Reviews of Fleur d'Oranger 27 (2006)
by Le Labo

Le Labo Fleur d'Oranger 27

Notes: bergamot, petitgrain, grapefruit, amber, musk and vetiver (from luckyscent.com)

I'm not sure what I am supposed to be smelling, but it is not orange flower, nor is it neroli. Fleur d'Oranger 27 starts bright and green, with bitter and sour citrus fruits (bergamot, and maybe a little grapefruit), some woody, herbal notes (petitgrain, lavender) and mint. It seems harmless at first. However, when the citrus and lavender fade, I am left with a sweetened, somewhat wintergreen-like menthol fragrance that smells like toilet bowl cleaner. It is too bad that household goods now have this scent association. On the other hand, the mint is really one-dimensional and not terribly compelling. If this were stronger and long-lived, Fleur d'Oranger 27 would be intolerable.

As a disclaimer, I'm certainly not the right person to judge the merits of this fragrance. I simply fail to appreciate the sickly-sweet, powdery smell of orange blossoms and no matter how "natural" or "realistic" the note's supposed to be (I've never smelt real orange trees in bloom) I think only of scented, chemical-smelling cleaning fluids and bathroom air "fresheners" working in quite the opposite way.

Break it down in a couple of words. Sharp, dry, green, aromatic and floral. Its a fantastic summery unisex combination. Not meant to be a traditiional fleur d orange. Would only by in the summer.

Way more floral than I'm used to, but a very real scent memory for me - this *is* fresh honeysuckle, picked straight from the vine. Smells like spending a hot summer day in a thicket. Beautifully done, not something I'd buy for myself, but fun to wear from a sample

Upon first spritz and citrus release I thought, this isn't too bad--maybe not exciting or full-bottle worthy, but okay enough to consider layering with something. Within a couple minutes I'd struck a line through that mental notation. Even if Le Labo uses natural ingredients, I felt a synthetic sensation in my throat, along with sugar designed to attract little girls. I gave up trying to derive pure orange blossoms from my skin and then recognized a note of some other floral, maybe tuberose.

After I composed my comments above, I looked up the official notes. Here they be: "A natural and extremely rare Orange Blossom that took over 3 years to compose is enhanced by fresh floral and lemony notes, rounded out by musk and the succulent, sunny touches of bergamot, petit grain and lemon."