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No Pain No Gain - Salvador Dali Pour Homme

post #1 of 17
8/3/10 at 10:57am
Thread Starter 
The opening notes of Salvador Dali pour homme have got to be some of the most disturbing out there.

Cat pee.

Cat pee.

Oh and a bit more... cat pee.

I actually had to remove myself the first time I tried it, from the room where my cats' litter tray is to make sure it wasn't actually that which was smelling in need of an oil change. It wasn't, it was definitely the Salvador Dali.

But oh, such heaven as the harsh edges peel away to that glorious heart and dry down.

I can see why the fragrance is a metaphor for the great artist's work really. Disturbing at first sight, but upon careful study the genius and depth reveal themselves.

It's not for no reason this remains one of my favourite dark, dense fragrances.

Pure bliss to the perfumisti entrenched in my soul...
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post #2 of 17
8/3/10 at 11:23am
Yep! SDpH is certainly an initially disturbing but beautiful scent. I feel i crossed a certain threshold when i first sniffed it and then fell in love with it. As animalically(?) bitter and leathery as it smells, it does have lovely floral accords embedded in it.
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post #3 of 17
8/3/10 at 11:23am
I think Dali's artwork is love at first sight!

I have yet to try the fragrance, but hopefully will get the opportunity sometime this year.
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post #4 of 17
8/3/10 at 11:30am
I am normally a fan of fragrances classified as either "powerhouse", "dark" or "80's" - but I just could never warm up to this fragrance. I may have to give it a try again.
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post #5 of 17
8/3/10 at 11:42am
This one is one of the horribly weird ones. It puts an uppercase W into weird, even.

I'll have to put it through a few more wearings but I've always thought it came off as sort of a flat paint version of the glossy Antaeus/Kouros/Ho Hang Club type fragrances. Wonderful and unique for sure, but smelling flat in a way that is just aesthetic, not flat in a bad sense or negative way. Also not smelling like a duplicate of those fragrances either, I know it's different, but it always seemed to be that kind of powerhead.

Always seemed linear with the flat paint thing too. I'll have to use it some more.

How about that bottle cap too? You can't not smile at a men's fragrance where the cap is a big pair of plastic lips!
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post #6 of 17
8/3/10 at 11:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by petruccijc View Post

I am normally a fan of fragrances classified as either "powerhouse", "dark" or "80's" - but I just could never warm up to this fragrance. I may have to give it a try again.

It's difficult to like i know, but i guess you have to be in the right somber-gothic-nihilistic mood to make friends with it.
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post #7 of 17
8/3/10 at 11:54am
Initially, this highly and problematic scent (also, the first designer frag I ever owned) only made me feel, as far as my overwhelmed nose was concerned, tar, tar and more tar... with a hint of smoke

and then... suddenly, a myriad of spicy and botanical notes of immense distinction became perceptible
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post #8 of 17
8/3/10 at 12:51pm
I love this fragrance, always did since first I tried it. I keep a backup bottle, in case the fragrances gods think to discontinue it. The fragrance is Dali. Salvador Dali Pour Homme is the olfactory rendering of surrealism. Too bad more artists don't get into fragrance who have artistic statements to be made instead of celebrities peddling their wares. Viva Dali!
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post #9 of 17
8/3/10 at 12:55pm
Thread Starter 
It's also one of the weirdest scents for occasional wafts. It's like different elements surface from time to time, a sweet delicate floral will attract your nose at some point, if you've sprayed it as a monitor spray on the back of your hand. As you move your nose to its source, it vanishes beneath the dense jungle of dark sweetness, leather and the charcoal dark smokiness of this brooding fragrance.

Nobody would dare release this today. Which I think frankly is a crushing endictment of the fragrance industry we now experience.
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post #10 of 17
8/3/10 at 1:05pm
I have been using this for a few months now and find this to be a remarkably weird and uniquely strange fragrance and, as such, one of the most intriguing and captivating I have encountered. It is Very dark and brooding, gothic even. I get notes of incense, jasmine, leather and a sense of animalic hot metal(?) perhaps even copper-it may be this that gives some that "blood" comparison I have seen mentioned.

As a scent I'm not sure how much I actually like this, and cannot conceive of the situations in which it might be worn (satanic initiation???) but one thing for certain, it's certainly not boring, being so incredibly unique and offering many differing interpretations on each wearing. I personally find it perversely fascinating and alluring.
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post #11 of 17
8/3/10 at 2:16pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buddy97 View Post

I have been using this for a few months now and find this to be a remarkably weird and uniquely strange fragrance and, as such, one of the most intriguing and captivating I have encountered. It is Very dark and brooding, gothic even. I get notes of incense, jasmine, leather and a sense of animalic hot metal(?) perhaps even copper-it may be this that gives some that "blood" comparison I have seen mentioned.

As a scent I'm not sure how much I actually like this, and cannot conceive of the situations in which it might be worn (satanic initiation???) but one thing for certain, it's certainly not boring, being so incredibly unique and offering many differing interpretations on each wearing. I personally find it perversely fascinating and alluring.

I don't know if there's anything satanic about it, I find it a curiously beautiful fragrance in a good way. How refreshing that a perfumer thought to create a perfume which a man can wear which encompasses so many facets of masculinity.
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post #12 of 17
8/3/10 at 3:25pm
I like weird scents. I like Dali. I did not like Salvador Dali Pour Homme. Too...jumbled.
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post #13 of 17
8/3/10 at 3:38pm
It's all pain and no gain for me on SDPH. If this makes sense......I find it a quality scrubber. Strange heh? I cannot get it off my skin fast enough......and I have worn it long enough to get to the drydown....but no avail.....I find it disturbing and convoluted.
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post #14 of 17
8/3/10 at 3:51pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by AromiErotici View Post

It's all pain and no gain for me on SDPH. If this makes sense......I find it a quality scrubber. Strange heh? I cannot get it off my skin fast enough......and I have worn it long enough to get to the drydown....but no avail.....I find it disturbing and convoluted.

You just have to persevere, the top notes need to burn off, they're like ugly stagehands preparing the way for a Wagnerian Opera.
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post #15 of 17
8/3/10 at 4:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by HDS1963 View Post

You just have to persevere, the top notes need to burn off, they're like ugly stagehands preparing the way for a Wagnerian Opera.

'Sounds like the line from Josey Wales........" We shall endeavor to persevere" lol.
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post #16 of 17
8/3/10 at 5:09pm
Salvador Dali is a wonderful fragrance to wear to a party. The fragrance will set you apart from the rest, in a good way, and leads to the discussion of my favorite subject; fragrance.

A quote of Salvador Dali: "I don't do drugs. I am drugs."
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post #17 of 17
8/3/10 at 5:15pm
One thing... never, never stick your nose to your wrist or wherever SDpH is applied. Always judge it from a considerable distance - it's this kind of fragrance.

It also has the most disturbing bottle I've seen. As others have said, it actually looks alive. Like a strange nocturnal (Or nightmarish) creature landed on the table.It's genial to conceive such effect with such a simple shape.

Another strange thing I've never experienced befor with a fragrance is that I'm only comfortable with it when I smell it during a certain period of the night - say, 11pm to 2am, something like that. Strange, but I kid you not. During the day , even at 9pm it would be just this - pee+tar in a very disturbing way. But through this period SDpH looks to me like a romantic spicy oriental not not unlike Eau des Baux or Obsession for Men. Not a powerhouse or macho fragrance for sure. It's the smell of a place long forgotten. Maybe in that place where this creature lives, everybody smells like that.
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