Frederic Malle - French Lover: Initial Impressions

Opens with a strong dose of pepper. Shortly thereafter it smells similar to the way L'Antimatiere smells on skin after a few hours, although a bit less "fuzzy" and a bit more natural. Something akin to the Creed Ambergris drydown without being nearly as sweet. Although not listed, it smells strong of labdanum to me. There's also a green resinous note that is nicely woven into the mix, no duobt the galbanum.

10 minutes in and galbanum has faded to the background as a very nice and round, non-gritty nutmeg (smoother and rounder than the nutmeg in Visit) has moved into the forefront alongside a frankincense and labdanum note. It is actually the labdanum, I believe, that is rounding off the nutmeg and frankincense and lending it the ambergris-esque quality. Projection is minimal after only a few minutes. On my arms, from 15 minutes on or so the labdanum note seems stronger while on my chest the frankincense reigns supreme. After a while the nutmeg completely dominates on my skin and it becomes a unidimensional, if fairly pleasant, nutmeg frag (well, it is still tinged with a hint of frankincense, and while the accord smells good, it's not particularly interesting since it hasn't evolved for hours now).

Objectively I'd give this frag a sideways thumb - but factoring in the price and the house, I'd give it a thumbs down. I wish this worked on me. On me any Yatagan similarities are gone within 30 minutes, sadly, as the resinous notes and labdanum fade out. After this point, it is very very dry. Imagine the aforementioned Azzaro Visit minus any of the sweet notes and more natural smelling (although less sillage.) Longevity is good if heavily applied (8 hours or so).

I wish it worked on me like it did for you. My skin has been just obliterating frags lately though, or maybe my sense of smell is a bit off because of some relationship related depression? I don't know, but very few things are working for me as of late, sadly. Hopefully I've not just gotten too picky. I'll sample it again down the road and hopefully find the magic within.. it's a Bourdon frag, I'm sure there's more there than I picked up today.

Well, the nutmeg comes across incensey to me, thanks to the 'shading' with the frankincense.. I mean, it totally has an incense vibe but yet I still think that it's a dry nutmeg that I'm smelling with frankincense interwoven and not the other way around.

I'm rather disappointed to say I'm not familiar with Angelica as a note and hence why I didn't mention it . Is that the pepper note? Is it also a bit creamy/woody.. I'm thinking it may be the note in there that I was thinking was labdanum? Hmm...