Montale - Full Incense Any experience with this one?

I hate it. But I haven't actually tried it because it is French, classified as a unisex scent and comes in a 100ml bottle - so it goes against all of my farcical criteria for choosing a fragrance. Any Tom Ford fragrance is better than this one.

I am getting my sample of this from Montale in the next week or so and I'll let you know what I think. Going in I'm 50/50 on it which is a good place to start.

Joe just freed me from the tyranny of rational thought, "information", all that French Enlightenment clap trap. Yeah, what's up with 3.3 oz? Sounds so satanic.

This sounds like one I will surely have to try once I can find a sample.

Picked this up about three weeks ago from The Perfume Shoppe in Vancouver and glad I did. I personally like it. Don't know how to describe it other than it's a pretty powerful and incense prominent scent that for me has great longevity. The listed notes are:Somalia incense , rounded by elemi and labdanum resins and cedar and patchouli. A great masculine, but not overpowering incense fragrance for anyone who enjoys incense IMO.

I'm just glad I found Messe de Minuit and don't have to concern myself with sampling such frags any more. LOL.

I got a bottle of it from the Perfume Shoppe last week. It is all Incense! Reminds me of a stronger version of M.Micallef's Shanaan. I am still on the fence if I really like it. Only worn it once so far, just too humid where I live to wear it right now.

Cheers!

I've really been enjoying wearing Full Incense during this cold winter. It seems to go perfectly with thick sweaters, wool coats, and flannel shirts. I wore it with Avignon and Tauer Incense Extreme and I realized how different the three are. Incense Extreme goes on clean, like frigid crisp mountain air. Avignon has the smokey church incense vibe we all know and yet both seem arid and far less complex and rich than Full Incense. The Montale actually reminds me in a strange way of Tom Ford's Amber Absolute if you turned the amber almost down to nothing and amped up the incense to max. To me, it's earthy, resiny, peppery, slightly charred (eventually) and rich with a faint sweetness that does make it feel "full," or at least much fuller than most incense based fragrances I've experienced. It also has a warmth that seems missing from a lot of incenses. The only downfall is that I wished that heaviness lasted longer. On me, it fades to a whisper after a few hours which after experiencing that ridiculously rich, resiny opening seems unlikely. Besides that though, it's my favorite incense thus far.

For me the closest association is L'Artisan Tea for two. After 20 minutes it turns into a very sweet, smokey scent. Not my cup of tea at all.

In my opinion Messe de Minuit is a much better -if not the best- incense frag.

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It is a very churchy incense. Bois d'ences is also a churchy incense but has "dirtier" and dryer feel to it. Where as for the Full Incense, it's birght, fresh, kind of soapy fee to it. I love it. I can't remember the smell of Avignon so I can't really companre FI with that. =(

Incense Extreme by Tauer is much much better ;-)

IMO, this is the darker haired twin brother of the blonde heeley cardinal... I find it's a bit darker and richer than cardinal but not overpowering... I love cardinal but it so ethereal and smells like a ray of sunshine if sunshine had a scent, this is what moonlight smells like, beautiful scent and so much like church incense

Ive had it for about a week, and I love it....it does have a very church like feel to it, but I enjoy it.
Also I don't feel like it terribly complex either.... there are a few Taur's I would prefer to this one.

+1 for Mese de Minuit from Etro

Full Incense is a pure deep frankincense scent. The closest other fragrances to it that I've tried are Profumum's Olibanum and Ave Luxe Incense. There is little sweetness, spice or lightheartedness in this very solemn, liturgical incense fragrance. Considering the intent to be a full incense this succeeds better than possibly any other frankincense scent I've tried. But, it is not very easy to wear often due to its dark nature.

Just can't help it...had to say it again.....such a beautiful fragrance! And super long lasting too....spray it on fabric and it will last forever, no kidding.

Nearly bottle-worthy but it doesn't last on my skin as long as I would like it to. I once spritzed myself half a dozen times with it, in the Montale boutique but could hardly detect anything a couple of hours later. A real pity...

I like it very well, as I'm fond of incense perfumes; but it's quite linear. Good quality, but not as complex as Cardinal or Avignon perhaps.

A total rip-off. Get Avignon. Period!

How does Full Incense compare with Bois d'Encens?

If I already own BdE do I need FI?

I do not like it as a stand alone fragrance. However, it layers wonderfully with Montale's Chocolate Greedy

Bois D'Encens is, quality-wise, on a completely higher level. Animalic, dirty, extremely dark...basically there's nothing like it around. If I'd really have to compare it to another frag I'd say It's a sort of warmer Zagorsk (coniferous galore). Full Incense is the Avignon Xerox copy. Churchy frankincense with camomille.

Said that, IMO, If you own BdE it may worth owning Avignon instead of FI.

I'm surprised there is no actual review up of this yet and it's been out for some time now. I bought a small sample of this recently and I really like this. Of course there are similarities with this and Avignon and Cardinal. But really if you like those two scents and I own both, you can really put them beside FI to really see if there is a difference, and there are some is what I found.

I really like it still, even though many think it's just too much like Avignon. I have to say this is a liturgical smelling fragrance like Cardinal and Avignon for sure. But Avignon to my nose has that stale old damp cloth smell that FI doesn't, but I do like the damp staleness still but this is still interesting as FI seems more refined and cleaner and doesn't have the smoke quality Avignon does, and Cardinal has a real unique sharp note and lighter and a touch brighter and slightly sparkles and a touch sweeter. To me when I did a side by side of both I found they were all very interesting enough to be different but similar due to the church scent they all have.

All three are different enough that I would buy a bottle of this. But I really love scents that have a catholic church smell or just liturgical, so this will be FB worthy for me. I wouldn't say that it's knock off of Avignon at all but only it really has a liturgical scent of a true catholic church, so this is why people might think this, but I found it was different enough that it could stand on it's own. Obviously this scent may have never been created if Avignon hadn't, well I do think the whole church incense thing that happened a while back obviously had to have had a lot of influence in the creation of this scent.

I think that when they thought about the ingredients they probably had Avignon as a reference, but I think they still managed to make it their own, but I can see how many will think it does smell like Avignon, but remember lots of people said Cardinal was just a Avignon light, but really do a side by side it is very much a liturgical scent but again very unique that it is it's own. I just say if you really love Avignon and Cardinal or just churchy scents this one got it right, and you should give it a try. It is a true church scent. To me FI might be the smell of the vestry room in a church, where all the vestments and robes are kept and other sacred objects as it has this really refined quality that I would compare to this. Cardinal could be the smell within a confessional booth in the church, and that may sound strange, but I went to a lot of catholic mass when I was young, and this is what this smells reminds me of. And well Avignon is the smoke from the incense that the priests burns during mass. So really if you like true church scents all three are great and if your nose can tell the difference like me you should try this scent.

I do wear MdM also but would not compare that as being similar enough to include it with these three or Bois D'Encens either, as both Cardinal and FI both have the Avignon quality to them, and that's why I chose to look at them specifically, as all three do share a similar church scent to them. Another liturgical church scent I would recommend is like the smell of damp rotting church pews or interrior of an old rotting church is L'Artisan D'Humeur A Rien, which is a work of art IMO. Imagiane damp old rotting church pews that have been infused with incense over 100's of years in a decayed old church.

Thanks for the great reviews. I smelled FI last year, but I had tried so many other things that I did not give it my full attention. The first impression was that it smelled similar to Avignon. I need to give it another try.

I think it is a great scent and right now this is my second favorite incense scent behind Avignon.

I hope it could get a proper review thread on basenotes someday, I still amazes me it hasn't yet. But I can understand how it does get so many comparisons to Avignon and Cardinal. I will be getting a bottle eventually as I love true catholic church scents and this one is just that.

I think all three are great, as many would not see the point to own all three, but I really like how they are slightly similar, and really quite different at the same time to my nose, so will get all three. But Avignon and Cardinal have things going that are not in FI and vice versa. So if you like the authentic catholic church incense I really recommend this one. As not all church incense smell exactly same but similar. So that is how I see it.

FI does not have the cold starkness Avignon does or smell slightly stale, FI is sweeter, warmer and softer without any smoke and way more refined and still very subtle, but it does have the melancholy feeling though and a true liturgical scent and this is what I like about it and why it succeeds as a true church scent. But when you do side by side of all of them you get so much difference in all three, and is why I think its worth it to own all three of them if you love church incense fragrances.

An excellent incense choice. Ranks right up there with Avignon & Cardinal.

1/31/2013 After buying a bottle of this, I can state that this is probably my favorite incense fragrance (along with Profumum Olibanum). It lasts forever and has a very nice warm scent to it.

+1. If you can get your hands on FI for a great price, I would do it. I think it is near the top for an incense fragrance. However, I would recommend CdG Avignon over it. If you already own BdE, Full Incense may seem a little redundant. While they are a little different, they are similar enough to not really justify the purchase of both.

These are all very different - and much better IMO from the Andy Tauer Incense Extreme / Annick Goutal Encens Flamboyant type of incense, which remind me more of an ashtray scent rather than an incense.

I think Amouage's Opus IV is far superior to Full Incense. Looking back, I'm glad I never purchased a bottle.

As for all the other incense recommendations, I found them too cold and detached on my skin. The warm spiciness of Opus IV rectifies that for me.