Gris Clair - wtf?!

Er, simply one of the best frags ever created.......

I've got 2 spritzes on the top and the bottom of my wrists as I key this. I smell nothing "burnt" I love it!


Dan

I share your opinion. Unfortunately I didn't received my Daim Blond sample, but the other seven SL frags - well didn't impress me at all. I haven't found one single among them I would like to own to smell like it. Maybe I'm uneducate to understand them.

I don't get anything burned in it. Gris Clair is a great take on lavender and one of the best of Lutens.

I get that burnt opening but i love it .. .

I don't get burnt, I get camphor and lavender

All I got was some sweet, lavenderish thing. There are a lot better lavender scents out there.
Guerlain 's Lavande Velours or Creeds Royal Scottish lavender to name a few.

I get NO burnt top notes in GC. I do, like someone mentioned above, get a sharp medicinal note that transitions in a resinous pine scent. For some it makes GC uplifting, cold and clear - for others (like me) it ruins it and more specifically it gives me a headache. Great lavender though.

Burnt ambergris sounds kinda neat though.

I was thinking about trading in Douce Amere for GC! It's the warmest lavender I've ever tried and I like it!

I own Gris Clair, and while it does have a smokey element at first, I don't get much of a burnt smell from it. I think it's really reactive to skin chemistry, or just different noses.

Gris Claire is my least favorite of the Lutens line. It smells like a damp cotton shirt being scorched too long under a hot iron until smoke rises. It is the worst lavender fragrance. On the other hand, Encens et Lavende is the best Lavender and Inscense on the market period! I ordered Daim Blond today!

I like GC quite a bit. It wasn't love at first sniff, but I've found the lavender/camphor/smoke accord to be quite endearing.

Ambergris does not smell burnt or burned. It has a buttery woody incense like smell. It is usually combined with tonkin or benzoin or vanilla to sweeten it some. That is my experiance with it. Gris Clair to my nose has an initial smokiness or incense under the lavendar and camphor. Not my cup of tea but for those that don't care for overly sweet scents this is a good frag

Not the best representation of a lavandar scent to my mind. Others will surely disagree but that is all part of the fun of being on this website.

Rick

Burnt? I dont get it, and I dont find Gris Clair odd at all. Its not the finest lavender fragrance (the other notes distract from the lavender note), and I prefer Encens et Lavande as well.

I like Gris Clair and appreciate the fact that it is very dry compaired to most of the SL line. Sillage is deceptively powerful. To me, the SL that really makes me want to gag is Chypre Rouge---some kind of diabolical ointment.

OK, so I am wearing Gris Clair right now (from a sample - thanks Kyra) and it's been quite a while since my post above.

I smell EXACTLY what Scentronic says above - the 'burnt' smell is enveloping me all over. I stuck my arm out and asked someone to tell me what they smell. It took them a while...I said 'lavender, do you smell lavender?'...'No', they said. 'I smell something that smells like rust'. When I said, 'Doesn't it smell like electrical wires that are rusted and old?' they totally agreed. "Ewww...I can even taste the metal!' they said after I pulled my arm away from their nose.

Skin chemistry is amazing - because many of you above don't get this accord at all on your skin, which is extremely fascinating. And yet on me, that is the most prominent part of GC.

I think Scentronic's 'scorched cotton shirt' description is a quite perfect way of describing what I'm smelling.

Quite possibly one of the weirdest accords I've ever got from a Lutens.

I totally disagree with your statement. I think Gris Clair is one of the best Lutens fragrances there is - a sharp, crisp take on lavender. It is an overall excellent fragrance.

I personally smell nothing burnt or scorched about it. But then maybe my sense of smell has been affected by sniffing too much Pomegranate Noir....

Burnt? No way! Sure, there's a camphoraceous-mineralic note that distinguishes GC but nothing on fire.

It also happens to be one of my holy grails, and I've gotten a few compliments on it from my friends.

burnt ashes of lavender? It is similar to burning Lavender essential oil on the pot.

I think it must be your skin chemistry. Gris Clair is one of my favourites and is probably one of the least weird Lutens - dear God, not even in the same galaxy as Dzing! Try it on paper or fabric.

I also took against this totally and instantly.

Yeah, i find Gris Clair to be rather classy and tame compared to most lutens - but I think what people are reacting to is the stone/ash notes in the base. To me those notes don't come out much until the rest of the notes have faded away, and then you have this gross stoney, metallic, ashy residue that sort of feels like a stone knife cutting you. I guess that's what people are smelling right away.

I find it's a great fragrance that gets a little ugly at the end, which is like alot of Lutens, but I guess you guys are sensitive to those ugly notes and are catching them right away.

Until then it's lavender wrapped in creamy iris, and the opening just smells like lavender essential oil.

In general, I find SL overpraised and overpriced, but I love Gris Clair. It is the only SL I've found FBW for me so far. (Ambre Sultan was a near miss.) I do smell the burntness along with the camphor and lavender, but I find it oddly enjoyable. It certainly lacks that cloying honey sweetness that most of SL frags are drenched in. I do find it odd that several folks have been unable to smell the burnt ashiness in it; yet more evidence of the individuality of scent perception I suppose. This is off topic but I've never been able to figure out the many Bois du Portugal and Third Man comparisons either. To me, those two have nothing in common with each other.

Me too.

If I could get past the inevitable small headache I get when I wear it, I'd buy a bottle right away.

I liken this strange burnt accord (and it's oddness) to that plastic accord I smell in Vetiver Extraordinaire by Malle. They don't smell alike, but rather they are strange, synthetic accords mixed in the very middle of a complex, luxurious and classy fragrance. Yin/yang - if you will.

I do feel a burnt note in GC. Like a bonfire on the snowy ground. Very clear contrast: coldness and flame.

I feel the same idea of burnt note in Mugler's A-man - both have something headache inducining

GC is a moody scent, like L'Eau D'Hiver

True. Perhaps its the infamous tar note.

dudes, I will take your gris clair. msg me!

I also get the burnt note in GC but see nothing wrong with it. I find Bogart pour Homme to be very similar to Gris Clair minus the smokiness - or less of it, perhaps you could give that one a try as well. It's also much cheaper.

Does anyone else get lavender disguised as sweet, buttery almonds ?

It's the only Lutens that I find disgusting.

I really like the top notes, especially lavender which can be really addictive onto a man. Usually, lavender fragrances are softened with vanilla notes. Here, you've got vanilla, but also heliotropin which I find terrible. It smells plastic face dolls and fruits (the musks I guess). This fragrance becomes sticky, unpleasant and gives me headaches.

i recently got my hands on a decent sample of GC. and i find it very challenging and one of the most engaging scents ever. couple of wears into it and one cant resist it in colder wheathers..

when i first sampled it on wrist, the initial impression that i got was that of smoky lava at volcano site. progressing forward i could not shake off the image of being at a Laboratory (i majored in chemistry, but have no clue of it now ) i do recollect a chemical (magnesium?) which smelled just like it. dont remember what it was.

im sure this scent, like all SL's, represents a theme in similar lines..

So far three scents have sent me reaching for my credit card at first whif. GC is one of them. Instead of burnt I smell heated iron (the appliance ). Almost like a CdG scent. But it is the scent that creates the most vivid emotional responses for me. Sort of like the opposite of all Montale's.To me all Montale fragrances that I have sampled rate somewhere between 6 and 8 out of ten, but they feel so frigid! No sentiment at all. Hence the credit card in the wallet.... GC almost brings tears in my eyes. In a way there was never a question of liking it or not. I feel like it liked me. Strange.

I just tried SL Gris Clair and I got exactly the same thing as you. Cotton under the iron! The difference is I liked it . Interesting how we both made that strange association.

It is not called Lavende Claire. It is called Gris Clair. It is not a lavender scent. It is a scent with lavender in it

Interesting that this post got bumped up - I have been wearing Gris Clair a lot, now that I have a bottle of it (thanks sloan_8013) and the 'burning hot metallic cotton' I mentioned above has kind of receded to the background now, so that I really enjoy the fragrance much more.

I also found out that this scent really shines in hot weather. Which is good, since it's hot a lot here where I live.

Love this stuff!

gris clair is scary at first... but... you'll love that intensity once you get used to it

I wore it to work once, and someone asked me if the building smelled moldy. I haven't worn it out since, but I still like the smell

I love GRIS CLAIR. Very well done, very confortable to wear and long lasting...

To me GC smells like a long lost European cousin of the famed Davidoff Relax

WTF? Yeah I can understand it. I didn't like it for a while too. I've found that when applied liberally Gris Clair can be oppressive. I think its the juniper berry? mixed with lavender that gives such a sharp edge to this one and it is potent. Apply it in a clould and walk through it to get more of the medicinal lavender. Applied lightly it sparkes rather than blasts its scent.

Is anyone familiar with Shiseido Basala? It has been a favorite for years, but wearing it next to Gris Clair revealed to me a strong similarity. GC is B with a spiked lavender note and stripped of the bottom notes. The result is a more unconventional fragrance but one that, at least to me, is more evocative and emotional.
What do you think?

I'm bumping this post, because something happened this weekend that made me think of this story:

I hate cleaning my house. Hate it. Nonetheless, we aren't able to afford a housekeeper for now so someone's gotta clean it, and that someone is me.

Whenever I clean, I can't wear fragrances while I'm doing it because: 1) the scent I have on is very soon disintegrated by the smell of the cleaners and chemicals I clean with and 2) I don't want any bad olfactory associations with my scents [I don't want to think of cleaning my dirty toilet, next time I wear Ambre Sultan]. So.

This weekend I cleaned my kitchen and I also cleaned the oven. Not too bad, considering my oven has it's own self cleaning cycle. I mopped the floor with a brand new, lavender scented product - one that I have been wanting to try for quite some time: Lavender, Vanilla & Comfort by Febreze /Swiffer. I remember reading about the Febreze marketing strategy of the scent in Chander Burr's article in the NYT, 'Purple Odor Eater'. Well, the Swiffer wet wipes smell pretty friggin' good.

I mopped the entire kitchen floor and set the oven on it's self clean cycle - which gets the oven extremely hot. When I came back in the kitchen after an hour or so, the entire area smelled like Gris Clair. No kidding.

I think it was the combination of the same medicinal lavender smell and the heat of the oven, gave off a hot, metallic, ash-y smell that we're discussing on this thread. It was as if I had sprayed GC in the air, like a home spray, with just a tad of sweetness (the vanilla). It smelled awesome!

I'm wearing GC now and of course, in my mind, it smells like a clean, warm oven, kitchen smell.

I think you will be cleaning your oven more often

I think what your experiencing is referred to as domestic bliss.

Hey, if you've got to do something you hate doing you might as well enjoy the smell!

i tried GC the other day.... i like the initial 40mins or so... cannot stop sniffing! but the drydown smells extremely powdery to me. so that is a bit of a deal breaker for me.

I hated my sample of this with a passion and thought it was truly disgusting. It gets so much praise though that I've often wondered if my sample was something else or had gone off. It arrived in a package along with a couple dozen other samples but it was all I could smell, even though none had leaked out. It was so overpowering! I ended up keeping it outside on the balcony so as not to taint my other samples.

I didn't care for it either, I think the burnt clothes under a hot iron analogy made in previous posts is spot-on. But then again, it may also be the lavender turning me off. I might have to resample it, though...

Burnt? Not Really, though I got some resemblance with Rochas - Man, most likely due to the Lavender. IMO is one of the best SL's made up to now.

Its ok. A lavender that slowly pales.

Nasty stuff

Cmax...

It's OK but like others better I've tried in their line.

Agreed. Sums it up for me. Perhaps there is a 'starch' note in there that explains the "burnt clothes under a hot iron analogy ".

I like it but prefer Encens et Lavande, which is more natural smelling and more special and unique. Gris Clair is nice, but it does have a lot of woody amber propping it up

The weird thing is this: even though they share few if any notes (based on their pyramids), I find that Gris Clair and Salvador Dali Laguna Pour Homme actually somehow smell very similar.

Let me tell you about Gris Clair.

I sort all my fragrances by PURPOSE. I don't care what the top notes are from the ass notes or whatever.

I care about where and with who etc. I would utilize a fragrance. And Gris Clair is ABSOLUTELY AWESOME to wear to a nightclub, the more crowded and dance-type the better, think New York or L.A. style clubs. Gris Clair is awesome in this environment. Turns womens heads, and it cuts through the 8 million other crap generic fragrances worn by every other guy.

If you have a sample of this and didn't like it, put on some headphones with some latest club type hits, close your eyes, and imagine yourself wearing it in the club. Or if you don't go to dance clubs, well, here's a great excuse to start going!!

(Un Bois Vanille is a close second in this category. In fact interestingly - I've worn them both at the same time before with good results. It happened by accident as I grabbed the wrong bottle to add a spray before headin out, and at first I was like oh crap, but then I was like...hmm...those work nice together.)

But outside of the above club scenerio, I simply wouldn't wear it out in the light of day.

I l prefer Encens et lavande too
There is something sweet and sticky i really don't like (especially in the drydown). I smell the same bad note on Chergui and Fourreau noir and don't like them for the same reason.

No. Lavender does not smell like this - but I agree with the OP. I think GC definitely smells like a hot iron steam...the strangest accord/sensation. I actually enjoy it. But this is NOT an olfactory effect I've smelled in ANY other lavender and I've smelled a bunch of them.

That's odd--I get the 'hot steam iron' in probably a quarter of all the lavender-prominent fragrances I've ever smelled, so I've come to associate that note with lavender in general.

My only complaint about Gris Clair: TOO DAMN STRONG! To my nose, it's almost extrait strength, so if you try to apply it like an EdT, you'll be a hot mess and unable to go out in public for a long while. I've got half a mind to dilute mine 1:1 with perfumer's alcohol.