... what's that...cologne..." I felt like I had come out of Wal Mart and sprayed all of the Vanilla Fields bottles down my shirt. Calliope music, please, $175 later, who's the real clown.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a fair princess.

One cold and foggy night, the princess walked around the castle walls wearing her brother's galoshes. Upon returning home, the fair princess doffed the galoshes and placed them in front of the fire.

She waited and she waited and she waited for the boots to finally get warm on the hearth. Once the galoshes were toasty, the princess walked over and smelled them to make certain they were thoroughly dry. They were, in fact, quite dry by now, but oh! how they stank of black rubber and leather. Well, the clever princess simply picked up a bottle of Worth's Je Reviens and poured its contents straight into those royal rain boots.

The smell that arose from her brother's galoshes was so completely annoying and yet so utterly intoxicating at the same time that the princess knew what she had to do. She called the royal perfumer in to duplicate this most bizarre of scents, and thus Dzing! was born.

The moral of this story is simple: don't pour Je Reviens into hot rubber and leather galoshes unless you want to smell Dzing!

(Fairy tales aside, I happen to love Dzing!, but it's much in the same way that I love Rob Zombie movies and gefilte fish. That is to say, I have to really be in the mood for it. Dzing! is Bulgari Black's somewhat cruel and very bohemian cousin, and he bears deep grudges against anyone who's ever worn Tommy.)

The beginning did smell a bit like burning, but my nose pegged it more as an incense smell than a rubber smell. I agree that this does get better as it develops. It seemed to meld into my skin and create something that is warm, unique and confident.

AlthaeaSoaps said it smelled of burning brake pads. I was trying to think of what the top smelled like, and that's actually a very close comparison. It fades to, as others have said, more of a circus smell. Like cotton candy/animal stall/generator engines. When it dries, it's a bit more grounded and "normal"...more of a subtle sweet/spicy leather. I like it because of it's unique imagry, but I don't think i'd wear it regularly.

Good Lord, my ordeal is finally over. No more frenetic hand-scrubbing and no more insults from my girlfriend who's been saying I smell like a peroxide-blonde wife of a Russian nouveau riche wheeler-dealer. With so much hype about L'Artisan here on Basenotes, I felt I absolutely had to test at least some of the highlights. I ended up testing about twenty. Dzing was the last one on my list. Now for the scent Ð thin, papery, sickeningly sweet, girlish, overdone and superficial, just like any other of the twenty I tried. There's a hopeless lack of substance and an unwarranted fussiness about L'Artisan scents that, to my nose, bring them very close to drugstore fragrances. Strictly for the lovers of Miller Harris, Bond No. 9, Demeter and the like. What I haven't told my girlfriend yet is that my next testing list is MolinardÉ

Definitely one of the most hyped niche fragrances here on Basenotes, Dzing! is an interesting composition. It is constructed in the same vein as Bulgari Black, and to my nose, the top notes are reminiscent of the "burnt rubber" smell of Black, and like Black, Dzing! later sweetens down to a spicy sweet base (albeit accomplishing it with a different set of notes). I liked the top notes, but the base was fairly uninspired. I think that comparisons with soiled hamster cages and circus debris and waste are unfair - Dzing! is nowhere near as wacky or strange as other reviewers make it out to be. Its claim to originality and ground breaking-ness are questionable though - Bulgari came out a full year before Dzing!, and stole most of its thunder with its rubbery-topnotes/sweet-base combination (which is also emulated here). I am not implying that the two fragrances are copies of each other - just that they flow the same way.

Dzing! also has serious longevity issues - and its sillage is minimal. I would consider investing in it if it lasted longer, but for now I will have to pass (and will stick with the much cheaper Black). Its worth a vial/decant though, and ranks as one of L'Artisans better efforts.

An interesting evocative, mostly leathery scent. It's sort of like a more subtle, refined and "clean" version of the leather scents I have tried, that papery dry yet warm and comfy note. I was hoping to feel the ginger and saffron but I don't mind a lot that I don't since it's such a nice, slightly masculine scent evocative of times past.

Imagine baking cookies using a cedar baking sheet to bake them and your kitchen is in a horse stall (hay included) Its a very unique and addicting fragrance...you wont find much else that comes near the notes....its one of those chameleon fragrances.....you sniff it the first time and you smell hay and and a barn....you sniff again 10 secs later you smell cookie dough....you get the drift...its a good one nonetheless!

L'Artisan Parfumeur is amazing (Creed could learn from them). Dzing! is truly one of the most unusual scent on the market today. It takes chances and pays off for the person who is willing wait.
One of the Best, Ever.

I agree this is a little redolent of Bvlgari Black, with it's smoky-rubber beginnings, though it sort of evolves into something more woodsy. It recalls the soft, sweetish spices of bakehouse goods (something sort of close to nutmeg or mace, or perhaps even cassia or cinnamon maybe?) without smelling specifically like any of those, nor at all gourmand. Dzing!, Black and VIP Room all seem to hover around the same theme, though I put Black way ahead of the other two, it's still the most original and chic, and the rubber is stronger. Next Dzing!, then VIP - not as good as Black, but safe and sound.

I adore Dzing!!
It a great, great light and sweet, popcorny leather fragrance. At the first sniff, it smells like rubber and air and sunlight. Then it turns sweeter and more ands more leathery. The only fresh and playful leather fragrance I know.

I love this. It opens with hay and sawdust with an animalic note, like a bowl of old straw with a small, damp cat perched on top of it. Dry-down is a gorgeous, furry, leathery, grassy dryness. It's strangely wearable, and very beautiful.

Wow. This is one of the most stress-inducing smells I have sniffed in forever. I had my husband sniff too, and he got the burnt caramel note quite clearly, but not me. I can't find anything like it in there at all. To me, it opens with the odor of overheated brake pads. Then it "mellows" to the scent of my auto mechanic's shop, complete with the rubber tires in the lobby and the citrus GoJo hand cleaner by the sink in the bathroom. The burning brakes odor comes back here and here, just to keep my stomach in a knot. I'll wait a few weeks and sniff it again just to be sure, but so far... I can't fathom how this can smell good on a person.

Dzing! is an example of the kind of work of art that you analyze again and again and come up with different conclusions each time. Sometimes it smells like burnt caramel, but as it mixes with my skin it gets more and more leathery. Sometimes it smells like skin, or sawdust, or, occasionally, black pepper. The burnt caramel note is there most of the time, but overall this fragrance is a perfect, delightful leather scent. Irresistible.

after reading the many positive reviews of Dzing! on Basenotes and other places i had very high hopes for this one. i sprayed on quite a bit courtesy of Fortnum & Mason (london) and waited to be totally fascinated. sorry to say it didn't happen. i got the legendary cardboard smell but then pretty soon things calmed down to a polite sweetness and stayed that way. not unpleasant but certainly not the eccentric masterpiece that i had been expecting - but then i am used to Knize Ten and Yatagan...

Not for me, and I know it’s likely my fault. To my nose, the castoreum overwhelms everything else and dominates for most of the duration to the exclusion of everything else. I find DZING! quite off-putting. Too bad…I like the concept.

this has an intriguing and bizzare leathery/rubber(!) opening/middle, which sweetens up very nicely during the drydown to something altogether different and quite nice. however it has serious longevity issues and it seems to disappear completely (and very quickly) once this sweetness appears after a couple of hours or so and you can't smell it unless you get really up close to it. the lack of staying power explains the the neutral verdict, definitely worth a try though.

Smells like the neatly folded costume of a retired clown in an old alligator suitcase.

Picture this: The sun is shining down hotly on an otherwise coolish day. I lay my leather handbag on a sunny outdoor cafe table and order a cup of hot black tea. While waiting for my beverage, I pull a Sharpie marker out of my sun-softened leather handbag and scribble a little note. The ink's unnatural smell wafts about me slightly as the teacup is set in front of me. I put away the marker and add sugar to the steaming black tea. This is Dzing!
I'm grateful to the reviewers who mentioned Bulgari Black (which I had a slight fondness for) because this reference stirred me to hunt down a sample of Dzing! Bulgari Black gets boring where Dzing! holds one's interest. Pleasant, mild, I don't think this will edge out Black Vetyver Cafe or New Haarlem from my wardrobe, but you can never predict these things for sure.

Dzing does kinda smell like something alive at first. Its very different and special. I wanna buy a full bottle then I said no that's ok. But its growing on me and I'm loving it more and more. So it looks like I'm buying dzing when I get a chance. Its a special frag

Pretty amazing - they bottled circus stink. Seriously, it smells like a circus or a county fair. I swear I can even smell the elephants. I get cotton candy, something like hay or sawdust (or both), and something a little funky, to be honest. I'm not sure I get vanilla on the dry down - to me it seems sweeter than that, almost candied, and so, like so many other artistic scents, not one I would wear. In the end, I give it thumbs-up for creativity and ambitiousness. Who would have thought to do this outside of the niche world?

Dzing! comes on strong with rubber and smoky dark tea. Eventually the smoky/rubbery smell mellows allowing the cinammon/vanilla/hay to come through. This is amazingly creative and playful, I love it. Be warned: those who don't find the smell of rubbery leather will be put off. Reminds me of SMN's Nostalgia but much less grease-monkeyish (not meant as an insult to Nostalgia). This is a unique and fun smell. You will most likely be the only one in the room wearing it.

Another L'Artisan that I didn't like at first, now however it is my hands down favorite of the entire line. Nothing compares to the caramel leather notes and the almost doughy sawdust accord. Good enough to eat, the smoky qualities of the black tea blend wonderfully with the leather notes. Just astounding.

I'll give it a thumbs up based on the creativity and the dry down. I didn't like the top leather note. All leather. Too much. However the dry down was cinnamon and a little spice with slight leather. Manly yet yielding. Nice.

I've never been to the circus so I don't know how well this emulates that environment, but I do know that this is the most creative scent I own. It's rather abstract and takes some time to understand it. It starts off very 'dirty' and animalic with strong hay and leather notes. The drydown is the best part for me as the leather softens up and gives way to a very soft vanilla-like sweetness. This is a scent that I wear for myself because I'm not sure how others would feel about it. I find it hard not to appreciate its artistic qualities.

It's a fragrance that makes me smile because of its absurdity - it's Bulgari black in proper adult form - a little dirty, shorn of the baby powder and vanilla. It is subtle and delicate however. Insouciant, but not in-your-face.

Moth balls and sweat. Disgusting.

Dirrrrty... Like a wet dog in a candy store, sleeping on the leather jacket of a duchess. Anyway, it's alright with me.

Dzing! is a deceptive perfume. Said to be inspired by the Circus world, it brings to mind a circle of fire and some delightful scents of smoke, burnt cotton-candy. It has an entrance of an outrageous acrobat, with colourful leather and feathers outfit, escaping from the tigress that jumps into the fire ring!

It is colourful, spicy, and a lot of fun!
If you like the ambivalent sweetness of leather and smoke, and enjoy having a bit of masculine kick in your “drink” than Dzing! has quite the right zesty touch.
With top notes that are deceivingly floral - rose and orris, with a touch of smoky cade; heart notes that are spicy and warm (mainly cinnamon and styrax) and a base that is equally sweet and smoky as a result of mingling sweet gum of benzoin and peru balsam along with castoreum, birch tar and perhaps some tobacco.

Top notes: Cade (Leather notes), Rose, orris,
Heart notes: Styrax, cinnamon
Base notes: Balck tea, benzoin, Peru balsam, Leather notes (castoreum and birch tar)

Having tried most L'Artisan scents, Dzing! has become my favorite among all of them. Just about everything in this line is amazing, but my taste for Dzing! has changed quickly, not only it is my favorite L'Artisan, it is also my favorite fragrance in general. Truly is art at its finest form!

LOVE LOVE LOVE this scent -- it's absolutely my favorite, of all perfumes and such that i've ever owned! We're talking the top of my top-ten... D'Zing! feels RICH and SEXY: rich as saffron -- worth more than it's weight in gold, folks -- sexy and seductive from the sandalwood and animalistic qualities. (However, those animalistic notes make it inappropriate for the office, especially on women such as myself.) Absolutely no yucky-soapy-blah notes, it's interesting and warm and complex. But please note: my body chemistry makes Drakkar Noir smell sweet and feminine -- perfume is different for everyone!

Very much along the lines of Bulgari Black, Dzing is smokey, semi-sweet and a bit rubbery. This is a more complex fragrance though, I can detect something smelling like cherries and there is that signature sawdust accord. Overall a brilliant launch and as uni-sex as they come. The circus rumours are highly exagerated but I'll be damned if it doesn't have an animalic quality to it. Like so many from this house, this is best worn when in the mood for sweet, sweet love.

Dzing! always puts a smile on my face. The only downside to this fragrance, is that I always feel uncomfortable putting a lower case letter after an exclamation point. This is a leather based fragrance that smells like the circus: leather, sawdust, animalic notes, and a sugary sweet note. If you could make a candied leather dessert, it would smell like the drydown of Dzing! Also, Dzing! has garnered so many compliments from people. Dzing! is such an off the beaten path fragrance, and so pleasant. It’s great.

I came to know this scent thanks to Luca Turin's infamous review in which he said it smelled of cardboard! My curiosity was piqued and I didn't stop till I could get hold of a sample. When I tried it, I was puzzled, I couldn't believe how Mr Turin had nailed it. I wouldn't dare to add anything to what he said, except that, though it took me some time to get into Dzing!, now I can't live without it. A must-have indeed!

the most heavenly leather notes ever!

My favorite L'Artisan.. great stuff

I simply love this fragrance! It was created with passion, love, hate, it is like a tranquility, will put you on the right mood!

Offbeat indeed! Straw, cardboard, animals and spices. This has a wonderful dry down that continues to surprise by revealing new moods. But caveat emptor- I love this one- you might hate it.

Wow is all I can say about this one. I have recently come to LOVE the L'Artisan line and this one is absolutely amazing. It starts off kind of boring with some incense and a sawdust like smell to it. However, about a half hour into it, woods, some fruit, incense and spices start to come out and it turns into one of the more complex and intriguing fragrances I've ever come across. Amazing Stuff.

Dzing! is inspired by circus and is one of those off-beat, evocative scents that trigger memories and are hauntingly beautiful. It starts off with a sawdust note, doesn't probably sound good, but actually is! It's warm, woody and spicy with saffron and ginger notes. Very strange and beautiful scent, one that creates cravings. Not for everyone, though.