Fragrance Reviews by mysteriousmongoose

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.

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.

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.

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?