Thanks for reminding me, Lessa. I'm wearing Rousse, but just pulled out my 1/3-full 1ml vial of Bois de Violette. Exquisite!
I find SL's florals painfully beautiful.
Bois de Violette,
A La Nuit,
Un Lys strike me as so pure and strong that I find it hard to wear them. But "visiting" them offers fleeting moments of rapture.
I used to own
Feminite du Bois, but [don't start hurling stones] got bored with it. As I smell BdV, I appreciate that its injection from the garden imparts an extra dimension to the FdB formula.
But, back to
Rousse. Before I refresh my memory with online info, I'll venture to say it contains tempered incense and spice and a woody note. "Tempered" is always the key for me when it comes to incense and spice. It doesn't take much from these categories to burn my nose hairs. Heat registers very quickly in my schnoz, and my head throws back to evade the burn. Okay, checking reviews: Yep, BNers are complaining it's too soft, "isn't full bodied and complex," "doesn't excite me," "mellow," "unobtrusive." Hee-hee-hee. That's why Q can tolerate it.
I have a blotter sprayed with A La Nuit and another with
Fleurs de Citronnier. ALN is rich, dense, clarified, filtered, polished jasminea yardstick by which others could be gauged. I'm coming to appreciate having blotters perched near my computer. I'm going to love smelling ALN every time I catch a whiff of it. It was just too opulent to apply to one's person at 7:30 in the morning.
FdC borders on revolting for me. There's good sweet and bad sweet, and FdC smells like a sugar-coated bar of orange-blossom, triple-milled soap. I like the smell of sugar, orange blossom and fine French soap, but not all at once.
Depending on the whims of international postal workers, a sample of
Vetiver Oriental may arrive here someday from a special somebody

. Oriental is my rockiest scent category, but if lovely vetiver holds my hand, perhaps I can traverse into it. Reviewers using the words green, powdery, soft, creamy, give me hope that VO may work for me.