Bigarade Concentrée
by Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle

I wanted to love this as I really dig the idea behind this line and am generally a big fan of Ellena's work but for me the bitter orange smell is just too strong, wiping out almost any other note.
I appreciate that it's a very well made perfume and the top note is certainly distinctive but on my skin, it's simply too linear. If I wanted to smell strongly of bitter orange all day, I'd never wear anything else...

Opens as ripe orange, at which point I feel attracted to it.

On my skin, however, bad things happen to this fragrance. I get a caramelised over-ripe orange served to me by someone with bad oral hygiene.

This is possibly Jean-Claude Ellena at his best on men's cologne. A trail-blazer, iconic, different, unique among citrus scents -- this is bitter orange at its superb best. A dialectic of a fragrance, its hesperidic top notes express an icy freshness unlike any other, tempered by a touch of rose -- which dries down to a warm base of sumptious cedar and hay. A class act. C'est un parfum tres soigne!

Bigarade Concentree is one of my top-five favorite perfumes but then I must disclose that I am a huge citrus fan! (Other citrus loves are: AG Eau d'Hadrien, Fath Green Water, Mona di Orio Lux, Fresh's "Sugar" (not Lemon Sugar) and Chanel Eau de Cologne). And, I am a huge JCE admirer. I first smelled Bigarade Concentree at the Editions de Frederic Malle store in Paris on the Left Bank on a cold November day and had to have it.

Yes- Bigarade Concentree smells like a pungent tangerine at first but then if you leave it on and smell it a little more, the cumin and cedar notes start to peek out and it then calms down into a luxurious, warm citrussy smell. I would love to smell it on a man - I think it would have such class, such as how Guerlain's Vetiver always smells perfect on a man to me.

In short, Bigarade Concentree is a superb fragrance and it never fails to make me happy or get me jump-started! Full bottle worthy - always.

OK. I wouldn't buy it. Smells a little like black licorice to me.

Bigarade Concentree totally threw me for a loop, as they say. It was not at ALL what I was expecting, which was Terre d'Hermes' (which I love) more fascinating older brother. And the surprise here is, that after hearing and reading so many comparisons, I find that it's something completely different altogether. It is a heavy, dense, weighty, rich orange, deepened with that cedar element which may or may not be responsible for creating the cumin note which is present here without any doubt. The heaviness I experience in Bigarade Concentree expresses that deep oiliness that one senses upon inhaling a freshly ripped open orange PEEL, the sour, soft white strings and all. There is definitely something dirty here, a rounded, indolic aura with that cumin sensation grinning a dirty little smile in the background. And, call me crazy if you wish, but I also get, very clearly, the smell of the white rubber in tennis balls and/or the sour smell of new sneakers. I know this is going to confuse the situation if someone were to actually USE this review in his or her decision to try this fragrance, but it's there, I swear it!

So athletic equipment aside, Bigarade Concentree surprised me in two ways: with its weight and the relatively dark way the bitter orange is expressed here, think orange-brown. I suppose it's the high concentration of perfume oils but this does not sit on the skin lightly. It's a round, heavy orange scent that can't be described well with words: One just has to experience it first hand. If you are expecting something similar to Terre d'Hermes, you will not find it here (TdH a mere translucent veil compared to this). If you've smelled Eau d'Hermes, it's more in that direction, though I find EdH more effervescent than Bigarade Concentree. How can a citrus fragrance be so dense? Smell it and you'll see... A beautiful, artistic expression - an abstract vision of bigarade concept, but rather than taking that first sniff and saying, "OH GOD I NEED TO HAVE THIS", I simple sniffed, thought, "huh.. interesting" and kept trying to love it but after a month it's still all respect but no love.