Comme des Garcons Luxe: Champaca - wow!

The Comme des Garcons Luxe series is one of those things I was hoping to be indifferent to. Insanely overpriced, especially when added up dollar to milliliter, not terribly original concepts for CdG, and pretentious marketing ( Luxe? Oh, so your theme this time is expensive? ) But, it's all about the scent, and both of these are divine.

Patchouli has been coming up not infrequently over on the mens board, and for good reason - it captured my attention immediately with a peppery-smoky opening, and kept it going through a delicious patchouli and immortelle drydown. It's everything I like about Sables but more polished and less linear, and delivers the patchouli without the skank.

Yes, it's wonderful, but what really caught my attention was Champaca. Sorry folks, my heart belongs to florals, and I just have a magnetic attraction to whatever it is that makes Champaca what it is.

I have never smelled the champaca flower in person ( the closest being champaca absolute, a delicious smell in itself, quite unlike this ), so I can't comment on its accuracy. The revelation Champaca has brought to the table is this: finally, someone has captured a true narcissus note! I have never before smelled such a vividly natural rendition of a flower ( and that includes some all-time greats in the soliflore category ).

I'm taken back to a warm, sunny spell in a March years ago in western Scotland, when I was a child. It seemed every form of narcissus had thought to bloom, and in the woods and gardens there was a golden explosion of daffodils, jonquils, and every other kind of narcissus, many with a beautiful, limpid scent. I loved it then, I love it now, and I love that Champaca has given me a way to wear it!

The other champaca soliflores I've smelled have been nothing like this. The narcissus soliflores I've smelled haven't either. I'm afraid I'm no help with notes, as all I smell are lush wafts of narcissus, but it doesn't smell simple, either. It may be worth noting that it is very heady, however, so those uncomfortable with big florals may flee.

I am so close to pulling the trigger on this one, despite the painful price.

Posted over here to avoid the "Yes, but can a guy wear it?" debate. In short - if you like to smell like narcissus, you'll love wearing it.

Scent - interestingly, I don't smell any dirt here. It strikes me as on the cleaner end of the white floral spectrum, but I'll definitely have to give it a side-by-side wearing with Guerrilla ( which sounds my style too, given the reviews ).

Huanani - I think you might like this one. It's definitely a more limpid, natural type of floral along the lines of Carnal Flower, Amoureuse, and En Passant, though unlike in those three, I don't smell a green note in it.

The bottle is terrible, isn't it? It looks like it was designed with stability during earthquakes in mind. Fortunately one can get a somewhat more traditional - if not necessarily prettier - bottle for the same price.

I remember reading in a book on essential oils that narcissus can cause headaches and induce vomiting at close range, so it may not just be a matter of taste, but something physiological they're actually doing to you.

Tried Guerrilla 1 and Champaca side by side today, and while I do smell a similar floral note, there are some very large differences.

Guerrilla 1 is much more experimental in tone than Luxe Champaca. Yes, there's that lush floral champaca/narcissus note, but it's marred by a sharp, uncomfortably plastic-like note. I like dirty florals, but I like my dirt "natural", and rather than animal or vegetable decay, Guerrilla 1 smells like an alleyway full of trash, more broken appliances than banana peels.

There is something to be said for the beautiful and the ugly in close proximity, but after a few hours the "beauty" part disappears, the florals being displaced by a woody, vetiver-type aromachemical ( it's very unnatural smelling, whatever it is ), with the trash note remaining alert and "present" too.

It's certainly very Comme des Garcons, but it's not me.

Champaca's second try round confirmed that this one will be a must-have in some form ( whether decant or full bottle ). Again, that lush, heavenly narcissus note for a few hours, but this time, I notice a subtle transition in the drydown. A slight turn away from floral freshness towards the plush, creamy side, though well clear of anything skanky. Many have said tuberose, but my overall impression of this nuance was the piquancy of gardenia with the sweetness of jasmine, all three being closely related notes. I'm hardly a human spectrometer, so I'm more trying describe what I smell than what's necessarily in the fragrance, which is tricky given how seamless it is.

Using a different analogy, it's as though Champaca starts off as a cool, dewy, living flower and slowly transforms into something warm, plush, and velvety.

If any champaca fans are reading this thread, if I love Luxe: Champaca, but find Tom Ford's Champaca Absolute a disappointing fruity-floral, what will I likely think of Ormonde Jayne's Champaca?

Velvet Gardenia is something I respect but find way too cheesy. There's a certain cheesy-mushroomy note that makes gardenia gardenia, but as much as I miss it when it's not there, when it's really loud, it's kind of scary.

This is one of the few cases in florals where I take the gentler version, and stick with Lauder's Politically Correct Tuberose Gardenia.

Glad you had the opportunity to try this one!

I'm still on the fence between getting a bottle and not, too. It's so little, for so much. There are far cheaper fragrances I like as much, but none that smell QUITE like Champaca, either. I know there is a decanter selling Champaca for fairly good price per ml versus what TPC is, PM me if you'd like me to send a link ( I've been told not to link directly on the forums ).

Honestly, San Francisco itself is not helping this decision with its abundance of jasmine vines, which are in turn making me lust for a full bottle of Gandhara, in itself not cheap per ml, albeit far, far more reasonable than Champaca.

So much fragrance to love out there!

I suppose I partially agree with the SA in that I don't find Champaca "sexy" either. I find it a springlike, virginal thing. Of course, I find the same thing with Carnal Flower, whose very name is trying to tell me otherwise!

When I think of "sexy" tuberose, I'm more likely to reach for Fracas, Poison, Tubereuse Criminelle, or even Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia.

I'll have to stop by the Creed counter before I leave town and give Jasmal a sniff!