Lacoste Elegance by Lacoste, 2007

I am not a lover of gourmand scents and I do not like chocolate--literally, I get a migraine thinking about chocolate much less eating it--so the smell of chocolate is nothing that conjures up warm, indulgent, decadent thoughts--just the opposite! Amazingly, however, I really like this scent. The chocolate note is a bitter one and has nothing to do with Easter Bunny shaped chocotale candies. The total absence of floral notes and the deft use of fruit, woods, spices and yes, even chocolate, make this avery compelling scent. There is an elegance to it, as the name suggests, although not in the usual sense. The elegance lies in this scent's ability to harmoniously marry a diverse group of gourmand notes in a way that is subdued, compelling and not in the least foody. I love to smell the foods I love but I do not want to smell OF them. There is no elegance in smelling like you have just come from the table..... Lacoste Elegance smells of the promise of good things to come as opposed to the recent eating of good things. Despite the lack of feminizing florals, none of the notes is particularly masculine in the traditional sense so this could work well on a woman who is looking for a drily elegant demi-gourmand scent.

Notes:
Top: Thyme, Violet, Mint, Juniper, Tangerine
Middle: Pepper, Nutmeg, Cardamom, Raspberry
Base: Sandalwood, Cedar, Chocolate, Amber

Elegance is an oriental-fougere marketed to the "mature" crowd, i.e., the 30+, "refined men, men with a great deal of experience, etc". Naturally, going by that marketing definition you can already guess that its a muted herbal-spicy fragrance with a little bit of sweetness to round things off and you would be correct. The opening of Elegance is the most attractive phase .. a cool, herbal, slightly sweet blast of thyme, mint and juniper...the thyme makes the top notes and is in fine form here, linking up well with a mint note operating at the periphery of the opening. 20 minutes later a "dry" phase materializes, with a little bit of fruity sweetness; the heart notes are low-key and parched but wait...the fragrance gets even drier in the drydown, with a bitter chocolate note and woody cedar dominating the amber and sandalwood notes. So after an inviting cool herbal blast, what you are left with is a dry, peppery ambery drydown.

Elegance reminds me of Davidoffs' Silver Shadow in its overall dry-oriental lite feel. Silver Shadow has an edge in that it features a fine saffron note which Elegances' star notes like raspberry and bitter chocolate can't quite match (mainly due to their muted presence). If I were a man on the wrong side of 30, I would pick Silver Shadow. And although I would (hopefully) have a great deal of experience, I would wonder why I am being marketed the same muted peppery-oriental juices over and over again in different guises ... surely someone can jazz up the formula a bit every now and then ?

Rating: 7.25/10.00