parfums*PARFUMS Series 7 Sweet: Spicy Cocoa (2005)
by Comme des Garçons

Spicy Cocoa is a very weird acting fragrance. It does start out with a non-sweet chocolate, but, within seconds, the chocolate is gone, and a strange peppery orange note remains. The orange is strange because it is incorporated in with some very iffy spices – iffy in combination: fennel, cardamom, and coriander. Fennel has an anise like smell (I have come to dislike anise), cardamom often carries a sweat or even a fecal associations, and coriander smells to me like crushed bugs. I didn’t have much hope for the scent when I saw those middle notes, and I wasn’t disappointed. On my skin, this scent smells a trifle bit nauseating with a synthetic background – not really endearing. It does have excellent longevity, which is a good thing only if you enjoy the fragrance.

Well, I'm with monkey man matt for most choco fragrancey things. . .and even this one has a touch of ex lax about it, perhaps. .. (I've never actually ingested ex lax but I remember smelling it as a child). . .

but I think this stuff is really beautiful, like a necco wafer base with ovetones of the other notes and I think it's quite appetizing and sort of innocently sexy. Like some kind of lovely suntan lotion that doesn't exist yet.

I love spicy cocoa in fact.

I know the range is headed sweet but in spite of all the alleged spiciness it's just sickly. I don't get poo just a really nauseating chocolate orange smell. Usually I like bergamot but that's the only 'orangey' note here & it just smelled like I felt eating too much chocolate orange in one go at Christmas years ago as a kid. I really didn't want to be reminded of that!

A true Gourmand scent. The opening smells almost exactly like orange-flavoured chocolate (for example by Marabou or Anton Berg). It's not an overly sweet chocolate note, more like dark chocolate. The spices kick in a little later. I can't figure out what spices they used, but I think I smell something like pepper and cardamom.
Maybe it's because of the synthetic ingredients, but to my nose there's no real development detectable. After the topnotes are gone, the fragrance stays the same for hours. Speaking of hours, the lasting power is quite good, considering that the scent is relatively subtle.
Another plus, the bottle looks extremely nice (and by nice I mean cheap and tacky, in a good way). A must have for CdG lovers, chocolate addicts and all who like gourmand fragrances.

I don't wanna be vulgar here but spicy cocoa comes across more as spicy poo-poo to my nose. This really smells fecal, I was feeling sick for 15 minutes after sampling it. What the hell were they thinking??? Yuck.