Ambre Fétiche (2007)
by Annick Goutal

The opening reminded me of plain biscuits (crackers), weirdly. It doesn't start off sweet, but works its way slowly into a rather conventional smoky vanilla base that is very lightly spiced. While I enjoy it, it is hardly mind-blowing. I would have preferred a little more intensity in this one.

I'll let the others gt into the scent of this, but let me just add this...

I made the mistake of using two sprays on my first application. It was overwhelming and my friends were making negative comments and rolling down windows. The opening smell was overbearingly incense-based for me, and almost made me sick to my stomach. I've learn one spray to one wrist, dabbing to the other and dabbing on my neck is PLENTY. The spray is literally around twice what I get out of any other bottle I currently own.

It also sticks around. if you dont like it, youre out of luck. I took a shower when I get back from that trip the first use, and scrubbed my arms HARD with soap and could STILL smell it. It took 4-5 scrubs to get it clear. This one will stick around.

This one is worth wearing out. When the overbearing of the incense fades, I rather enjoy it.

So many mentions of birch tar… When I encounter birch tar in many fragrances, the birch tar is so strongly obnoxious that I have to scrub it off. The odd thing About Ambre Fetiche is that I don’t get the birch tar note at all… And I get very little smokiness or incense. I do get a light frankincense and labdanum in the opening, but they do not come on as strongly as they might: They remain subtle and yet they keep the amber under control. Ambre Fitiche begins as a dry amber and I like that idea – there are more than enough sweet amber scents in the world. Unfortunately, the dryness doesn’t continue… the fragrance picks up a less ambery / more generically sweet powdery character from the benzoin and iris in the heart and vanilla in the base. I pretty much lose interest in this because I don’t understand the exchange of a full bodied rich, dry amber to a thinner benzoin / vanilla watery sweetness. The leather doesn’t save Ambre Fetiche from the thinness and powderiness, either. To my nose this is a very nice amber fragrance – nothing special but well structured and proportioned… one of many…

An oddly gourmandy amber, odd because it's not gourmandy in the vanilla-sweet and syrupy way usual to amber fragrances but rather due to a buttery freshly baked bread accord. Actually, it's more the feeling than the scent of freshly baked bread it captures - the sauna-like, steamy heat common to amber fragrances is here translated to a freshly opened oven and the hot air oozing out of the bread when you break the slightly burnt crust. The scent is so hot and dry it feels a bit like breathing in dust, or, unfortunately, like hitting your nose against a wall of shiny, white plastic, a similar effect to the one I felt in CB Musc Reinvention although not as intense. I prefer dusty dry amber fragrances to sticky sweet ones, but due to that plasticky feeling I can only give a neutral rating.

Ambre Fetiche is a very warm strong masculine fragrance that is wearable and mesmerizing from the opening. There is a very dark birch tar leather in the opening supported by frankincense and in the distance is a warm echo of amber. The sweetness of the amber is completely hidden by the birch tar "fetish" of this amber based scent. The only similar opening I have tired is Kolnisch Juchten by Regence which is very similar in its dark leather opening. As the scent wears down in 4 or 5 hours the amber is now emerging as the last note standing with dry warmth that stays for a remarkably long time. The evolution from dark leather to pure amber is a long one, but the difference in fragrance development is dramatic from the opening to drydown some 7 - 8 hours later.

I find this combination of Russian leather and amber to be positively satisfying in every regard. I shall certainly be acquiring a bottle of this!