Reviews of Patchouli 24 (2006)
by Le Labo

This is amazing. Come on! This is patchouli. A light patchouli but stop with that nonsense that what's in the name is not in the juice. And the drydown is not vanilla. It is vanilline. The cheap white powder that is used as a substitute of the expensive real thing. I always prefer the real thing when I cook but I must admit that the use of vanilline in a fragrance is ingenious. It brings the soft roundness of vanilla, without the sweetness and with a strong peppery burn in the nostrils. How come no-one thought of this before? Big thumbs up for the idea (by the way, vanilline is a by-product of paper manufacturing).

I absolutely love the complexity of this fragrance, the smoky rubbery tar opening that evolves into a hazy vanilla veil at the very tail end. It is everything I could not appreciate years ago when I first began my fragrance collecting, and now I can fully appreciate the complex structure, the slinky skin salt note that wraps through the whole delicious mix. Totally amazing and worth every minute.

One of the best in LeLabo line. The scent itself isn't based on patchouli like the name stated at all.
The concept is the same as Bvlgari Black but it is so much better.
First on the skin, I smell smoky birch tar with a slightest hint of patchouli.
Later the scent creates a very good balance between tar and the sweetness of vanilla, whereas in BLV Black it dries down to a vanilla base with slight hint of burned tea and rubber left.

Patchouli 24 is in a personal category of fragrances I like to call a "niche mess" and more often than not, I'm head over heals for everything I put into this category. Patchouli 24 is no exception. I can divide my Patchouli 24 experience into two very distinct parts. In the opening I'm treated to that "whoah, slow down there fella!" thing where all the notes come at me in a brawl of sensations and textures. There's heaps of smoke, tar, the smell of old dry things like leather or jerky, and vanilla to ground and soften what COULD be a very ugly experience. On the contrary, this is absolutely fantastic and that very vanilla seems to bind and lubricate everything dry and severe about this fragrance, so that when all is said and done, I actually consider Patchouli 24 to be one of my number one comfort scents, and instead of dry, I sense it as being very rich, if one could imagine thick vanilla tar in a molten, liquid form.

The second part of my experience with Patchouli 24 is the cozy part for me. Not long after I apply it, everything starts to chill out and I envision a log cabin in the woods. If I might elaborate, this really does paint a pretty specific image in my mind... the air outside is pointedly cold and crisp, the sky radiantly blue, the scent of fireplace hangs in the air all around, and you take a whiff of your clean, slightly fabric softened (not the fresh smelling kind, the snuggly soft kind) flannel shirt, and you just wanna curl up in a thick quilt blanket on a big, old, worn leather arm chair and soak it all in. The end of Patchouli 24 smells like that to me. There's something unmistakably gentle and soft in this fragrance that really makes this shift in sensations a brilliant achievement. Love...it! Love it!

First off, this shouldn't be classed a woman's fragrance -- it's wearable by both, in that it is wearable at all. The first blast is strange -- liquid smoke -- and the friendlier drydown is where it's at. As others have noted, not a patchouli scent. To me, it is about comforting vanilla -- not the syrupy version (which I also like) but an unusually dry scent that makes me think of toasty cotton, autumn leaves and especially biscotti. I bought a large decant -- may never use it up because it's so specifically suits a certain mood, but it's unique enough to want on hand if you enjoy it.

As with the other Le Labos, its named noted, patchouli, doesn't play a starring role in this fragrance. At first the fragrance is shockingly smoky, resinous, and fairly discordant. And did I mention sillage? There's lots of that also. Another reviewer drew the apt analogy with a fireplace... I agree. This smells not just like a fireplace, but the way a house smells when a chimney is clogged and too much smoke backs up into the house instead of going up the chimney (I had a house with a fireplace like this). You have to like incense/smoke to get through this phase.

The drydown is beyond magic... vanilla emerges and balances out the richest, resinous leather I've ever experienced. I don't sense the sickly sweetness others report at all. In fact, vanilla is barely noticeable as a lone note, but rather a lightly detectable note that keep the entire composition from going too far.

I'll be buying at least a decant of this.... definitely a cold weather only fragrance, but I can't wait to have Patchouli 24 seeping up from underneath my parka as I walk through sub-zero temperatures.

An astounding love it or hate it fragrance! Smells like a smokey fireplace in the first 5 minutes and then turns into a passionate leathery amber. Finally a different patchouli. All patch scent have always smelled the same and now its been covered by other fabulous ingrediants so that you only can smell a hint of it on the dry down. Don't want a migrain, get P24

I think that Le Labo’s Patchouli 24 (samples, decants, bottles or what have you) should come with a big flashing warning sign that says “APPLY WITH CARE”! This is quite possibly one of the most intense-smelling, longest lasting fragrances I have ever experienced (which includes Ysatis, Angel, Creeds, Montales, etc..). And as you can see from the volume of my perfume reviews, I like to think that I have smelled a fair amount of perfume.

When I first tried Patchouli 24, all I had was a small sample and lightly dabbed it on a small place on my wrist. Its top note of earthy smoke was readily apparent and reminded me a good deal of CB I Hate Perfumes Burning Leaves but was not quite as sweet. Then, as the drydown continued, wafts of dark, sticky vanilla began to emerge but with the smoke and some leather still hanging tough. I would say that patchouli is actually one of the least recognizable notes in Patchouli 24. Both my boyfriend and I were entranced by this dark and lovely fragrance so I purchased a spray decant.

Before Boyfriend and I embarked on a recent roadtrip, he generously spritzed himself with Patchouli 24 before getting in the car and man, was that ever an intense sensory journey! Accckk. I had to roll the windows a number of times to be able to breathe. Patchouli 24 is not a fragrance for close quarters and I think the car still smells of it . After we returned home, just for experimental purposes, I sprayed Patchouli 24 into a bowl of potpourri to see if it would last there since most perfumes evaporate pretty quickly when sprayed on potpourri. A week later and still counting, Patchouli 24 is proudly in evidence. Le Labo’s website calls Patchouli 24 “A scent filled with danger for those of us who like to walk a tight rope…” and that is certainly true if you cannot handle a tenacious perfume with monster sillage.

Here are the notes for Patchouli 24, as gleaned from the internet: birch tar, patchouli, styrax, and vanilla.

this is a very exciting perfume that somehow seems to pull off what a lot of the fragrances its compared to don't really: mixing a bunch of kinky funky elements to result in a fragrance that is really seductive.

although when I wore it in class the other day and put too much on the teacher just said she smelled something very chemical and the way she krinkled her nose it appeared she clearly wasn't loving it.

this is a perfume for your modern wearer, musically it's the like the fragrance equivalent of a Bartok piano concerto or something.

I really liked this, from beginning to end. The super smoky opening notes were great, and the dry down, which is sweetly vanilla, really appeals to me. I kept thinking that the end notes were awfully familiar, and I realized that Black Orchid smells like this at the end, too, though maybe not as sweet. This is a real keeper for me.

Finally, a smoky fragrance I can wear. Can't smell the patchouli with the birch tar, smoke, and wood covering it up. A few hours into the drydown, I can detect a faint trace of vanilla but it's barely there. Reminds me of Fumidus and Lonestar Memories (sans toothpaste note), yet Patch 24 works very well with my chemistry as opposed to the former.

Whoa, tar, gasoline, and leather, I like it! This would be a very butch fragrance if it wasn't for the vanilla, and I'm actually not overly fond of the vanilla. Vanilla-drenched tar is just... weird. And I like weird, but not sickly-sweet weird. I do detect the patchouli too, a dry, woody, refined patchouli like the one in Montale's Patchouli Leaves.
I must give Le Labo credit for this original fragrance, but it is a bit over-the-top with the CdG Synthetic/Lonestar Memories/Bulgari Black-thing AND the vanilla sweetness, I think this is a scent that could easily cause headaches and nausea.

The Le Labo folks are not kidding when they say that patchouli is not easy to detect in this fragrance. The birch tar takes center stage, to my nose. I'd call this dark, thick, smoky, leathery, animalic, and even a bit rubbery. It's closest parallels I would say are Lonestar Memories, Nostalgia, and Bulgari Black...probably in that order. It lasts well too. Unusual and interesting, if a bit weird, it brings to mind images of people wearing masks and whipping each other for enjoyment.

When I first heard the buzz about this one, I honestly thought, "Oh no, not ANOTHER niche house claiming to be unique!" I thought it had all been done. But, trying this one, I saw that I was incorrect. Some say this is in the same universe as Bulgari Black (and both were created by the same nose), nevertheless this one is quite unique and worth the price and search.

Nevertheless, the name is slightly misleading, as it takes a while to find any discernible patchouli. Instead, you get birch tar, smoke, woods, and eventually some patchouli. Sillage is good and longevity is amazing; if I wear this out on a Saturday night, I'm still smelling it well into Sunday afternoon.

All in all, it is definitely worth a try and a wonderful cold-weather fragrance.