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Sample Of The Day - July 2010

post #1 of 78
7/3/10 at 12:36pm
Thread Starter 
Anyone try anything new and fun? Tell us about it!

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Today I'm wearing L'Artisan Parfumeur Fou d'Absinthe.



This was the first real "niche" scent I bought a couple of years ago and I'm still trying to figure it out. On my skin, it starts off like some sort of green-tinged parchment paper, while the silage has that trademark sparkly absinthe note. There's pine needles in the background, too.

By the heart, there's some distinct sweaty funk in there, too. It could be the black currant, or maybe the star anise (both of which can get kind of sweaty/pissy). But that sweet green sparkly absinth makes up for any grossness.

If you're a fan of green scents, or woody scents, or you just want to try a great example of perfume as art, you've really got to try Fou d'Absinthe. Much like Timbuktu (another notable art piece from L'Artisan), I can't guarantee you'll like it, but you'll have to respect it...
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post #2 of 78
7/3/10 at 12:49pm
Thread Starter 
Yesterday, I test-wore Fresh Citron de Vigne.



It kicked off with a sparkly lemon soda smell that reminded me of L'Eau par Kenzo pour Homme, but without the ginger. Some other citrus notes came and went, most notably that artificial orange that reminds me of Tang, along with some sweet yuzu. There was a green tinge in the background, too. As the aldehydes which made that sparkly soda effect faded, it kind of reminded me of Clinique's Happy for Men, but with that subtle green in the background.

Given time, the citruses faded and the green note turned out to be fennel. By the end of the day, the whole thing was very faded, leaving a sort of sweet fruity smell instead of any real noticeable basenotes.

In the end, I prefer L'Eau par Kenzo over this. It gets that sparkly ginger ale just right. But if you like these sorts of super-bright summer citrus scents, Citron de Vigne is probably worth a sniff.
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post #3 of 78
7/3/10 at 1:14pm
Thread Starter 
A few days ago, thanks to a hidden tester at the NY Creed boutique, I got to give a full day's wearing to Windsor.



The top smelled like minty, expensive gum - as if you made a gum flavor out of fancy natural ingredients. Once it was pointed out, I could tell how the minty quality was actually a trick created by the mixture of lime and eucalyptus.

The famous rose note stayed subtle, mostly flavoring the wood notes, which were the stars of the show.

Given time, the whole thing faded to a light, papery wood note, heavy on the eucalyptus. I have to say that I usually don't like eucalyptus in perfumes, because it usually makes them smell like cough drops, but Windsor was more like walking through a grove of eucalyptus trees than like medicine.

All in all, Windsor didn't really excite me. While it was based largely on wood, it was never the kind of heavy smoky wood scent that I like so much. Instead, it wore very light, smelling pleasantly woody up close and occasionally throwing off some polite rose silage. It was very much a boardroom scent, as opposed to a big niche art bomb. Also, it should be said that it's actually kind of weird. The minty lime going to woods with the rose silage certainly didn't smell like anything else I've tested. The closest comparison I can make is Penhaligan's Hammam Bouquet, with it's dusky, old-timey man-rose, but they're only similar in spirit, not really in smell...

I can certainly see why Creed didn't give this a wide release. Next to MI or GIT, anyone but the most ardent Creed fans and lovers of classic aristocratic masculine fragrances would probably think Windsor was just too strange. But if that's what you're in to, it's probably worth a test.
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post #4 of 78
7/3/10 at 5:03pm
I skipped over Fou d'Absinthe at Aedes a few weeks ago because it didn't seem the sort of thing I would like...which is precisely why I ought to have tried it.

Been busy reorganizing my life recently, which has left little time for sampling. Hopefully I can go on a bit of a run now.
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post #5 of 78
7/4/10 at 3:33am
Sampladelic Sunday morning before I do my SOTD proper

Left arm Creed Himalaya , its nice , reminds me of something else , not very complex , linear

Right arm Creed Virgin Island Water , again its nice nothing spectacular kinda like fancy sun block
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post #6 of 78
7/4/10 at 4:09pm
^ I love Virgin Island Water for how smooth and seamlessly it transitions though all of its notes, not a sharp edge in sight. Plus it's just so bright and cheery I find it a very uplifting scent. Rogolal, Fou d'Absinthe is a definite winner in my book, I see a bottle in my future come fall. I haven't really been sampling much new recently but I just got a few samples with my Sel de Vetiver bottle, and maybe I'll add my thoughts on them once I get a chance. I wore too little of a sample for an accurate review, but I FINALLY have tried Santal Noble now, and BOY was the hype well deserved!
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post #7 of 78
7/4/10 at 4:55pm
Thread Starter 
A few days back, I test-wore Heeley Cardinal.



I had tried this one before and liked it, but not as much as Nasomatto's divine gross-out Black Afgano, which I ended up buying instead. Fast forward a few months to Aedes with Kevin Guyer, where I asked for suggestions of woody incense scents. They sprayed this for me and something just clicked. That churchy incense with all that cedar! Within a second, I was in love.

My brain remembered trying it before. And, it definitely has a reputation as the poor-man's Avignon (despite it costing way more). But the balance just clicked. They made me a sample, which I wore a couple of days later.

In all, Cardinal is actually a pretty simple scent. It's the heady mix of frankincense and myrrh I smelled gushing from the huge Catholic church a block or so from Saks earlier on my trip. And it's cedar.

A while back, I found out that a tiny herb store 50 feet from my apartment is actually a well-respected source for essential oils (ouch, my wallet hurts...). I bought a few to get to know some more obscure notes. One that I picked was Juniperus Virginiana, Virginia cedar. It's an interesting smell that, on its own, goes through top, heart, and base notes. The top is cedar or juniper - the smell of redwood trees, warm and wet in a dense moist forest. With time, it gets drier and somehow "creamier" and ends up as a sort of creamy wood dirt (like the mix of rotting bark and pete that makes up a forest floor, but somehow muted and creamier) with only lingering wafts of the original lively, moist tree smell. This isn't the pencil shavings/hamster cage cedar at all.

Anyway, Cardinal was clearly based on this Virginia cedar. I could even follow the progression of the virginia cedar through the course of Cardinal, which was more of a woody forest on top and creamier in the base. In a way, it takes a few choice ingredients and manages to combine them absolutely perfectly.

But, I didn't end up running back to buy a bottle. I really liked it, but it felt like I had unlocked its puzzle, somehow. It reminded me of my experience with Hinoki, after just having worn plain Iso E Super. Hinoki lost a lot of its mystique when it was so glaringly obviously based so largely on one ingredient. In the end, only time will tell if Cardinal ends up being one of those scents I crave repeatedly or just a passing infatuation.

All that being said, I do think Cardinal should be put on the must-try list of woody incense scents, alongside the CDG's and the crazy L'Artisans. If these are your thing, do yourself a favor and track down a sample.
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post #8 of 78
7/4/10 at 5:18pm
Thread Starter 
Another Aedes find that I gave a full day to was Nez Ã* Nez Marron Chic.



It started off as amber, like a butterscotch candy. I was ready to write it off (their Ambre Ã* Sade was a terrible too-sweet fruity candy nightmare and I feared that this may turn out to be as much), but it keep the sweetness in check with a weird sort of nutty woody background note. I suppose this was the candied chestnut that this scent is named after.

A few minutes in, the orris butter arrived. This was just perfect. Just imagine a deep iris/orris playing up against the butterscotch amber with smoky, nutty woods, possibly with some honey added. It was sweet, in the sense of a comforting winter scent, but never too sweet or stupid. It was too iris and woody to be a proper gourmand, but really it was a gourmand - just a really interesting, different one.

Sadly, the base ended up just being some really boring vanilla. After the really beautiful complexity of the heart, this was quite a letdown. Marron Chic easily could have achieved Guerlain-esque levels of development and interest, but ended up falling short. I still gave it 4 stars, and look forward to trying it again when it gets cold, but the sad base ended up turning me off just enough to not pick up a bottle.

All that being said, if you're searching for interesting irises, or intelligent gourmands, I'd heartily suggest Marron Chic as a must-try.
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post #9 of 78
7/4/10 at 5:37pm
Thread Starter 
One of the most interesting samples to come out of my request for incense scents at Aedes was Serge Lutens Gris Clair.



I've sniffed Gris Clair before and knew it as a lavender scent. But the owner of Aedes insisted that it's an amazing incense under that lavender and that it's one of the best incense scents out there. Who am I to doubt one of America's best-informed perfume experts? They gave me a sample, which I wore to work a couple of days later.

So what did I think? I never really got past the lavender. It was that heavy lavender that's so strong it ends up smelling kind of papery. They amped up the papery aspect by adding tobacco leaf in the heart, which took the lavender in a more dirty direction (not animalic, but dirty in that it smelled like dirt). This dirt aspect was played up by cedar in the base (which can have that "dirt" quality, too). The lavender stayed through the entire course of the scent, not burning off like I expected.

There was also some sweet, lightly creamy incense playing around in the background, as promised. But it was pretty lost on my skin, where the papery dirt lavender was almost all I ever smelled.

It's odd, sprayed in the air around me (thanks, stinky hotel room) or on clothes, there was a perfectly-blended match between the lavender and the incense, but my skin swallowed the incense, so I'm afraid Gris Clair isn't for me.

That being said, I certainly respect Gris Clair now. On everything but my skin, it was a five-star perfume, so I'll assume my chemistry just didn't work with it and suggest that it really is an interesting take on woody incense, as well as the best lavender scent I've tried so far.
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post #10 of 78
7/4/10 at 6:21pm
Thread Starter 
Another only-in-New-York scent that I wore was Krigler Established Cognac 66.



An odd take on gourmand from back in 1966, so I guess it would technically be considered an "oriental". It started off as butterscotch candy amber with a pinch of something green or herbal in the background (it ended up being lavender, but was just an herbal dirtiness in the beginning). This combination did a good job of smelling like Vin Santo, the Italian dessert wine that often smells like alcohol-laden caramel or butterscotch.

It also had that Le Male tobacco leaf note going from the top. In general, the entire life of the fragrance was made up of the interplay between the papery tobacco (amped up by the dirt-y lavender) and the butterscotch.

For comparison's sake, if you can imagine Le Male with gourmand butterscotch instead of the vanilla, you're kind of close, but it has a richness from the high concentration that keeps it from smelling like a designer scent, even if the notes are similar. The closest real comparison I can come up with is the cult fragrance Brandy, which has the same sort of vin santo butterscotch effect, but paired with sweet fruits instead of the tobacco of Established Cognac.

All in all, Established Cognac was nice, but not bottle-worthy for me. I really don't like that tobacco leaf note very much, personally. But if you're looking for a more intelligent take on Le Male, or if you're a fan of tobacco leaf gourmands like Luctor et Emergo or Jungle l'Elefant, you might really enjoy it.
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post #11 of 78
7/4/10 at 6:47pm
Thread Starter 
Of course, I couldn't take a trip to NY without visiting the JAR boutique. Following a thread by Suga, I had to try on Jardenia.



In a way, JAR is the ultimate "niche" house. Their scents are so expensive that almost no one would ever buy them. And their scents are so weird (with one or two exceptions) that the very few who can afford them would likely not be interested. So that leaves a core group of only a few people with really strange taste and a lot of money (or serious collectors willing to save up) as the sole base for JAR's sales. And they're only available at two stores in the world and they don't do samples or web sales.

With this sort of limited appeal in mind, they'll put out scents that no one else ever would, using ridonkulously expensive essential oils that no other houses would touch. There was an episode of American Dad where their small-town hairdresser moved to New York to ride a saddled dog and "join New York's long history of rich, eccentric weirdos". With weirdness like Bolt Of Lightning, he's who JAR aims for...

Jardenia is, predictably, JAR's gardenia scent. Their SA said that, because gardenias don't have a distillable essential oil, pretty much all gardenia scents are actually made with tuberose. But the big difference between tuberose and gardenia is that gardenias really don't smell like anything until they start to rot, at which point, they share some characteristics with tuberose, but actually mostly smell like stinky cheese and sweet vegetal decay. Basically (I'll leave it to BN's gardenia experts to confirm or deny this), JAR is the only company crazy enough to make a scent that actually does strive to smell like this beautiful rot.

And that's basically what Jardenia smells like. It's buttery and very rich, with a heavy creaminess that can only be from ridiculously high concentration. And when I say buttery, I mean that literally. It smells like butter. And indoles. Really, really forward indoles and butter. The indole/butter combo generated some interesting facets - at times, it really did smell like stinky brie. The top didn't smell flowery at all. Just butter and sweet, green decay.

Given time, some light tuberose came up in the background, but stayed behind the buttery indoles, giving the only hint that Jardenia was supposed to be a floral.

It didn't have any really discernable basenotes, beyond lingering tuberose, but it did manage to give a few hours of challenging, if convincing, decaying gardenia.

Anyway, I can't see buying a bottle of this. This simply isn't the kind of scent I crave. But if you're interested in exploring the uncharted outer limits of big-but-close-wearing natural florals, Jardenia is worth a stop...
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post #12 of 78
7/4/10 at 8:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogalal View Post

Another Aedes find that I gave a full day to was Nez Ã* Nez Marron Chic.



It started off as amber, like a butterscotch candy. I was ready to write it off (their Ambre Ã* Sade was a terrible too-sweet fruity candy nightmare and I feared that this may turn out to be as much), but it keep the sweetness in check with a weird sort of nutty woody background note. I suppose this was the candied chestnut that this scent is named after.

A few minutes in, the orris butter arrived. This was just perfect. Just imagine a deep iris/orris playing up against the butterscotch amber with smoky, nutty woods, possibly with some honey added. It was sweet, in the sense of a comforting winter scent, but never too sweet or stupid. It was too iris and woody to be a proper gourmand, but really it was a gourmand - just a really interesting, different one.

Sadly, the base ended up just being some really boring vanilla. After the really beautiful complexity of the heart, this was quite a letdown. Marron Chic easily could have achieved Guerlain-esque levels of development and interest, but ended up falling short. I still gave it 4 stars, and look forward to trying it again when it gets cold, but the sad base ended up turning me off just enough to not pick up a bottle.

All that being said, if you're searching for interesting irises, or intelligent gourmands, I'd heartily suggest Marron Chic as a must-try.

Have you tried PG Iris Taizo/Oriental and/or Cuir d'Iris? Or even Dior's Bois d'Argent? If so, how do they compare to Marron Chic?
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post #13 of 78
7/4/10 at 9:14pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mtgprox05 View Post

Have you tried PG Iris Taizo/Oriental and/or Cuir d'Iris? Or even Dior's Bois d'Argent? If so, how do they compare to Marron Chic?

Doh! I've never even heard of any of those... Clearly you've gone through an iris phase that I haven't yet...

Today I wore Tom Ford Moss Breches.



I have to say that I've put off sampling Moss Breches thanks to sniffing it at stores and simply not liking the topnotes on paper. I've read the BN experts lamenting its discontinuation and wondered what the big deal was. Well, now I get it...

In a weird way, Moss Breches is sort of a study in using patchouli in ways that it's rarely used.

The top was peppery patchouli and aldehydes. It sounds familiar, but without the rose or fruits that everyone always puts with this combo, it comes off as very different. The patchouli doesn't smell like the hippie patchouli, or the Lutens jammy patchouli, or the perfumey niche luxe patchouli. Instead, it very much smells like what it is: tall grass growing in dirt.

Moss Breches, to my nose, smells of the greenish-brown color of crushed weeds in dirt, of stomped-down formerly-purple-hued grasses surrounded by mud. It's spicy and peppery all the way through, and the patchouli goes all the way through, too. The aldehydes take something that would otherwise come off as sort of a weird niche experiment and make it smell much older than it is.

In the heart, it was a dense, uniquely addictive mix of spices, patchouli, green notes (galbanum? probably moss?), and smoky woods. I couldn't stop smelling my arm. I really haven't smelled anything like this before.

The closest thing I can compare this to is Malle's Noir Epices, but N.E. has roses and fruits with all the spices and weirdness, so it stays more grounded in a traditional perfume formula. Moss Breches, while managing to smell somehow classic, doesn't fall into a formula I've smelled before.

By the base, it's just a light, slightly chocolatey patchouli with some dirty amber and some Old-Spice-style powder. A bit weak, and kind of a letdown after the crazy ride through the top and heart, but it's nice.

I'm not really sure I'd ever have moods where I would want to smell like this, but it's really interesting. I'm not a fan of patchouli, in general, but Moss Breches so completely turns it on its head that I kind of like it. I don't necessarily foresee a bottle in my future, but I wouldn't mind having one...
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post #14 of 78
7/5/10 at 6:54pm
Thread Starter 
Today I wore Armani Privé Bois d'Encens.



Bois d'Encens follows the same basic recipe of wood and incense as Cardinal (which I just wore) and CDG's Avignon. If I had to rank them, I'd say that Avignon is the most incense-heavy (to the point where it's almost feminine from all the creamy sweet resins), while Cardinal is more balanced, heavy on the cedar but with the incense still prominent. Bois d'Encens is definitely the most woody of the three.

It goes on like a pine/juniper/redwood forest, but very dry. Given a few minutes, it actually smells like sawdust. If you're a fan of woody pine scents, you're probably going to love this. After a while, the Iso E Super became more prominent, making the silage smell smoky while my arm started to have that creamy quality when sniffed up close.

The creaminess of the Iso E led into the incense in the base, which was almost sweet and fruity from the resins, but kept a juniper/cedar quality to it, too.

After the Marshals debacle, where a bunch of these Prives showed up for $30, I could never ever bring myself to pay $185 for this. Minus that particular prejudice, Bois d'Encens is still a good woody incense frag and a must-try for fans of the genre, but I'd scour eBay for deals before heading out to Saks for this.
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post #15 of 78
7/5/10 at 7:27pm
Thread Starter 
Catching up, while I was on vacation I gave a test wearing to Bond No. 9 Harrods For Him.



In the great Basenotes tradition of naming the prominent existing fragrance copied by Bond No. 9, I give you Jo Malone's Pomegranate Noir.

For those not familiar with Pomegranate Noir, it's a really interesting combination of cedar and olibanum incense topped with a ton of clove and sweet red fruits. I personally love it, but many find it kind of loud and linear (which it is, truth be told). Harrods For Men basically takes the Pomegranate Noir recipe, tones it down, and de-"niches" it.

The top of Harrods For Him is a sweet fruity aldehyde that comes off kind of lemony, mixed with the fruits that will eventually form the fruit portion of the Pomegranate Noir mix. The red fruit ends up being rhubarb, which actually works surprisingly well with the cedar, clove, and incense. Given time a pinch of familiar woody amber (that metallic "men's designer scent" smell) comes in. To be fair, it actually smells pretty good with the cedar and incense, but I really hate this overplayed note so I still reserve the right to complain.

That's about it. It's pretty textbook Bond. If you like the sort of high-concentration fragrance that bridges the gap between informed luxury and masculine designer scents, Harrods For Him is a picture-perfect example of that. If you kind of like Pomegranate Noir but found it too loud or just a little too weird, you'd probably love this. It also has a lot of the nicer elements of Polo Double Black, so if you're a fan of that (especially the dark fruit in the base), please do give Harrods For Him a sniff.
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post #16 of 78
7/5/10 at 7:40pm
Thread Starter 
For comparison's sake, I naturally had to give a full wearing to Bond No. 9 Harrods For Her.



Having just been to the Caron boutique, I had flowers on the brain, specifically that familiar mix of rose, lily and ylang ylang that comes together to create the typical, classic "floral" accord. I've smelled this mix a million times now, but it just recently started making sense to my nose.

This is what Harrods For Her smelled like. It's a very 80's smell, and quite loud. With time, it got buttery and richer, and eventually got kind of powdery, presumably from some aldehydes that were helping the top smell so much like a classic perfume. After an hour or so, it settled into the smell of soapy flowers with a hint of cherries - though it wasn't the literal cherry of a current fruity floral, but the aldehydic "perfumey" fruit of a classic.

All in all, I could actually see many of the ladies of Basenotes really enjoying this. Sure, it lacks to subtlety of a Caron or a Guerlain, but if you're a fan of traditional, big, classic florals, this could be right up your alley.
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post #17 of 78
7/7/10 at 8:07pm
Thread Starter 
Today I wore Ralph Lauren Polo Double Black.



On me, Double Black was mostly that metallic "woody amber" note. It paired it with coffee and what smelled to me like plum or rhubarb. While this sounds pretty interesting, it was actually kind of a muddy mess that didn't really smell like anything, just a generic "masculine designer" smell. The rhubarb didn't smell like rhubarb as much as it just made the whole thing smell sweet and generically "fruity" (the note list actually says mango, but it really doesn't matter because the fruity smell itself is so non-specific), while the coffee (a note I usually love) mostly just made the whole thing smell kind of brown and dirty.

The note lists for Double Black sound really interesting, but it's put together in such a way that it's like someone melted a bunch of crayons together, hoping for a multicolored rainbow, but ended up with a nasty brown puddle with everything over-mixed.

My apologies if you're a fan, of course. This is just my opinion. But if Double Black sounds good to you in theory, or if you do like it, I'd suggest you sniff Bond No 9's new Montauk, which does the same basic thing, but better.
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post #18 of 78
7/7/10 at 8:17pm
rogalal - did you smell any of the honey note in Moss Breches, which IMO is what makes it so endearing?
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post #19 of 78
7/7/10 at 8:52pm
edit oops: referring to rogalal's review of Bond No. 9 Harrods For Him.

Ah heck that indicates that I'll have to try it! Didn't want to revisit Bond (although I love Wall Street) but I found Pomegranite Noir a little too concentrated, well, it's an oil if I'm not mistaken - the sampe I tried was but too heavy for me.

I order samples from Aedes today so will try to review upon sampling:
Aedes de Venustas
Oranges and Lemons, say the Bells of St. Clement's
Menthe Fraiche
Nightscape
Cologne Pour Le Matin
Mark Birley
+1 their pick
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post #20 of 78
7/7/10 at 9:24pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeperez23 View Post

rogalal - did you smell any of the honey note in Moss Breches, which IMO is what makes it so endearing?

Not really, but I was having trouble wrapping my head around the sweet base. I chalked it up to a chocolate note coming from the patchouli, but it totally makes sense as honey. Thanks.

And Cedarnotes, please let us know what you think of the samples!
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post #21 of 78
7/9/10 at 11:48am
Ive just given myself a quick sloosh from Juliette Has A Gun : Lady Vengeance which I really didnt want to like before I even tried it but surprisingly it aint half bad . First off it really is very sweet vanilla and patchouli , oddly no rose just something I cant nail down maybe fruity or just maybe Im confusing the rose for fruity , my palette aint all that sophisticated

Im really quite liking it ..... Im amazed
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post #22 of 78
7/9/10 at 12:20pm
My sample of the day has been Creed Zest Mandarin Pamplemousse. It stays quite close to the skin, more EDC/EDP than the Millessime strength that carries more, but it's a nice fragrance ideal for the hot weather.
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post #23 of 78
7/9/10 at 12:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pour_Monsieur View Post

Ive just given myself a quick sloosh from Juliette Has A Gun : Lady Vengeance which I really didnt want to like before I even tried it but surprisingly it aint half bad . First off it really is very sweet vanilla and patchouli , oddly no rose just something I cant nail down maybe fruity or just maybe Im confusing the rose for fruity , my palette aint all that sophisticated

Im really quite liking it ..... Im amazed


So a while in and my initial thoughts were a little hasty ... this is terrible , really really bad , a proper little scrubber and no mistake . Its somewhere between a urinal cake and an old ladies handbag BLEUGHHHHHH , neg rep for Francis Kurkdijan for this nasty lil mofo ....... I wont hold it against him I still love him
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post #24 of 78
7/9/10 at 3:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogalal View Post

Of course, I couldn't take a trip to NY without visiting the JAR boutique. Following a thread by Suga, I had to try on Jardenia.



In a way, JAR is the ultimate "niche" house. Their scents are so expensive that almost no one would ever buy them. And their scents are so weird (with one or two exceptions) that the very few who can afford them would likely not be interested. So that leaves a core group of only a few people with really strange taste and a lot of money (or serious collectors willing to save up) as the sole base for JAR's sales. And they're only available at two stores in the world and they don't do samples or web sales.

With this sort of limited appeal in mind, they'll put out scents that no one else ever would, using ridonkulously expensive essential oils that no other houses would touch. There was an episode of American Dad where their small-town hairdresser moved to New York to ride a saddled dog and "join New York's long history of rich, eccentric weirdos". With weirdness like Bolt Of Lightning, he's who JAR aims for...

Jardenia is, predictably, JAR's gardenia scent. Their SA said that, because gardenias don't have a distillable essential oil, pretty much all gardenia scents are actually made with tuberose. But the big difference between tuberose and gardenia is that gardenias really don't smell like anything until they start to rot, at which point, they share some characteristics with tuberose, but actually mostly smell like stinky cheese and sweet vegetal decay. Basically (I'll leave it to BN's gardenia experts to confirm or deny this), JAR is the only company crazy enough to make a scent that actually does strive to smell like this beautiful rot.

And that's basically what Jardenia smells like. It's buttery and very rich, with a heavy creaminess that can only be from ridiculously high concentration. And when I say buttery, I mean that literally. It smells like butter. And indoles. Really, really forward indoles and butter. The indole/butter combo generated some interesting facets - at times, it really did smell like stinky brie. The top didn't smell flowery at all. Just butter and sweet, green decay.

Given time, some light tuberose came up in the background, but stayed behind the buttery indoles, giving the only hint that Jardenia was supposed to be a floral.

It didn't have any really discernable basenotes, beyond lingering tuberose, but it did manage to give a few hours of challenging, if convincing, decaying gardenia.

Anyway, I can't see buying a bottle of this. This simply isn't the kind of scent I crave. But if you're interested in exploring the uncharted outer limits of big-but-close-wearing natural florals, Jardenia is worth a stop...

I think you got it right Rogalal. I do love it but I am hesistant to buy because right now, I still have a lot of Ajne Fleur Blanche left and they do smell ,sort of similar.

However Jardenia is on a whole new level with the gardenia. I got fresh mushroom too . Excellent longevity ,better than Golconda longevity . What do you think Rogalal - do you find Golconda rather light ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by rogalal View Post

Doh! I've never even heard of any of those... Clearly you've gone through an iris phase that I haven't yet...

Today I wore Tom Ford Moss Breches.



I have to say that I've put off sampling Moss Breches thanks to sniffing it at stores and simply not liking the topnotes on paper. I've read the BN experts lamenting its discontinuation and wondered what the big deal was. Well, now I get it...

In a weird way, Moss Breches is sort of a study in using patchouli in ways that it's rarely used.

The top was peppery patchouli and aldehydes. It sounds familiar, but without the rose or fruits that everyone always puts with this combo, it comes off as very different. The patchouli doesn't smell like the hippie patchouli, or the Lutens jammy patchouli, or the perfumey niche luxe patchouli. Instead, it very much smells like what it is: tall grass growing in dirt.

Moss Breches, to my nose, smells of the greenish-brown color of crushed weeds in dirt, of stomped-down formerly-purple-hued grasses surrounded by mud. It's spicy and peppery all the way through, and the patchouli goes all the way through, too. The aldehydes take something that would otherwise come off as sort of a weird niche experiment and make it smell much older than it is.

In the heart, it was a dense, uniquely addictive mix of spices, patchouli, green notes (galbanum? probably moss?), and smoky woods. I couldn't stop smelling my arm. I really haven't smelled anything like this before.

The closest thing I can compare this to is Malle's Noir Epices, but N.E. has roses and fruits with all the spices and weirdness, so it stays more grounded in a traditional perfume formula. Moss Breches, while managing to smell somehow classic, doesn't fall into a formula I've smelled before.

By the base, it's just a light, slightly chocolatey patchouli with some dirty amber and some Old-Spice-style powder. A bit weak, and kind of a letdown after the crazy ride through the top and heart, but it's nice.

I'm not really sure I'd ever have moods where I would want to smell like this, but it's really interesting. I'm not a fan of patchouli, in general, but Moss Breches so completely turns it on its head that I kind of like it. I don't necessarily foresee a bottle in my future, but I wouldn't mind having one...

Another of my faves- I'm pissed that it's been discontinued. Even the SA agreed it smelt damned good on me. How can I possibly buy this and hoard.......
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post #25 of 78
7/9/10 at 7:12pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mimi Gardenia View Post

Rogalal - do you find Golconda rather light ?

I feel like Golconda acts like a natural extrait-strength fragrance (like a Yosh) where it sits on the skin and smells great when you smell yourself, but doesn't project much. In that respect, it lasts me all day, but I've never gone nuts and put on a bunch, just wanting to reek of it, though I should totally try that some day when I'm feeling ridiculously extravagant...


Quote:
Originally Posted by Mimi Gardenia View Post

Another of my faves- I'm pissed that it's been discontinued. Even the SA agreed it smelt damned good on me. How can I possibly buy this and hoard.......

Moss Breches isn't really hard to find yet. I got my sample just a couple of months ago from Neimans. At least locally, they're selling out of the small bottles, but those enormous square-ish "apothecary" bottles are still everywhere.
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post #26 of 78
7/9/10 at 8:32pm
Thread Starter 
Today I wore Divine L'Homme de Coeur.



This is my first test of a Divine, and I'm not incredibly impressed.

L'Homme de Coeur kicked off with a sort of dark green herb mix. I thought it was a particularly dark basil, but the notes say juniper berry. There's a pinch of lemon in there for brightness, but this really doesn't smell like the top of a classic masculine chypre, despite what the notes would suggest. Instead, the whole thing is engulfed in a weird chemical haziness. It's not the "woody amber" chemical haze that surrounds so many modern designer scents, but it has the same sort of fuzzy perfumey feel.

Given time, the herbal woodiness of the juniper berry melded with the mystery haze note while the heart of the scent got much more sweet and creamy. It was clearly vanilla (though Luckyscent swears it's iris), but the juniper-tinged chemical note kept it from feeling gourmand - it was just sweet.

The base remained sweet with the vanilla, but paired it with a green vetiver note so it never smelled like dessert.

It's really hard to describe why specifically I didn't like L'Homme de Coeur. Somehow, it felt like they came up with a decent but slightly boring scent and tried to hide its imperfections by adding that mysterious hazy chemical smell over the top, knowing they could get away with it because masculine designer scents do that all the time with "woody amber" (see my thoughts on Polo Double Black).

To make matters worse, it's an expensive niche scent, so I have higher expectations. It's not that it's bad, it's that it's not as intelligent as it thinks it is...
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post #27 of 78
7/9/10 at 9:03pm
Thread Starter 
Yesterday I wore Diane Brill EDP.



I guess Dianne Brill used to be a notable NY club scenester, and now has a line of cosmetics. Nowadays, she'd be considered a "faux queen" (a woman who acts like a drag queen), and her style is clearly pretty loud, based mostly on her bottle design and the rabid silage of her namesake perfume.

I mostly had to try Diane Brill because it's the scent Chandler Burr described as "Ambre Narguille on nitrous" (and TPC was having a sale...). I'm not sure about the Ambre Narguille comparisons, but Diane Brill is actually quite interesting. The problem is that, ultimately, it smells like someone trying to make a groundbreaking artful scent with a really tiny budget. You can tell the ideas are there, but you can smell the shortcomings, too.

The main theme of Diane Brill is butter. It's that same rich buttery note (benzoin maybe?) from Costume National Homme or the cult classic L'Feu d'Issey. On the top, it's paired with oranges. If you've smelled Fresh's Cannabis Santal (which is basically oranges over vanilla cupcake frosting), this is the same idea, but oranges over melted butter.

With time, it develops some cinnamon and eventually an iris heart came through. This is the best part, with the combination of ciinamon-dusted iris and lingering butter combining into something surprisingly bright (possibly thanks to some leftover citrus?). The only problem is the iris itself. If someone did this with real, deep, luxurious orris root, it could have been unbelievably good. Unfortunately, you can easily smell that this is just some chemical iris accord and the whole thing smells more like the drydown of a cheap fruity floral than the amazing perfume it could have been with better ingredients.

By the base, I was left with a kind of generic mix of vanilla and iris, which, again, could have been great (these are the two primary Guerlinade ingredients), but suffered from a sort of blandness.

I hope I'm not selling this too short. It did remind me of L'Feu d'Issey, which is a cult classic for a reason. And it's probably one of the more interesting feminine designer scents I've smelled in a while. I certainly respect it. But I just wish she could have taken this exact same idea and hired a really great nose to hash it out and source the best ingredients, price be damned. As such, it feels like a great perfume that's being held back by budget concerns.
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post #28 of 78
7/9/10 at 11:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogalal View Post

I feel like Golconda acts like a natural extrait-strength fragrance (like a Yosh) where it sits on the skin and smells great when you smell yourself, but doesn't project much. In that respect, it lasts me all day, but I've never gone nuts and put on a bunch, just wanting to reek of it, though I should totally try that some day when I'm feeling ridiculously extravagant...


Moss Breches isn't really hard to find yet. I got my sample just a couple of months ago from Neimans. At least locally, they're selling out of the small bottles, but those enormous square-ish "apothecary" bottles are still everywhere.

Re Golconda :Well put- this is true - it does seems to have a lot of naturals in it so it behaves as such . Like you, I find it does stay but has no projection. It seems I become a little asnosmic to it after a while - still very compelling though.

Re. Moss Breches :Yes the big bottles are very much still available - very sad it has been chopped though. It was/is a goodie.
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post #29 of 78
7/10/10 at 10:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogalal View Post

Today I wore Divine L'Homme de Coeur.



This is my first test of a Divine, and I'm not incredibly impressed.

L'Homme de Coeur kicked off with a sort of dark green herb mix. I thought it was a particularly dark basil, but the notes say juniper berry. There's a pinch of lemon in there for brightness, but this really doesn't smell like the top of a classic masculine chypre, despite what the notes would suggest. Instead, the whole thing is engulfed in a weird chemical haziness. It's not the "woody amber" chemical haze that surrounds so many modern designer scents, but it has the same sort of fuzzy perfumey feel.

Given time, the herbal woodiness of the juniper berry melded with the mystery haze note while the heart of the scent got much more sweet and creamy. It was clearly vanilla (though Luckyscent swears it's iris), but the juniper-tinged chemical note kept it from feeling gourmand - it was just sweet.

The base remained sweet with the vanilla, but paired it with a green vetiver note so it never smelled like dessert.

It's really hard to describe why specifically I didn't like L'Homme de Coeur. Somehow, it felt like they came up with a decent but slightly boring scent and tried to hide its imperfections by adding that mysterious hazy chemical smell over the top, knowing they could get away with it because masculine designer scents do that all the time with "woody amber" (see my thoughts on Polo Double Black).

To make matters worse, it's an expensive niche scent, so I have higher expectations. It's not that it's bad, it's that it's not as intelligent as it thinks it is...

Wow, I'm shocked. I don't get nearly anything you mentioned about it. I get a slightly metallic note in the topnotes, but what my brain says is that it's a rather unique mix between the iris and juniper berry. It doesn't smelly chemical to my nose at least. It also reminds me very much of something Creed would come out with. It's very demure, suave and refined in my opinion. Young and gentlemanly.
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post #30 of 78
7/10/10 at 11:38am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mtgprox05 View Post

Wow, I'm shocked. I don't get nearly anything you mentioned about it. I get a slightly metallic note in the topnotes, but what my brain says is that it's a rather unique mix between the iris and juniper berry. It doesn't smelly chemical to my nose at least. It also reminds me very much of something Creed would come out with. It's very demure, suave and refined in my opinion. Young and gentlemanly.

Doh!

I get where you're coming from. I really don't understand or recognize a narcissus note and that's supposedly a big part of Coeur. That chemical buzz may have been my brain misinterpreting the narcissus.

Iris still confuses me, too, because it seems like there are two very different iris notes out there. There's one that's like powdery, slightly creamy soap. And then there's the super-rich, cosmetic, bready, cinnamon-tinged kind. The creamy soap kind is what I think of as the cheap fruity floral women's designer kind, while the rich bready kind is the stuff I associate with nicer scents, like L'Heure Bleue or Malle's Iris, and even Dior Homme. My big complaint with Diane Brill yesterday was that it used the cheap soapy iris and not the good bready kind. When perfumes pair iris with vanilla (a mix I usually love), the bready kind becomes the basis for the beautifully complex Guerlinade, while the soapy kind just smells kind of generically sweet and creamy (which certainly has its place, but isn't really compelling enough to base a scent on - my opinion only ).

I do agree that the interplay between the sweet creamy elements and the dark green juniper berry was interesting, but it didn't get me worked up enough to fall in love...
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post #31 of 78
7/10/10 at 4:24pm
Thread Starter 
Today I've been wearing Laura Tonatto Anena.



Anena is sold as a citrus, but to my nose it's mostly Cis-3-Hexanol Leaf Alcohol (that green, sort-of-aquatic note that's usually sold as lily of the valley). It's paired with citrus on top, which makes it pleasantly sweet and bright. The heart brings in a tiny touch of pine, which makes for an interesting mix of feminine green with masculine green. The whole thing gets soapy and powdery in the base, but the Cis-3-Hexanol stays prominent throughout.

Of the scents based on this note (most niche lines have a melony lily fragrance that's mostly this), Anena stands out as a bit more creative because of the simultaneous pine and soap, but you really have to like that artificial lily of the valley note for this to have any appeal. And, to be really honest, it smells more like a nice soap than a fine fragrance...
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post #32 of 78
7/10/10 at 4:45pm
Coney Island by Bond No.9
Gary
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post #33 of 78
7/11/10 at 6:40am
Chanel Les Exclusifs 31 rue cambon This is something I would have never considered to sample, but thanks to a generous Basenote member who put this in with a swap deal, I love it
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post #34 of 78
7/12/10 at 7:48pm
Thread Starter 
Yesterday I wore Hilde Soliani Iris.



Those are some ugly-ass bottles...

Iris was actually quite nice. It was the good, deep, nice iris (see my rant above) paired with a perfumey cherry note. In the base, some vanilla came through, and just when I was resigning myself to a lame sweet base, a serious old-school musk came in with the vanilla.

I ended up giving Iris 4 stars, just based on it smelling really good, but it lacked that indefinable magic that made Malle's Iris Poudre just work perfectly with my nose on first sniff, so I think Malle is still my winning iris scent, but I'd still heartily suggest Hilde Soliani's Iris to anyone searching out interesting irises.
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post #35 of 78
7/12/10 at 8:00pm
Thread Starter 
Today I've worn Exclusive by Ronaldo Esper.



Apparently, Ronaldo Esper is a celebrity fashion stylist on Brazilian television who worked with an Italian perfume company to design some scents a while back. While they're quite respected in Italy, they seem completely unavailable and unknown everywhere else. Exclusive is one of his men's scents.

On top, Exclusive was mostly citrus, but I soon detected a very distinct note in the silage. Go to a public restroom and grab a wad of cheap brown paper towels and get them wet. That's the smell. Sometimes it's done with rosewood or tobacco leaf, or sometimes it's a facet of lavender. Whatever it is, it turns up every once in a while and I'm not a fan (for comparison's sake, this note seems to be Ava Luxe's musk of choice). It's too gross to describe here, but it reminds me of a very unclean man smell. That wet paper towel smell is the note upon which Exclusive is built. The citrus in the top is a bit awkward, while some boozy herbs in the heart and cedar in the base actually make for a good combination, but I could never really be happy wearing Exclusive, based simply on the fact that I just don't like that wet paper towel note.

If, however, you're a big rosewood/tobacco leaf fan (I know I'm pretty much alone in my dislike of it as a note), Exclusive could be grail material, so don't let me put you off of it with my own biases...
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post #36 of 78
7/13/10 at 11:27am
I've barely been sampling at all recently, nor have I felt moved enough by anything I have to write about it ( though I may still have really enjoyed the scent), but the first scent of a small order at TPC came in the mail yesterday and I just HAD to write about.

I Profumi di Firenze Brezza di Mare



To understand where I'm coming from, you must understand how long overdue me trying this fragrance is. It's been on my "To-Try" list since pretty close to when I joined BN. I mean how could I not enjoy the promise of the "salty airy freshness of a pristine sea breeze" and WATERMELON! Man I wanted to try it so bad. But hardly anywhere has it, and I wasn't about to overspend just to try it out. But finally TPC got it in about a month or so ago, so I'm now finally able to test this one out.

Short Review: Disappointing

Around 2 years ago, I went through a HUGE aquatic/marine scent phase where I sampled almost every major niche offering from this genre. I ended up walking away sort of empty handed in the sense, that I found these scents weren't for me after all. It seems as if there are 2 ways that houses seem to go when making an aquatic. You have the far more popular "marine" fragrance as I have dubbed them (for my own categorization), that I'm really not fond of at all. They feel cold and aloof, almost like what the beach might smell like very early on a cool morning, and almost eery silence, broken only by the crashing waves. To me at least it doesn't feel inviting or happy, which is what I'm looking for in a aquatic, not to mention they generally are slightly feminine, smell chemical, and employ an accord I call the "seaspray" accord. That slightly dank, floral, and lightly rotten smell you'd expect from the ocean. Chockfull of slight saltyness, brine, seaweed, and various other marine animals, it's not particularly attractive, but houses seem to love it. It's in Sel Marin, it's in Beth Terry Mare, it's in Aria di Mare, it's in Hyle AND it's in Brezza di Mare. As much as I'd like to break down these scents, this accord is overwhelming and it swallows everything else in these fragrances for me. Sure Brezza di Mare DOES have a Watermelon Rind accord that peeks in and out, but doesn't fully arrive until the mid to late drydown, but where's the warmth, the spice, the citrus? It doesn't feel natural AT ALL on skin, much in the same way that the others listed don't. As I mentioned earlier, there are 2 different types of aquatics I've found, I've just detailed the first one. The second one, is where I find much of favorites from this genre.

What I'm looking for in an aquatic is to capture the essence of the entire beach experience. I'm looking for something cheery and bright, something optimistic even. IMO, this cannot be done with out tempering the aquatics with heavy citrus. Sel de Vetiver has proven the most affective aquatic I've yet found. It's bright and sunny, but feels grounded and warm, you can feel the heat of the sun on the sand, you can smell the subtle spiciness of the deep ocean, and best of all, it smells completely natural to wear. Others that I've found to be successful include Bulgari Aqua and Preperation Parfumee.

So there you have it. My in depth foray into aquatics, and my utter disappointment with the lack of creativity in Brezza di Mare. It smells cold and synthetic, and quite honestly slightly inhuman.
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post #37 of 78
7/13/10 at 9:03pm
Thread Starter 
MTG, I'm with you on niche aquatics. When all is said and done, I don't like that "aquatic" accord, the one that smalls like salty, herb-dusted rotten melon (if you don't know what I'm talking about, walk through a mall and smell the stench surrounding the A&F store). I seems like just about everyone uses some variation of this accord to simulate the ocean. Doh! I ended up cheating and settling on Fire Island, with it's salt-caked skin and mimosa-drenched tanning lotion smell, as my go-to beachy scent.

Today I wore Six Scents Series 1, Scent 3 - The Spirit of Wood by Cosmic Wonder & Philippe Paparella-Paris.



Pure, unapologetic wood. It doesn't drench itself in Iso E Super or dry down to a creamy incense. Instead, it's happy to smell like different variations on a dark forest for the life of the scent.

It's primary hinoki and cedar with some background vetiver giving a dark green vibe in the background. By the base, I smell gaiac wood (which has a facet that smells like oranges to me, so it's interesting to smell citrus in the base of a scent). Much later (it's been 13 hours now), I can smell a pinch of that "woody amber" note that I hate, but I never noticed it in the main duration of the scent, thank goodness - I guess it was part of what kept the scent feeling so dark.

In theory, The Spirit Of Wood is supposed to smell like walking through a eucalyptus grove, which is actually done without any eucalyptus because eucalyptus oil smells medicinal and reminds everyone of cough syrup. They actually do a really good job of pulling this off.

If you're a conehead or serious woody perfume enthusiast, you should really check out The Spirit of Wood before it becomes absolutely unobtainable (Six Scents are limited edition charity fundraisers and all of Series 1 is getting really hard to find).
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post #38 of 78
7/13/10 at 10:43pm
I still think that Spirit of Wood smells like a woodier, slightly less green Windsor with the rose note removed. The cedar/woody accords are eerily similar, and anyone who likes that element of Windsor (or would like the woody element of Windsor to be amped up) should check out Spirit of Wood.

Similar woods + similar eucalyptus feel (although here it's more 'eucalyptus tree' where in Windsor it's more eucalyptus leaves or oil) = a pretty decent substitute.
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post #39 of 78
7/14/10 at 4:20pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SculptureOfSoul View Post

I still think that Spirit of Wood smells like a woodier, slightly less green Windsor with the rose note removed. The cedar/woody accords are eerily similar, and anyone who likes that element of Windsor (or would like the woody element of Windsor to be amped up) should check out Spirit of Wood.

Similar woods + similar eucalyptus feel (although here it's more 'eucalyptus tree' where in Windsor it's more eucalyptus leaves or oil) = a pretty decent substitute.

Interesting comparison. The Spirit Of Wood doesn't have that lime + eucalyptus = mint thing in the top notes, so it's decidedly less quirky. But it's a good example of textbook woods.

Today I wore Montale Embruns d'Essaouira.



On the top, this was citrus, quickly joined by some watery flowers and some nondescript spices reminiscent of the spicy salty drydown of Acqua di Gio, but made more strange by the inclusion of the flowers. Given time, it faded down to a sort of salty iodine herb thing.

The biggest oddity about Embruns is that it seems specifically calculated to not smell like anything. Despite it being an EDP, it's incredibly weak, and there's something about it that kills your nose when smelled up close, rendering you inable to smell it for a few minutes afterward. To me, a scent specifically designed to create its own anosmia is basically a technical foul (sorry, Montale fans).

I can't see any point recommending this to anyone, unless you're curious about a perfume that makes itself unsmellable. If you want salty beach herbs, just pick up some ADG...
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post #40 of 78
7/15/10 at 7:58pm
Thread Starter 
Today I wore La Prairie Silver Rain.



It kicked off with a nice juicy peach note paired with some toothpastey mint. This is an odd combination, the olfactory equivalent of drinking orange juice right after brushing your teeth. It's not entirely unpleasant (it was actually kind of endearing in its awkwardness), but it's certainly not your average pleasant perfume combination.

Over the next hour, it got darker and deeper as the mint morphed into an anise note. The odd combination of the anise and the peach was responsible for Silver Rain having a quite complex feel, but it was the awkward complexity of clashing notes, not the well-planned-out kind.

I was hoping that the green aspects of Silver Rain would win out, but alas, it eventually dried down to that generic sweet fruity floral base. Seriously, I think that Givaudan or whatever big fragrance house designs all these fruity floral scents has a house accord that they keep in giant vats. It's a sweet, pleasant mix of amber, vanilla, sandalwood, and spiced flowers that they use as a base for all their designer feminines so their chemists can avoid having to recreate new interesting bases for all these mall perfumes that people buy based on the topnotes alone. I smell this mix everywhere...

Anyway, I'm not sure who to recommend Silver Rain to. The top is definitely interesting, but in an awkward way, and the base is a total retread. If you just want a pleasant fruity floral, there are thousands of others that can be had cheaper. But the bottle's kind of cool - and that's probably the biggest selling point anyway...
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post #41 of 78
7/17/10 at 1:36pm
Thread Starter 
Yesterday, I wore Guerlain Idylle.



It kicked off with a mix of citrus and a weirdly indolic rose note. This was quickly swallowed up by lily of the valley (specifically that Cis-3-Hexanol Leaf Alcohol note). While I couldn't really smell the rose, indoles, or citrus any more, I could tell how they were effecting the lily, with the rose sweetening it in a way that erased some of the green-ness while the indoles added a slightly dirty feel. This was definitely more interesting than most of these green lily frags I've tried. The other elements go a long way to make it feel more floral and intricate as opposed to smelling kind of simple and aquatic, which lily frags can often be.

As the base came in, it smelled like it was going to be that over used fruity floral base (see my rant in the Silver Rain post above), but it ended up being a very light resin (the kind that smells more like sweet fruit than incense) with some white soap. Oddly, the base is really, really weak compared to the rest of the scent, so the whole thing only lasts about 4-6 hours, with nothing but a sweet spot left after that.

All in all, the dirty floral rose/lily was quite nice, but the lack of longevity was sad. Like many current Guerlain mass-releases, it's fine, but certainly not anywhere close to many of their historical gems. If you're a Guerlain obsessive, you'll be able to find a reason to like Idylle, but I can't help but think that you could find something that does this better...
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post #42 of 78
7/17/10 at 2:22pm
I've sampled Jacques Fath green water today. I've sampled this in the past and gave it a miss for some reason, but I've found it lovely today. There are similarities with other mint fragrances that have bergamot, orange, lemon, herbs notes etc but I've added this to my list to either buy a bottle of in the near future, or certainly get hold of a decant. It's no Selection Verte, but it's a damn site cheaper.

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post #43 of 78
7/18/10 at 5:14pm
Thread Starter 
For the last couple of days, I've been wearing Creed Aventus.



All told, Aventus smells very Creed. There's that basic Creed recipe of citrus + leafy notes + synthetic ozone freshness + Creed ambergris base that accounts for most of their masculine scents from GIT to MI to Erolfa to Neroli Sauvage and many others. They all vary in their choice of citrus and the specific proportions of citrus, leaves, and synthetics, enough so that they all manage to smell different enough that we all tend to choose a favorite or two. If you're a fan of this particular Creed style, you'll likely enjoy Aventus. If you aren't, Aventus probably won't convince you otherwise.

It kicks off with the smell of Satsuma Mandarins (they're a super-sweet tangerine hybrid that has a huge cult following in the San Francisco foodie scene) which is quickly joined by the listed pineapple note. In fragrance terms, pineapple basically behaves like a citrus - it's a juicy, acidic, sweet, citric kind of smell - so it makes sense in the place of honor as the "citric" element of the Creed formula. The woody violet leaf takes a while to come into clear focus, but adds that trademark Creed dirty green-ness to the pineapple note. To put this in line with other Creeds, it's not as leafy as GIT or as ozonic as MI. The pineapple with the background green-ness is the dominant note, but it never smells like Ananas Fizz's prominent edible pineapple (that ozone and the leaf notes keep it from ever being that realistic) - in total it smells like a Creed, which is kind of a genre in and of itself.

To be honest, Aventus has faded before reaching the base both times I've worn it now. The trademark Creed ambergris base is hinted at more than actually present on my skin with 3 sprays.

In Creed terms, Aventus, of course, smells good. My biggest gripe is that it's not really up to Creed's standards in terms of concentration. Modern Creeds, from MI to GIT to Original Santal, seem to resonate off of skin in a way that suggests that they spent considerable time finding the absolute perfect concentration at which the scent seems to vibrate in tune with the human body. It's really hard to put this into words, but this is one of Creed's strongest points. Aventus doesn't do this. Instead, it's one of those scents that feels kind of weak when first sprayed, so you end up spraying too much, but then ends up fading quickly anyway.

I do like the pineapple, but I can't really see buying a bottle of Aventus. My textbook Creed needs are currently being met by M.I., which I think is a better scent, based only on technical terms like concentration and longevity. Aventus may smell a bit more natural, though. So I really can't see Aventus winning over any Creed haters, but I think it should be rightfully be embraced by the Creed lovers.
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post #44 of 78
7/18/10 at 8:50pm
Quick thoughts on the Scents of Time samples I just got a few days ago:

Maya - lots of chocolate, vanilla, and tropical flowers (I pick up mostly a sweet, not particularly indolic jasmine, although there is a hint of a fresh/green accord, too). A hint of copal incense. Starts out rather fresh and sweet and becomes drier and more interesting in time. The chocolate isn't overly gourmand, and the incense does come out a tad more strongly in the late heart notes. This would be amazing if the copal note was amped up a few notches. As it is, it is still good and fairly unique. Leans quite feminine. The dark chocolate and dark jasmine notes, along with the hint of resinous incense just seem to suggest this would smell really amazing on an assertive latin woman. In my opinion, Maya is appropriately named and really does seem like something that may have been worn by the Mayans.

Pyxis - a very interesting, minty herbal chypre. This starts with a blast of peppermint and rosemary, with the basil and lavender in tow, and this accord slowly fades as the floral heart comes to the fore. The cool and refreshing elements provided by the mint and lavender never fully recede - thankfully, actually - as this makes the oakmoss supported floral heart not only far more unique, but actually far more beautiful. A garden of flowers beginning to thaw after the first freeze.

Night Star - I thought I'd like this one the most out of the feminines - violet, rose, lily of the valley, heliotrope, iris - some of my favorite feminine florals, and all of this handled by the great Christopher Sheldrake. I imagined a beautiful, ethereal and transcendent floral accord evocative of a romanticized celestial ship deck view. What I got was an overly powdery, overly sweet heliotrope bomb. The cherry facets of the heliotrope are strong, and it results in a sort of cherries and cream (with a nice dose of powder) accord, but it feels too sweet and too thick. This should have been named Sugar Star or (Mid)Night Snack. Eventually the sweetness recedes a bit and what is left is actually very feminine and quite pretty, but the road to get there is toothachey.

Ankh - a beautiful and wonderful incense scent that smells very, very natural. It starts out with muted citrus over juniper, although immediately a slightly dusty/sandy/woody accord is present, although faint. It transitions into a cleansing dry incense accord of juniper, calamus, and some green coniferous notes presented by the cypress and myrtle. In time the dry and dusty spices grow more prominent, as do the woods. It progresses slowly and seamlessy, which can make it easy to overlook its complexity. The wood/spice/frankincense accord grows stronger and if it did so unchecked, it would become too dry and irritating (or at least too austere), as some incense scents are prone to do, but slowly a soft honey and beeswax move in and add a beautiful and much needed counterpoint to the incensey accord. This is in some ways similar to the progression of Jubilation XXV, only in reverse. The birch tar becomes noticeable in the late drydown as a faintly smokey note. Ankh, at this point, truly does smell like I'd imagine it would if you were in a pyramid, surrounded by the aroma of age old stones accompanied by gently burning (or perhaps just extinguished) incense.

This scent does not project much, but I don't find that to be an issue at all, and actually FAR prefer my incense heavy scents this way. The reason why this doesn't project far, I imagine, is because of the very high use of naturals in the composition. It smells far more natural than Jubilation XXV for instance, and projects much less because of it. As far as projection goes, it is perhaps most similar to Les Nez's Let Me Play the Lion, and in fact does share some similarities with that scent, although Ankh smells more of stones and smoke and sandalwood and less of cedar and the gently swweet note in LMPTL (which I think is carnation absolute). The longevity is good, the blend transitions just seamlessy, and I really can't find anything to fault with this scent (surely not the price, either!). Truly one of the best incense scents around. Incense lovers owe it to themselves to check this out!

edit: I want to add that Ankh seems to have many aromatherapeutic properties, as well. The scent is calming and centering in an almost biological sort of way (as if it has nothing to do with the smell, but instead the qualities of the oils present). It might be the most natural smelling scent that is not truly all natural (it does list some synthetics) that I've ever come across. One of the few other scents I've ever tested with these qualities is AdP Colonia, and this smells at least as natural as that, if not moreso. Many know that I love Amouage, but I must say that this smells more natural than any Amouage or Xerjoff. I'm not saying that that makes it intrinsically better or even objectively (or subjectively) better, but for those who enjoy naturalness in fragrances (or conversely, do not enjoy obvious syntheticness) this scent is one to check out.
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post #45 of 78
7/18/10 at 11:53pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the Scents of Time reviews - I'd been wondering if they would end up being some sort of BPAL-esque cheap nerd-fest or if the big name noses would win out and they'd be good. I'll have to remember them the next time I do a Perfumed Court order...

This evening, I'm doing something different, wearing Opoponax Oil. It's from my local essential oil store and it's supposed to be the essential oil of opoponax gum:



First off, I have to say that I've been very wrong about what I thought opoponax smelled like. After having experienced the real thing, I'm pretty sure that every time I've seen opoponax listed in the notes of something, what I've been smelling and thinking was it has actually been frankincense. Of course, opoponax sounds cool and mysterious in a note list and marketing people lie, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it...

Out of the vial, it's a really dense, multi-layered smell. There's a bright sharpness to it, like you get from crushing pine needles or lavender, but it's kind of simultaneously minty and piney, but neither. It's more of an undefined sharp brightness. This brightness plays up against a smell I can best describe as the hot rubber smell of an overheating car engine.

To be clear, this isn't a pleasant smell.

Given about a half an hour, the sharpness faded, leaving that hot plasticky rubber smell, which was quite sweet and well-rounded (I know that's a weird description, but resins usually feel "rounded" to me, the same way that creamy sandalwood or vanilla doesn't have any sharp edges). In a way, this heart stage kind of reminded me of ozone - not the perfumey "ozone" note used in aquatics, but actual O3, the chemical ozone, which smells like the inside of an overheated computer. But rounded and sweet. In a way, the sweetness was kind of gross. The sweetness of something so chemical and non-food is actually quite off-putting.

Finally, hours later, I'm left with a faded resin smell. Imagine the smell of the garden section of one of those giant home center stores - it's that distinct smell of potting soil, weed-killer, fertilizer, and plants all mixed together. That's what I'm getting from the base of the opoponax oil: sweet, rounded, slightly plasticky Miracle Gro.

Honestly, I can't point out a single scent where I've smelled this, except possibly the hot car smell of SMN's Nostalgia or possibly as an ingredient in one of those CDG Odeurs. If it weren't for the sharp, plasticky topnotes, the base would probably work great to give a green darkness to mossy frags, but it would take some epic topnotes to drown out the couple of hours of gross you have to sit through to get to the dank, green payoff.
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post #46 of 78
7/18/10 at 11:57pm
Rogalal, if you're going to check out the Scents of Time scents, order the official samples direct from Aqua de Luna (http://www.aquadeluna.com/). You can get 5 official samples (in a nice 2ml size), in really nice packaging and with an additional brochure with more information about each scent, for a mere $15.. about $20 with shipping. It's an excellent deal as the samples are large and the brochure and sample cards are all well done and informative.
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post #47 of 78
7/19/10 at 12:08am
That sounds like a poorly distilled opoponax. It shouldn't be particularly plasticky. I find opoponax to be rather warm, very round, tart and dry. Like a mixture of white wine and myrrh and a non-sweet white musk. There is a subtle sweetness in it, which is usually brought out by pairing it with vanilla or coumarin, and I think such a combination is used almost always when an opoponax note is listed. It works well with such sweet essences by adding body to them, and balancing their sweetness and 'wetness' with its own tart and dry qualities.
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post #48 of 78
7/20/10 at 5:11pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SculptureOfSoul View Post

That sounds like a poorly distilled opoponax.

Very interesting - thanks. I know nothing about essential oils and distilation, so I'm very interested to hear from those that do...

Speaking of which, yesterday evening I wore a dab of Clary Sage Essential Oil.



Apparently, clary sage isnt actual sage. That being said, I couldnt resist comparing it to the sage leaves in my pantry. Going on, it smelled quite a bit like actual sage leaves, rubbed a bit to release their natural oils. It quickly settled to a smell that was an awful lot like plain, brown Lipton tea. This brown tea smell lasted a couple of hours before breaking down into a sort of slightly-plasticky mess that thankfully only lasted a few minutes before it reached a basenote similar to the mossy green smell of decaying forest mulch. This green mulch note lasted for quite a while, but was decidedly more faint than the tea smell in the heart.

I really enjoyed clary sage. Ive smelled it in many of my favorites. Its the mysterious tea note in Chergui, and the note that gives Hermes Un Jardin en Mediteranee its tea quality. Its the basis for Green Green Green and Green, too.

In terms of perfumery, I can see how it would be good paired with fruits or lemongrass to make them smell like tea (Heeleys Verveine springs to mind). It would also mesh well with woody basenotes because the herbal/tea heart and the mulchy green base would both theoretically smell great with cedars or the like.
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post #49 of 78
7/20/10 at 5:22pm
Thread Starter 
Yesterday I wore Quelques Fleurs Royale by Houbigant.



QFR acts differently than other perfumes Ive worn. Instead of proper top, heart, and base notes, it shoots out of the bottle with everything there at once in a loud crash of notes, which then slowly fades as the individual notes run their course. My guess is that this is a result of its incredibly high concentration Even as an EDP, QFR is very, very strong and quite loud.

Quelques Fleurs Royale is mostly based on traditional oriental notes, a mix of spiced vanilla and amber with some patchouli for depth and a mix of rose and cassis on top. Its not gourmand (at least until the very end) its more like a classic jammy floral based on the mix of rose, cassis, and patchouli over a traditional oriental base.

The rose is the first to go, leaving the exposed cassis to get a little funky (which seems to be the biggest complaint in reviews), but I find that it makes sense and never gets nasty when surrounded by all the other strong ingredients. The mix of cassis and the oriental base accounts for most of QFRs development. By the end of the day, the vanilla becomes more prominent, mixing with the remaining amber and light patchouli while some cinnamon that had been lingering in the background finally gets to come out and play. This stage reminds me of graham crackers, but in a symbolic perfumey way more so than literally.

If youre a fan of traditional oriental scents (Coromandel comes to mind as an example, but not as anything similar), QFR may have some appeal. Or if you love a huge, loud, feminine classic that stays away from the powdery floral aldehyde formula, this may be grail material.
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post #50 of 78
7/20/10 at 5:27pm
Thread Starter 
Today, thanks to Warum and the sniffing circle on the womens board, Im wearing vintage Houbigant Quelques Fleurs LOriginal.



From the vial, LOriginal smelled like aldehydes and a fruity mix of peach and some sort of sparkly pineapple soda. If that sounds artificial and gross, it really isnt the smell is actually quite awesome. Given a few minutes on skin, the pineapple faded, leaving the sparkly aldehydes to mix with a grape note (like the one in Royal Bain de Caron). This fresh grape note does its thing over a heavy white-musk soap smell, so the whole thing came together into a mix that smelled like bright, acidic white wine poured over old, expensive French soap.

This white wine/soap mix formed the heart of LOriginal, until the grape note eventually faded, allowing some standard old-school powdery florals to come through (I smelled mostly rose and ylang, but Im terrible at recognizing flower notes when theyre mixed together).

Given some serious time, LOriginal had, by the late afternoon, faded to a smooth, soapy iris. There may have been some vanilla in there, but the mix was definitely more like that soapy clean musk than like anything even remotely gourmand.

I have to say that I really enjoyed Quelques Fleurs LOriginal. The fruit paired with the aldehydes in the top smelled really great, simultaneously sweet and refreshing but without ever feeling dumbed-down or like some sort of little-girl fruity floral.

Also, this got me my first ever total-stranger Wow, someones perfume smells really good compliment from a girl at the coffee place this morning. Of course, she was looking around at the older ladies walking in to try to figure out who it was . I think I managed to confuse her when I said it was me, but she avidly sniffed my wrist and remarked that I smelled great. Score one for giving people the unexpected
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post #51 of 78
7/22/10 at 4:51pm
Thread Starter 
Yesterday I wore By Killian Prelude To Love.



It went on with a splash of refreshing orange-based citrus mixed with a petitgrain. I very quickly chalked this up as yet another 4711-clone, destined to follow the predictable recipe of citrus mixed with petitgrain fading to orange blossom and neroli. This isn't a bad thing, as this is a recipe I generally enjoy, and Kilian's orange note was crisp and refreshing and thankfully NOT that cheap fake orange that smells like Tang. The other thing Prelude To Love does differently is to add ginger, which sweetens the petitgrain and tones down its harsh aspects (really, petitgrain on its own has a violent, shocking quality to it that I don't like and the ginger goes a long way to mask this). Notes and revews of Prelude To Love mention iris, which I'm not really getting (Luckyscent even goes so far as to sell it as an iris fragrance and not a citrus). On me, the neroli is more citrusy than soapy (which I'd usually credit to iris) and I'm certainly not smelling any deep orris butter in the background. Maybe it's just different chemistry...


While the silage kind of gave up after a few hours, I'm getting some pretty serious on-the-skin longevity way into the late evening (thanks mostly to the neroli).


So, would I pay $225 for this? Not really. I can honestly say that this is behaving better and lasting longer than most of the memebers of this over-crowded genre, but that's an awful lot of money to pay to avoid that Tang note and add some ginger. If however, you're on a quest to try a wide range of citrus frags or want to get a feel for what the higher end of this genre can do, Prelude To Love is probably worth a sample.
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post #52 of 78
7/22/10 at 8:02pm
Thread Starter 
Today I'm wearing The Different Company Oriental Lounge.



Oriental Lounge went on with a polite mix of amber (the lightly-powdery, not-too-sweet kind) and perfumey tonka. This mix accounted for most of the silage, while the smell on my skin was decidedly different. One minute it was boozy woods, the next it was spicy flowers. All the while, the cloud around me was basically perfumey amber.

Given time, the boozy flowery woody notes died down and sandalwood came in to mix with the amber and the tonka, leaving a base that reminded me of Tam Dao with amber over it.

Apparently, those boozy spice wood notes were all coming from some new note called "curry wood". It must be a bit challenging on its own if they decided to pair it off with such staid and traditional perfumey notes. As such, Oriental Lounge comes off like a nice, good-quality, traditional "oriental" scent with an interesting note in the background, which is fine, but I'd be much more interested in smelling this note again in a fragrance that brings it forward and lets it do its thing (L'Artisan, are you listening? You're good at those...).

In all, Oriental Lounge is pleasant and polite and has just a little bit of woody bite, and if that's what you're looking for, do check it out. If you like Havana Vanille or Tam Dao, this might be right up your alley, too, as it reminded me of both at different stages.
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post #53 of 78
7/23/10 at 6:37pm
Thread Starter 
Today I wore Serge Lutens Rousse.



Does anyone remember that old Simpsons episode where they go to the movies and Homer tries to convince the kid behind the counter to put the popcorn butter on his Milk Duds? If you replace the milk duds with those cinnamon Red Hots candies, that's basically what the top of Rousse smells like.

I consider myself a pretty avid hater of that Red Hots cinnamon note (it's just too childish and artificial to have any place in serious perfumery, to me, and it can make almost anything smell like a super-cheap Christmas candle). Somehow, though, try as I might, I just couldn't hate Rousse. Through some sort of utter sorcery, the mix of butter and Red Hots (which sounds completely putrid in writing) actually works on my skin.

Given a couple of hours, the buttery candy faded, leaving (surprisingly) a very dark birch-heavy leather with vetiver in the background and just a touch of lingering cinnamon spicing it up. By the afternoon, this super-dark leathery woody vetiver note got sweeter as some labdanum came in, giving it a bit of resinous roundness to cut the darkness.

Late in the evening, I'm left with semi-sweet vanilla with some leftover labdanum to make sure that it feels "incensey" and not gourmand.

This is one of those Lutens that feels rich, and definitely goes through a lot of changes. It's not as rich as Arabie, and never got cloying, like some of them do. It's not as nuanced as, say, Chergui, but still has a lot going on. So, if you're a fan of the textbook Lutens (Chergui, Santal de Mysore, Arabie, etc.), you should really make a point of testing Rousse. I'm still not 100% sure I can forgive that Red Hots note, but I'm trying...
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post #54 of 78
7/24/10 at 12:04am
MPG Grain De Plaisir



I own this, but haven't worn it for a long time, and the last few times I wore it I was suffering a chemical sensitivity that distorted my perception of it. I'm not going to say a lot about it here, except to say that it is an excellent green aromatic that is quite herbal, warm, and woody.

It starts with a beautiful lemon note that is extremely natural. It is flanked by a hint of mint, a large dose of celery seed (which smells somewhat like celery but is simultaneously warmer and sweeter) along with perhaps some coriander seed, basil and a tiny touch of oregano or thyme. This slowly fades into an herbal heart that maintains the unique interplay of warm and cool notes (celery/mint), and eventually fades into an earthy base that still retains some aromatic qualities. There is a nuttiness to the woody element, and it smells a LOT like the drydown of Six Scents Series 1, No. 3 "Spirit of Wood."

An excellent aromatic green scent that is unique because it is one of the few aromatics that, overall, feels very very warming and even 'cozy', in a sense. Most aromatics are sharper, cooler, and more austere and aloof. In comparison, Grain de Plaisir is a careless afternoon spent lying on one's back in a field of parched, sand colored grass, watching the clouds drift lazily across the sky. The drydown is the memory of that day, rendered in sepia tones.
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post #55 of 78
7/25/10 at 12:56pm
Thread Starter 
On Friday evening, for Maureic Roucel day, I wore Frederic Malle Dans Tes Bras.



This will forever stand as the scent that Basenotes ruined for me...

A couple of years ago, after collecting designer scents forever, I finally wandered into Barneys, wondering if they'd have anything I hadn't tried. Of course, faced with an entire basement full of unknown niche scents, I was pretty floored. I ended up walking out with Dans Tes Bras, enchanted by its extremely bright topnotes (a mix of violet, which can be quite screechy, and lavender). A month or so later, I chanced upon Basenotes and started reading the reviews for my favorite scents. Big mistake.

One of the Dans Tes Bras reviews basically said "Eeew! It smells like mushrooms!". I sniffed myself (I was wearing it at the time) and thought "Eeew! It DOES smell like mushrooms!" and I haven't been able to really enjoy it since then.

Now that I know a bit more and my taste for the weird has grown, I was curious what I'd think about Dans Tes Bras, after leaving it to languish for a couple of years now. I still have a weak spot for the screechy, super-bright topnotes, and that salty mushroom smell still strikes me as just a little too weird for me to be comfortable wearing.

Oh well, this was a valuable lesson early on in my collecting to not make expensive purchases based on sniffing a card at the store, and as such, was worth the price.

So who would I suggest Dans Tes Bras for? You have to like violets, and loud ones at that. And you have to have a soft spot for quirkiness. All told, it's almost a retelling of the Cuir de Russie violets-over-leather story, but with a salty vegetal musk instead of the animalic leather, so if you're curious about what that would smell like, give Dans Tes Bras a sniff...
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post #56 of 78
7/26/10 at 3:46pm
Thread Starter 
Today I'm wearing Parfums Llewelyn Stardust for Men.



From the top, Stardust reminds me of Creed's Original Santal because it has a very similar cinnamon-dusted sweet cherry note. Stardust isn't anywhere near as sticky-strong as O.S. and it doesn't feel as much like candy because it pairs this sweet cherry accord with a mix of herbs, most notably mint for the first few minutes, but eventually I smell everything from lavender to basil to juniper berry. It actually reminds me a lot more of MPG's Garrigue, if you take out Garrigue's rather over-the-top salty marine middle portion.

By the heart, Stardust was a more homogenous mix of that cherry candy and masculine spices, with some galbanum coming in underneath to round things out and fill in some green as the spices slowly faded.

The base is vanilla, with some lingering galbanum keeping it green-ish and resinous for a while.

All in all, Stardust was quite pleasurable. I liked it way better than Garrigue, and I think you could make a solid case that it's better thought out and more intelligently put together than Original Santal, but I have a weak spot for OS's loud candy smell, and Stardust's more reasonable volume and smarter composition just don't have the same oomph, even if they're probably technically "better".

So, if you kind of liked Original Santal but thought it was kind of dumb and loud, or if you like Garrigue except for the painful salt note, Stardust for Men could be very much worth sampling. Or if you're just interested in something that's intelligently sweet and almost marine-ish but without the silly melon notes or the other unfortunate trappings of the genre, you should probably try to track down a sample.
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post #57 of 78
7/26/10 at 4:52pm
Thread Starter 
Catching up, yesterday I wore By Kilian Pure Oud.



Going on, Pure Oud smelled like a mix of pleasant toned-down oud and the infamous birch tar bongwater note in Nasomatto's Black Afgano. It actually worked really well together. The oud never got medicinal or plasticky and the mix was quite inspired.

By the heart, the bongwater note had faded into something remarkably similar to Tom Ford's Tuscan Leather, with the oud continuing alongside it.

By the base, the oud and the leather had both pretty much faded, leaving a very dark forest floor smell - a nice mix of green labdanum and cedar with vetiver adding a darker aspect.

Really, Pure Oud hit pretty much all of my most-loved notes in a clever way. The silage was more oud-heavy than the smell on my skin, so it never lost touch with the fact that it was supposed to be an oud and not a leathery woody incense scent, though it's pretty awesome as one of those, too.

Most of the complaints about Pure Oud center either on its price (which I'll agree is too much) or it being "dumbed-down", which I kind of disagree with. If your idea of what oud is supposed to smell like comes entirely from Montale's medical-waste-moldy-band-aid version of oud, Pure Oud will probably smell "simplified", but I've smelled some pretty expensive oud oils that smell much more like Pure Oud than a Montale. Sure, it doesn't smell like you set fire to a pile of moldy cow dung, but many of the finest ouds don't (thank goodness...).

So, anyway, if you like your ouds more woody and leathery or if you have a soft spot for really dark woody scents, I'd definitely suggest giving Pure Oud a try.
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post #58 of 78
7/26/10 at 9:52pm
Thread Starter 
Continuing to catch up, I also gave a test wearing to Tom Ford Black Orchid.



Saturday night, I got together with some of my old friends I used to go out dancing with to go club-hopping. We ended up only making it to two clubs, but it was fun. They were gay clubs (for those who don't know me) and it was interesting being on a packed dancefloor again, smelling all of the crowd's scents. Back in the day, I still remember seas of men all reeking of CK One with the occasional guy passing by in Le Male. Saturday it smelled more like walking into the Macy's men's store - a heady swamp of that cheap faux-bergamot that smells like grape gum mixed with that metallic "woody amber" chemical. This smell isn't even anything I can pin down to a certain cologne. So many smell like that - everyone from Hugo Boss to Kenneth Cole to Vera Wang has one with those notes.

In a swarm of perfume mediocrity, I was really happy I'd chosen to wear something distinctive. Operating from a place completely outside of that smell-alike paradigm, Black Orchid manages to really stand out as something completely different from the rest of its mainstream designer family.

So what does it smell like? Based on the many reviews, it apparently smells different on different people. On me, it kicked off with that coconut note from Virgin Island Water mixed with the smell of papaya juice (like they sell at those weird papaya juice stands all over New York). This sweet tropical mix was contrasted with what I can best describe as gardenia - that indolic-but-not-flowery smell that's kind of like stinky cheese. Yeah, I know. That sounds awful. Coconut and papaya over stinky cheese and indoles?!? I wanted to hate it. Based on the notes, it should have been an instant scrubber, but somehow it works. Somehow, all those horrifying notes somehow balance each other and it all comes together to smell simultaneously weird and appealing.

I seems odd to call something this utterly strange feminine, but, at least by definition, Black Orchid is a fruity floral (hey, it does have fruit and flowers). I find it masculine enough to wear, though I can't imagine wearing it to work or out to a random dinner, or spraying some of this after the gym. Come to think of it, with it's strong silage and weird sweetness, it's probably perfect for wearing to a club. But not some straight club full of ADG-soaked guidos (that's what Original Santal is for...). It pretty much has to be a gay club.

So there you have it. Black Orchid = perfect gay club scent.

So, should you try it? I guess that depends on whether or not that description offends you...
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post #59 of 78
7/27/10 at 11:25am
Today I sampled:

Burberry London, Guerlain L'Instant, Guerlain Homme L'Eau, YSL La Nuit De L'homme, Davidoff Silver Shadow Altitude, Davidoff Adventure Eau Fraiche, Boss Bottled Night


Burberry London (on card) - I liked it best. Very unique. It smells like ginger bread with cinnamon, I also smell bit of tobacco. Can be nice winter fragrance. I may buy mini of it later. Direct competition from my wardrobe - Pure Malt.

Guerlain L'Instant (on card) - I sampled this 3rd time. Opening is very strange, i'd say its for old guy in formal suit, later it become enjoyable, I absolutely love cocoa note on drydown and would probably prefer EDP over this. Overall its nice and unique fragrance for gentleman. I may get EDP blind If I can find it for good price. Direct competition from my wardrobe - Dior Homme.

Guerlain Homme L'Eau (on skin) - fresh lemon opening. Drydown into note that reminds me Encre Noire without darkness (maybe vetiver?). Smells luxurious and elegant. I like it and will eventually buy it sometime. Direct competition from my wardrobe - Bvlgari Aqva.

YSL La Nuit De L'Homme (on card) - to me its mainstream evening scent that is competition to Armani Black Code. Sweet and spicy. Reminds me lot Black Suede Touch by Avon. Its type of fragrance that I would never buy after sampling because its nothing groundbreaking. Direct competition from my wardrobe - Avon Black Suede Touch, Armani Black Code

Davidoff Silver Shadow Altitude (on skin) - fresh fruity opening, fruity drydown. Overall I like it lot and I was looking for fragrance like this few months ago but right now I think I dont need it. It smells exactly as its priced. Would be great daily fragrance for youthfull. Direct competition from my wardrobe - Acqua Di Gio

Davidoff Adventure Eau Fraiche (on card) - lemon lemon lemon with something green, drydown lemon with something green. It cant be more generic. My father like it but I like Silver Shadow Altitude MUCH better. I dont have anything like it in wardrobe, but out of my samples it reminds me most L'Eau D'Issey PH

Boss Bottled Night - I liked this best at opening, actually I liked it best for first 15 minutes. Then later it became clearly most boring generic synthetic fragrance out of everything I sampled today. Direct competition: any Hugo Boss lmao.
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post #60 of 78
7/27/10 at 5:04pm
Thread Starter 
Dreamer81, if you liked aspects of Guerlain L'Instant, try to hunt down a sniff of their Cologne Du 68. It has pretty much everything L'Instant does, but with more wood and green notes added, and better boozy vanilla in the base. It's harder to find, but if you can track down a sample, I'd highly suggest it.

Also, be carefull of Burberry London. It works better on paper than on skin. It smells good, but it tends to fade really fast and then end up very quiet, which I found really frustrating. But only some people have this problem, so I'd highly suggest that you should give it a real skin test before buying...

Anyway, today I wore Les Plus Belles Lavandes de Caron.



I have to admit that I find it amazing that there are still no reviews of this here on Basenotes. Seriously, a new men's Caron and no one cares?? Vibert? JaimeB? Not even a SirSlarty?!

Officially, it's a unisex flanker of Pour Un Homme. Bafflingly, it was originally sold only in 750 ml bottles (that's the same size as a bottle of wine, BTW) and only in France - It's almost like they wanted it to fail. Now, it's spread to America and is available in normal 100 ml bottles, thank goodness.

So what does it smell like? Well, you should probably know Pour Un Homme for the sake of comparison (lavender and lemon over musky civet-drenched tonka that smells like lavender, pee, and lemon cleaner in the heart and dries down to a rich civet/tonka musk in the base). LBPLDC takes out the lemon and replaces it with amber, which actually goes really well with the lavender - they both share an almost medicinal sharpness that allow the notes to fade effortlessly into each other. LBPLDC also takes out (almost all of) the civet, so the topnotes don't smell like pee anymore. Instead the top is a very clean lavender with subtle hues of amber. In the heart, vanilla comes in instead of civet and tonka, making for a really nice, simple modern take on a fougere. By the base, the lavender has mostly died down, with the amber taking over as the source of brightness and the vanilla staying on the "oriental" side, as opposed to the super-sweet gourmand side. By the late afternoon, the tiny bit of civet finally comes through once the amber fades, leaving a few hours that smell quite a bit like Shalimar.

So, if you like your lavender scents very old-school, you'd probably really enjoy LPBLDC. It seems catered to people who like the idea of classic lavenders but can't quite stomach the filth of Pour Un Homme or Jicky. It's simple, with the only notes being lavender, vanilla, amber, and musk, but it proves that a few notes can do amazing things if mixed right. The vanilla also does make it feel more current, but this is still a million miles away from anything you'd smell at any given mall.

Come on, Basenotes. This has been out for a couple of years now. I can't be the only person here with a sample...
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