eo01
by Biehl Parfumkunstwerke

“Warming balsam for the soul.” (Biehl Parfumkunstwerke website)

It smells exactly like Organza Indecence to me. It wouldn't have been a bad thing if Givenchy never bothered re-releasing it.

[Original submission date: 11 July 2008]

eo01 is a soft, lovely comfort scent that smells a lot like nutmeg and rice pudding. It is very pretty while it lasts, which isn't long.

Smells like any ol' sweet and floral womens perfume to me. A little resinous and slightly powdery. The styrax note is prominent. Meh.

E0 01 is a very pretty perfume from the biehl parfumkunstwerke line that starts off quite sweet, much sweeter than the notes below would suggest. After a couple of minutes a warm spicy cardamom note starts to develop and I am slightly reminded of Aftelier’s Tango. From there, a pretty symphonic floral fragrance emerges along with unexpected but very charming hints of chocolate. The cocoa note is delicate but hangs around and that is the scent which keeps wafting towards my nose as EO 01 settles in for the long haul. The middle/base of EO 01 has a marked hint of powdery luxuriousness that I associate with aldehydes, a good example of which is Le Labo’s Aldehyde 44, and a bad example is Etat Libre d’Orange’s Rien. EO01’s final phase is comprised of warm, slightly spicy woods that are so well blended that it is hard to isolate a particular note.

In short, EO 01 is an elegant, gracious fragrance and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys this genre of perfumery (which I do!). Well done, Egon Oelkers!

Here are the notes, courtesy of The Perfumed Court: Top: tangerine, blood orange, cardamom, muscat, apricot, cocoa, Middle: rosewood, pimento, iris, orchid, lily of the valley, Base: styrax, vanilla, cinnamon, tonka beans, cedarwood, vetiver, patchouli.

eo01 starts off reminding me of a Lutens Bois fragrance; not any particular Lutens but just the general woody profile of these Lutens scents. There is a note that strikes me as waxy, like candle wax, that lasts maybe 10-20 minutes. At this point as the top notes give way to the heart, the woodiness is complimented by amber, which sweetens the fragrance and a touch of powder (iris and tonka?) that softens it nicely. The drydown, which to me is the best feature of this perfume, retains the woody notes of the top and heart with something animalic underneath that adds a degree of complexity. These animalic notes get more pronounced as the woods disappear, leaving behind a skin scent not unlike Escentual's Molecule 02.

This is a nice fragrance that is more on the masculine side of unisex. It lasts about 6 hours and while the opening notes do project fairly well after the first 20 minutes eo01 stays pretty close to the skin through out the rest of its development. Because it does stay close to the skin it wears well in warmer weather, but I think it smells more like a fall scent.