Nombril Immense (2006)
by Etat Libre d'Orange

A soft, quite harmless, safe and unsurprising patchouli- musk fragrance. Nothing to get excited about: the patchouli is polished, clean, devoid of its more animalic and earthy facets, the musk, though very prominent since the opening, is not too offensive to my nose- i.e. not too synthetic, nor too unpleasantly waxy smelling. Instead, it gives a "furry" quality to the whole fragrance, that in the end tends to smell a bit stale and weary. Projection and longevity are both quite poor- at least when dabbed from a sample.

Here patchouli trades in her furry velvets for chiffon and sandalwood rises from its usual metallic compactness to a mousse-like frivolité. Turning dense notes airy and light is Nombril Immense’s little trick, and it strikes one as pretty clever for about two minutes. Ultimately there’s nothing distinctive here. The base is baby powder bedding down for the night with a lavendery cologne.

Too sweet, too much patchouli.
It starts with a fairly sweet and spicy note. Even at this early stage I can detect gooey amber. Very quickly the patchouli appears. I'll grant that it is complex: there are nutty, minty, earthy and funky notes. Yes, the scent gets quite funky and smells like an old unwashed belly-button.

A very sweet opening that persists for about an hour with a mix of black pepper. The patchouli slowly takes over and dominates throughout the rest of the notes with some opoponax peaking through. I set this one aside for awhile to test as the thought of a nasty naval repelled me, but overall it is not bad and not vile ala some of their other offerings. Nothing truly unique here though.

A nice clean parchouli, a bit on the sweet side as so many ELdOs. It persists until the next morning when applied in the evening. What remains is some kind of camphorous freshness which, in contrast to the former tad of sweetness is a welcome hello to a stranger. I would not try to analyse the scent further, it is soft, smooth calming down the senses but still aromatic enough to remain in a gently blurred focus of interest.

I personally like this alternative to spicey or leathery vanillas, including Dzing!, Bulgari Black a lot. What on their side always seemed to be a disturbance of the real thing, the vanilla, here in NI, comprsing an unearthy patchouli it is the natural balance between soft and angular. It connects perfectly to the smell of Your own skin. Again a fragrance from ELdO is true to it's name.