Eau Suave (2005)
by Parfum d'Empire

Eau Suave means “sweet water”. If you know French, you say, “why are you telling me this?” And if you don’t know French, you just learned something (just like me!). Eau Suave is a fruity rose chypre. The rose is very bright and loud. I generally don’t like fruity notes with roses – they cheapen the rose to me and it is no exception here. There are some delicate spices in the background, but they get lost in the noise. I don’t like this one.

3rd February, 2012.

This is the weak one in the excellent PdE line! I can't say exactly what's wrong for me with this fragrance, but I lose interest after a couple of seconds, when the intriguing patchouli note disappears behind a thick and almost nose irritating curtain of indefinite, musky bright fruit and flowers (it's hard to detect roses or raspberries or whatever listed).

7th November, 2011.

Not much to say to be honest, and I guess this is the problem..

just uninteresting, undefined, unimpressive..

..and definitely too light for me to consider it even remotely (I admit I should have figured given its name..)

15th June, 2011.

Eau Suave is not the type of fragrance that I appreciate, but, all things considered, it is impressive. It’s fresh, well balanced, has excellent longevity. It’s made of excellent quality materials, and is a bit edgy… a bit unusual with its touch of menthol… It’s a fruity / floral for a real grown-up. Its opening is cleanly aromatic with just a bit of spice – I even enjoy the saffron. I have to admit that I don’t smell the roses – there’s no rose note for me, but I do get the fruit, and I admire how pleasant the fruit notes are even though I don’t ordinarily care for fruit notes. The main aspect of the fragrance, though, is the aromatics: There’s a menthol-like note that is present from beginning to end. This aromatic note provides the clean, fresh feeling and tones done the sweetness of the fruit and, eventually, the vanilla. This is a refreshing, enjoyable feminine fragrance and the mythically connecting of this to Josephine is cute and charming.

14th November, 2009.

Eau Suave is indeed lovely, and not a ’straight up’ rose (which works for me since I’m not a rose person). Many of the PdE scents have an enveloping quality to me — like wearing a nice cashmere shawl, and Eau Suave is no exception. I also get a lot of saffron, which probably adds to the ’suave’ effect.

25th May, 2009.

Eau Suave is meant to evoke the era of a lounging Josephine, but reminds me a more of a feisty Napoleon. This is a leathery, spicy rose that is far more masculine in nature than I anticipated. It opens in a burst of mentholated rosiness (think dried eucalyptus and rosebuds), sweet but not heady and significantly soapy but not acrid. It evolves into a cranberry-laced kind of potpurri---think dried cranberries, deep red roses and plum pudding. It dries down like a bitter syrup of cloves, cinnamon and simmering blooms, yet still retains a subtle leathery menthol that would make this a lovely men's cologne.

27th June, 2008.