Ambre de Cabochard (2007)
by Grès

If you have Hermes taste on a discount shopping budget, Ambre de Cabochard might work for you! This one smells like a great substitute for Ambre Narguile of the Hermessence line of fragrances. Fruity and very sweet, when the sugar burns off after the first couple hours, the amber shows itself. Strikes me as the amber base of the old Emeraude by Coty. I found a bottle of this at a local discounter for $9.99. A bargain if you like your amber super sweet.

This is simply a delightful amber. I almost could stop right there.

But of course I wont. Hints of Floral and a touch of Fruit make just the perfect caress in the opening. Leather speaks up, giving it a unisex depth. Spices are artfully intertwined throughout, and lest we forget: amber, amber, amber.

This is rich, stately, yet also comforting and well rounded. Appropriate for ladies (not girls), and quite right for gents with "somewhere to go". Appropriate all winter, but not impossible all year. Appropriate in quite a range of situations. Appropriate to say that Ambre de Cabochard is Quite a masterpiece.


I don't find the overpowering vanilla mentioned by ComDiva, but I also don't detect that much similarity to V pour Homme as noticed by distortech. If pressed to describe, I'd say this is a dollop of Sage Machado Amber, a fair share of Cabochard, and just a touch of extra ginger, corriander and cardamom sprinkled in for good measure. Truly, we must all test individually - chemistry, chemistry, chemistry.

The pain is to find it! Is it too new to be widely available? Or is it discontinued and therefore a tragically lost treasure? I hope for the former, and fear for the latter.

I really like this! It reminds me alot of V pour Homme by Valentino, with a little extra oomph! The drydown is VERY similar, the mids are comparable (VPH is a bit more spicy with a cumin note), but the top notes of this one are much more extreme - dare I say better. The cotton candy effect is most certainly present throughout in both. In my opinion, it is a very unisex fragrance. Notes are as follows:

TOP NOTE:
Seduction
Spicy cinnamon, ginger and cardamom
huckleberry, blackberry and mandarin

HEART NOTE:
Elegance
Tuberose, cyclamen and
lily of the valley

BASE NOTES:
Sensuality
Amber, patchouli, tonka bean,
vanilla and musk

RECOMMENDED FOR BOTH SEXES! NICE!

I had high hopes for this - amber and leather! But they took a beautiful, light leather fragrance and pimped it out with hyper-sweet vanilla (I couldn't even find any amber notes under the cotton candy smell). Ambre de Cabochard smells like any of the hundreds of benign, sticky-sweet gourmands making the rounds in department stores and other chain establishments trying to cater to a wider crowd. Gres should have know better.