Biche Dans l'Absinthe (2002)
by Gobin Daudé

Doe through the Artemisia bushes… Her coat glows in the warm autumnal sun. Freedom is happiness. And the single notion that being is all there is to life.

Victoire Gobin-Daudé, a gifted French independent perfumer, who unfortunately whose line was discontinued, unfortunately, uses only natural essences in the five perfumes she released to the world to enjoy for a limited period of time.

Biche dans l’Absinthe offers yet another perspective to the bittersweetness of green and aromatic fougeres: the pairing of animalic with herbaceous.

Opening with sweaty notes of cumin and the underlining warmth of immortelle, the doe has just paused from a brisk morning gallop in fields of semi-dry hay. It is mid Autumn, and the first sunrays are warming her shiny coat, releasing steam of animal sweat and morning dew from the surrounding vegetation. Citrus notes play a subtle role of diffusing the bitterness of Artemisia (absinthe) while bergamot creates a soft powdery aura, complementary to the cumin.
There is a hint of floral in the heart, alongside the Artemisia. It might be orange blossom, or perhaps neroli. It is very subtle and is present only to soften and blend the phases together. The base is at once dry and sweet – with dried tobacco leaves, the abovementioned immortelle and its animalic yet herbaceouse-dry sweetness, and hay of course, for a good measure of coumarin and nourishment for the doe so she can run freely on my skin for hours to come.

Top notes: Lemon, Cumin, Bergamot, Lemon Leaf
Heart notes: Artemisia (Absinthe), Neroli, Lavender Absolute
Base notes: Tobacco, Immortelle Absolute, Hay Absolute

Hey, I love cumin. Kingdom, Femme, love love love cumin. Sadly, this smells like chicken soup: pepper, old cumin dust, something green and dry like thyme, more pepper. Smells like you were cooking, practicing voodoo, and pruning bushes all while wearing the same sweaty burlap sack. If you just want to smell weird, go for it.

Biche dans l'Absinthe (aka Bitch in Absinthe...) is the most elegant and weird one of the Gobin Daudé line: its aromatic and medicinal artemisia, immortelle, leather & tobacco notes remind me of Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe, a bizarre antiques boutique, or a club for English Eccentrics. How some people smell curry in this is beyond my comphrehension...

This is awful. What is this? Is it a joke? I’ve had more absinthe than I’d like to remember, and I can say, with 100% certainty, this smells nothing like absinthe. Maybe it’s just a couple bad nights, but I don’t really find the taste and smell of absinthe very pleasant. This opens with a peppery teriyaki kind of note, then fades into a boring slightly sweet woody base. The drydown on this is so generic and poorly done. It’s a sweet woody base with a slightly green accord that makes it smell a little like honey. This is NOT worth the money. Not awful, but not worth the money.

Pros: Daring, unique scent, redolent of cumin and hay (maybe tobacco?), 'cooks' on the skin to lose some of the initial harshness and become warm like a clean barn (the name means Doe among the Absinthe)
Cons: Cumin.And sharp grassy/herbal smell. And Cumin. I like it, but in this quantity it can be a bit much, even though it never crosses over into BO. Also, 135 is WAY too much for anything short of MKK, PoTL, or a pure parfum.
These balance out for me, and I wear my decant once in a blue moon, so neatral it is.

Exceedingly different in a way I'm currently unsure of, yet I'm continually drawn to it. Sharp with tobacco and other jolting spices. My intrigue, however, will never venture beyond a decant, for I've not a kings ransom to spare for a bottle. Outrageous.........