Chocolat (1997)
by Il Profumo

A tamed gourmand outcoming as a more gentle sort of A*man with much more chocolate, without coffee and honey and with a less creamy edge. This fragrance features also vanilla, spices, fruits and some woods. I detect a note of patchouli. It's important the role played by spices which impress to scent an airy, prickly, masculine trait. The longevity and sillage are middly bodied. Not bad.

19th January, 2011. (Last Edited: 14th March, 2011.)

Almost no noticeable chocolate, in fact when I first tried this over a year ago I detected none at all. Upon re-visiting Il Profumo Chocolat recently, the chocolate emerged for me. The chocolate that does waft through in small measure is the 80% pure cocoa single origin stuff. The kind that bites and leaves an assertive tinge of sour on the back of the tongue, as if coffee, not candy.

Make no mistake, candy is truly here - this is candy from that Asian grocery from the far side of town, it's candy that your aunt brought back from her trip around the world.

Spice, yes, but not your garden variety cinnamon/clove that usually pops up with the word "spice." Nutmeg, jeera perhaps; great mysterious hints in the background.

Sweetness, yes, and perhaps a tiny trace of incense. Once you graduate in the world of gourmands, and seek the unusual sweet, the complex sweet, the sweet that has had an interesting journey and collected many aromas of a fascinating storage, then pick this one up.

Complex, interesting and dark - I couldn't wear this everyday - the plum and hot, sticky notes are too singular for daily wear. But a fantastic little number for the days you feel.... different.

5th March, 2010.

Well, it's chocolate. Bittersweet, not milk, and very accurately rendered. So, if you really want to smell like chocolate...

23rd December, 2009.

This is one of my favorite perfumes (haven't tried Angel yet though). It is cocoa that is not overly chocolate. It is deep and spicy that mellows well. It is expensive and I wish I could find some other scent that I loved as well. So far, I haven't found it.

2nd December, 2008.

A more subtle and reticent A*men. The chocolate presented is not as sweet as in A*men — it’s more like cocoa powder with vanilla and some smoothing agents. It certainly is a smooth chocolate accord and I like the fact that it isn’t too in-your-face. It’s very linear — I really don’t determine any variation from beginning to end except for the dispersal of the short citrus blast in the opening and the gradually weakening of the scent with time. I imagine that, as a niche fragrance, it really is not designed to suit everybody; with all the variations in skin types and olfactory interpretations, there are likely a few people out there who might find this the perfect chocolate scent — not me — but someone. Definitely a unisex fragrance, probably more inclined toward the masculine.

20th November, 2007.

Quite nice/ not bad chocolate scent with mandarin and vanilla notes but if (and when) you have Angel, why would you want or need a substitute? A complete waste of time and money, IMO.

18th May, 2006.