Basenotes - Reviews by mysteriousmongoose

Vatican City State

Showing 1 to 8 of 8.

Fracas by Robert Piguet

I'm not certain how I managed to not try this previously, but the moment I saw the EDP tester in the shop, I reached for it, gave a tiny sniff – delicious! – and gave it a go.

It started off so promisingly: bright, citrusy-leafy with a sort of edible warmth behind it it, and I could not stop sniffing my wrist. It was perhaps after about half an hour that it struck me as a bit flat and synthetic, but I thought (and hoped) that I just needed to take a break from inhaling it, or it might be going through a rough moment in its development.
But... no. After abut three quarters of an hour, it settled into a single, disappointing, cheaply-scented baby talc note, which did however, persist fairly well. Not awful, just nothing even remotely special.

This happened twice. Perhaps I can get it to work out on my scarves, or something, even if my skin doesn't do anything good with it; I really wanted this to be wonderful.

To be entirely fair, this has happened with many fragrances I've tried: If there's a powdery note in there, be it ever so slight, my skin drags it to the surface, brutally kicking all other notes aside.

3rd November, 2011.

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Ungaro by Ungaro

This starts off smelling like fruit-flavoured gum. Not terrible, but not what I would have expected. The fruitiness develops through fruit punch and children's birthday party notes (I really don't know how else to describe it), with a faint suggestion of fruity cocktails (the sort with a maraschino cherry), or the more exhuberant iterations of sangria. It becomes less sweet over time, but I cannot shake the image of a large fruit salad with tinned pineapple, maraschino cherries, mandarin orange segments, kiwi slices, starfruit, the whole spashed with not-100%-natural fruit juice.

This isn't terrible fragrance, or even a bad one, and I can actually imagine some sort of odd (for me) occasion on which I might be in the mood for wearing it (it would probably be preceded by a bit too much sun during the day, and a bit too much wine during dinner). This seems to be a very uncomplicated fragrance, and would not be inappropriate for a young teenager (although it is not a light fragrance, and should be accompanied by a careful explanation of the difference between pleasant sillage, and rendering people on the other side of piazza insensible).

I must just be in a good mood, but for some reason, i don't find it in me to trash this stuff. If you like serious/interesting, AVOID; I would describe this as a cheerful, silly, yet friendly fragrance.

I'm a bit puzzled by the fragrance's 'discontinued' status, since it's available in Italy (it may be old stock; today's date, for future refernce, is 22 March 2010).

22nd March, 2010.

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Peau d'Espagne by Santa Maria Novella

(This review is for the absolute; I applied a only very tiny amount to my wrist and distributes it well over the other arm, since this concentration is not intended to be applied directly to the skin; yes, I am a pushover for a certain kind of bottle.)

I have a weakness for leather notes, so my first request at SMN was for 'something leathery', and 'Peau d'Espagne' was naturally what was presented to me for inspection. After wandering about with it for a day, I decided that I loved it, and went back and bought it.

When first applied, this is not markedly leathery (admittedly, though, since the scent of leather comes primarily form the substances applied to the skins, rather than the skins themselves, this is a rather hazy label). Initially, notes of anise and a sort of soapiness accompany a smoky, muted spiciness. Over time, a much warmer, lightly animalic note emerges, with a suggestion of amber, way in the background. By the end of the day (and this is very persistent... I could smell it the next day, even after a lengthy shower), a muted spiciness remains, hovering over a leathery note that evokes the sun shining in on shelves of leather-bound books. This is the leather of a cosy, much-frequented old library, rather than that of the tack room or the leather bar, the sensuality that of stretching oneself out comfortably in a favourite chair, without encumbering oneself with any more clothing than the temperature demands.

24th March, 2009.

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Zagara by Santa Maria Novella

On me, this is THE perfect orange blossom scent; floral, more green than sweet; a bit of a citrus note (which is most evident when first applied) adds some clean sharpness to the background, but the orange blossom stays firmly in the foreground, and both a slight bitterness and the characteristic sweetness evolve gently over the day; by night, my skin smells simply as though I've been out in the sun all day.

When I tried this, I braced myself for a serious disappointment, because most of the neroli scents I've tried have been insipid and cloying, but this took my breath away; it evoked everything that was best about summer, when I was growing up in Florence. The scent is transparently light and discreet, but lasts very well. This is pure sunlight on an orange grove, on a quiet Sunday morning in late May.

23rd March, 2009.

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Jicky by Guerlain

I tend to avoid many of the stablished fragrance houses, as I've found that, on me, many of their offerings smell very generically "perfumey". For me nothing is carved in stone, so when I was hunting for Petit Guerlain and came across Jicky EDP (which has often been referenced on basenotes), I had to try it.

I found this to be an incredibly simple fragrance that remained more or less the same from start to finish. While that may sound like a negative, this actually supported the fragrance itself, which replicated the experience of opening the oven door on a batch of just finished, perfect creme caramel, done with a very high grade of nutmeg.

It was beautifully creamy and delicious, and so different from both the described notes and other reviews, that I had to try it again before being convinced of my experience. I could not stop sniffing my wrists--it was on both the fronts and backs, since scents are slightly different in these two spots--because I was positively incredulous about what I was smelling.

There was no citrus, no wood, no herbal accord, no incense, nothing animalic. If I hadn't been quite certain of the source, or the bottle had not been a tightly sealed (I discreetly checked, making the salse-staff eye me suspiciously) I would have questioned whether this was actually the fragrance others have reviewed.

It opened with nutmeg (due perhaps to some combination of the wood, incense, and leather notes), custard, and caramel notes (benzoin and tonka bean, there), and stayed that way. An accord that was reminiscent of fondant seemed to advance and recede at intervals, but it was not very pronounced, and merged with the overall impression of creme caramel. I detected a faint amber note--something I normally cannot stand--that blended so beautifully into the whole. I actually appreciated its presence, as, along with the nutmeg note, it modulated the overall sweetness.

Jicky lasted well, about six hours, and wore quite close to the skin. Said skin is dry, fair, and freckled, just to provide a bit more background as to the beast on which these test results emerged.

This is definitely NOT generically "perfumey", yet in it's unusualness there is no element of the weird or uncomfortable. My prefernces are for Cabochard and Zagorsk, but Jicky is definitely right with them for uniqueness.

As soon as I can justify it financially, it is going to be sitting beside them on my shelf, too.

9th December, 2006.

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Cumming by Alan Cumming

The initial application is harshly alcoholic, and I was prepared to dislike this fragrance. In under a minute, however, this morphed to the scent of small, oval, rice-filled pastries that have always been a favourite of mine since I was a child in Florence.

This note persisted, eventually evolving to a more general high-end café or bake shop accord, with a bit less sweetness. Tobacco and peat become evident, but interstingly, not on actually sniffing the skin, but as notes that emerge after. A faint, not unpleasing evocation of roast-beef--or something charred yet pleasant--is also drifting about in the background.

Within half an hour, though, nothing but a very faint, pleasant, food-y presence remains.

5th October, 2006.

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Lolita Lempicka by Lolita Lempicka

This is a truly frustrating fragrance. On a strip it smelled powdery (not a favourite of mine) and a bit generic, but I detected liquorice-y notes and other not-quite-identifiables. I like liquorice, and frankly, I loved the bottle.

On my skin, a liquorice vodka accord quicly gives way to a powdery heavy liquorice with a faint suggestion of the soapy violet sweets I used to eat as a kid. A caramel-scented detergent-like note briefly muscled its way to the front, then faded after several hours to... fried chicken wrapped in the paper that had previously lined a box of violet and liquorice bon-bons.

Incidentally, unlike other fragrances I've tried, LL smells different when sprayed on different parts of my body (e.g. front and back of wrist; it smells worse on the front of my wrist, over the pulse).

I still have to give this points for having something different on offer, and for lasting all day.

4th October, 2006.

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Cabochard by Grès

The original fragrance had so much character, I am still trying to find another that hits the same level.

I am steeling myself to have a sniff--and maybe a try--of the reworked version. Anyone out there in a position to offer a comparison of the two?

4th October, 2006.

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