Finally have tried frederic malle

l have only tried Carnal Flower; for me the most beautiful tuberose fragrance possible, it's not overly "in your face", but cool, restrained & very fresh. l think it would smell fab on a guy!

l plan to try Musc Ravageur at some point, & l like the sound of En Passant; apparently it has a lovely lilac note.

I have only tried Musc Ravageur, and it is a Top Ten fragrance. Wear this and your gf will think you're dessert. Prepare yourself to be ravaged.

French lover - I find it to be little bitter and too harsh for me. This is perfume for an older gentleman
Geranium for monsieur - mint and geranium. Very sophisticated fragrance, didn't like it at first but after a while I found it to be very pleasant fragrance. Mediocre projection and longevity.
L'eau D'hiver - this perfume stays really really close to the skin. It is very nice to wear at home in the winter. Maybe little to feminine.

Musc Ravageur is nice, but to me it serves one purpose, the bedroom purpose! which is why Tobacco Vanille will always be my choice between these two.

I've tried most of them, what i find with these scents is the drydowns on most of them are a thing of beauty, so anyone exploring these scents, never judge them on first impression alone.

Angeliques Sous La Pluie - A watered down version of French Lover, gone after 2 mins (no joke)

Bigarade Concentrée - One of the most natural, orange peel scents ever, beautiful, but zero longevity except in intense heat

Carnal Flower - Probably the most well constructed scent of them all, a thing of beauty, but thats exactly how you would smell, beautiful

French Lover - A true gentlemen's scent, magnificent. The only one so far i've purchased a 100ml bottle of. Very green and earthy

Geranium Pour Monsieur - Excellent mint scent, blooms in the summertime, very chic

Noir Epices - Yikes! way too fizzy for me, but one to wear if you know you will be bored somewhere, keeps you interested!

Lys Méditerranée - My least fav of the ones i tried, not that impressive, very feminine

Vétiver Extraordinaire - Great Vetiver scent, pure, clean smelling (to me)

Anyone looking to really explore this house will have fun, the scents are really well done and very original. I might just go back and explore it all over again myself!

Ha ha. I can just picture Monsieur Roudnitska standing there in his lab with a bottle of aldehydes, thinking: "What the hell, I'll just dump the whole lot in and see what happens".

That said, I love this fragrance from top to toe.

I'm considering doing a Malle Week next week - a different sample each day. Would be nice to re-visit some of them. Anyone else in?

While some of the fragrances in the Frederic Malle line are more to my taste than others, I haven't smelled a single one that I didn't at least admire for its quality and artistry. It is truly an extraordinary lineup.

The only one I own is Bois d'Orage (aka French Lover), which has become my go-to scent for dress-up occasions. It's crisp, fresh, and slightly mysterious all at the same time.

I love Vetiver Extraordinaire, though have held off on buying more than a small decant because it overlaps too much with other vetivers in my collection (Encre Noire especially). But I have a feeling I won't be able to resist much longer.

I'm also intrigued by Geranium pour Monsieur and Bigarde Concentree, which are on my long-term shopping list as well (for decants at least) based on the limited experience I've had with them.

Musc Ravageur falls into the "admire but don't love" category for me, mainly because it's quite sweet and rich and I'm not a fan of those kinds of scents in general. It's about as "edible" as you can get without straying into full-on gourmand territory. That said, is is amazingly dense and layered and the quality shines through every phase of its development. It's quite long-lasting as well - I could still smell the sample I spritzed at the Barney's counter during my visit one afternoon at dinner six hours later.

Speaking of Barneys, do make every effort to get to one of their Frederic Mall counters sometime - or, better, the Malle boutique on Madison Avenue at E. 72nd Street in NYC. The "scent columns" which the reps use to have to sample fragrances are extraordinary - a completely different experience from trying them out via dabs from a sample vial or spritz on a crowded sales floor. The scents "bloom" in the columns and become almost three dimensional.

Considering the three you tried, I'd recommend you try Geranium PM, French Lover / Bois d'Orage, Bigarade Concentree, and Carnal Flower.

Geranium PM and French Lover are both great green-herbal frags ( though they smell nothing alike ), that I think are readily wearable.

Bigarade Concentree last well on me heat or no heat, but I do second that it smells its best in the warm weather, when it projects well. Considering your location you'd have plenty of times for it to work its magic!

Carnal Flower, even if it doesn't turn out to be something you want to wear, is a fragrance worth experiencing; it's really something else, quite different from most florals. I've rarely come across someone who doesn't love it.

For my oddball choice, I'll moot Une Fleur de Cassie. It's a floral but to my nose it's almost more of an edgy, powdery gourmand, a whole hazy-almond thing going on in the background.

Let me know when it's Carnal Flower day & l'll join you, l still have some of my sample left!

Im SO in! i've still got most of my samples also, this sounds like a great idea.

Awesome!
Looking through the Malle samples I have (and excluding those I have bottles of), I end up with:

Une rose - Monday
French lover - Tuesday
Bigarade Concentrée - Wednesday
Vétiver Extraordinaire - Thursday
Carnal Flower - Friday

Feel free (of course) to make a variation on the theme.
Anyone else care to join the fun (/madness) ?

Woohoo, Carnal Flower Friday, perfect!

The only one of those i dont have is Une Rose, i'll replace it with MR. Tuesday and Friday are gonna be good days!

I also tried Musc Ravageur for the first time yesterday. Gave it a full wearing. It's a very nice fragrance on paper, but it's just way too sweet and cloying on my skin. The sweetness in the base is so over the top that I almost feel grains of sugar shooting up my nose and gritting between my teeth. Just can't do it.

I made the mistake of blind buying Musc Ravageur recently.
It comes across as a really high quality fragrance and I really want to like it but it's just too 'challenging' for me.

Musc Ravageur is great stuff! Unique and original. Vetiver Extra ordinairie has that burnt plastic note that I don`t like. You can buy Guerlain Vetiver instead for less money. French Lover didn`t wowed me at all, and Geranium Pour Monsieur reminded me of TOY chewing-gum.. Out of those I tried, M-R is absolutely the one I liked best!

When I was in San Francisco last weekend for the Basenotes meet-up I purchased a bottle of Le Parfum de Therese after testing it on my skin for more than an hour. I really love it, and the sillage and longevity are amazing. It was only afterward that I read that it is somewhat related to Dior's Diorella, which is one of my favorite scents. Luca Turin referred to Diorella as "one of the best masculines money can buy" although it is marketed to women. In my opinion Le Parfum de Therese seems richer than Diorella. I asked several of my fellow Basenoters what they thought of it on my skin, and they said it smelled very good on me, so I bought it. A couple of the men who reviewed it here on BN stated that they thought it can work as a unisex scent.

So gandhajala, how has your Malle week been? l'll be putting on some Carnal Flower before going to work later, looking forward to smelling fabulous all evening!

Hi Teardrop,
I'm so happy you remembered our mini synchronised Friday- Hurrah! For today at least, we can be fabulous smelling scent-twins
My Malle Week got off to a less than auspicious start: I ended up scrubbing Une Rose after 5 or so hours - the funky note became just too funky for me to endure. Life's too short to be wearing a perfume you come to hate.
It was all uphill after Monday though. I did get a little out of synch with the schedule I posted, but the undoubted highlight for me came on Wednesday with French Lover. Ooh la la, this stuff is magical. Green, dry, a little spicy, mossy. An olfactory epiphany for me. I couldn't stop myself taking furtive sniffs of my collar all day. I can already hear the deadly, siren calls of a full bottle...
Today's Carnal Flower runs a close second - the most delicious tuberose I've encountered yet. It's been sunny and quite warm here in London, and in these conditions, I think this beauty just bloomed. Honourable mention goes to Vétiver Extraordinaire - nice, but I have other Vetiver centred perfumes in my wardrobe I prefer (Chanel's Sycomore and Guerlian's Vetiver notably). Sadly, Bigarade Concentrée failed to ignite any real passion in me. Kinda 'meh'.
It's been great fun to have a themed week. I think I'll try it again sometime...

Bois d'Orage is the only one I've seriously sampled so far, but I got a ton of cedar on the first try as well. Actually, that's about all I got; I kind of thought I was in a hamster cage. Upon further applications, however, a very nice vetiver starts to come through, and mingles with the cedar and a bit of patchoulli very pleasantly. I think I'm starting to like it...

I too tried the Malle week, but sadly it turned into 3 wednesday, thursday and today of French Lover, gandhajala I completely agree with you about this one, is superb, at first it was a toss up to whether or not its my favourite from the line, now i think its one of my favourites ever! I love the fact its not too strong and overwhelming for what it is, you would think a green, dry mossy scent would we super powerful, but French Lover has a sexy, masculine vibe I cant get enough of, a true masterpiece in my eyes, once my 50ml is done (and im estimating by about Jan next year!) its on to the 100ml bottle for me!!

Agreed Jlouismi, French Lover is definately one of my favs from Malle too. For me, it still lags just a little way behind Noir Epices, but has edged out Musc Ravageur into 2nd spot.

I'm not a big fan of Frederic Malle (will never buy a bottle for this price) but there is some that i like:
Noir épices: smells little coca cola for me, nice with coldness
Lys méditerranée: a realistic lys
Parfum de Thérèse: the ancestor of femme, initially proposed for Rochas, ahead of his time..

Absolutely NOT

VE and MR are my top two Malle fragrances.

Yeah the Malle's are like that, if your not a floral guy (like me) at least half of them you wont like, i agree with you MR and VE are good, they have 2 or 3 outstanding fragrances, but the house as a whole........eh. The marketing and presentation pulled me in really.

Thanks, l needed an excuse to wear this again, glad jlouismi remembered as well, fragrance triplets for the day! l'm so glad you love Carnal Flower, it's been a lovely warm day here too & it bloomed for me also. l had almost forgotten what a stunning beauty this is, l've felt like a beautiful fresh flower all afternoon, & 9 hours after application l can still smell it on me. One of the longest lasting scents l've ever tried. lt's been on my wishlist for so long, it really is about time l purchased that full bottle! Let us know when you have another themed week, l think it's a great idea!

My favorites are:

Musc Ravageur - very sexy. yummy
Noir Epices - very unique and interesting to smell. you won't get bored smelling this
French Lover - very refined manly scent.
Dan Tes Bras - heliotope. same vibe as the Apres L'ondee by Guerlain.

i haven't smelled the vetiver. I have smelled the geranium pour monsieur, it is very minty. I'm not sure if I really want to smell like that. Kind of like toothpaste! hahahahaha