Fragrance Reviews by Vibert

Jubilation 25 lands on the skin in a cloud of fruity rose, myrrh, and frankincense that harkens back to earlier Amouage fragrances like Gold and Dia. The animalic edge that characterizes Amouage Gold is present as well, but the aldehydes that dominate the earlier scent are not so conspicuous. Jubilation 25 is a brighter, clearer fragrance than many of the earlier Amouage feminine offerings, but that’s not implying that its insubstantial. It’s just not the same sort of 400 lb. anvil as Gold.

I do wish that Jubilation 25’s incense accord and animalic tang persisted longer, since once they fade I’m left with a less luxurious and more conventional floral oriental base with a dollop of sweet amber. The basenotes are persistent and the sillage and projection are comfortable – neither intrusive nor too weak, but I don't feel that Jubilation 25's development measures up to the promising first half hour. I find this scent a particularly disappointing measured against it's more exotic and distinctive masculine companion scent, Jubilation XXV, to which this women’s scent bears no resemblance beyond its name. Get Dia Woman instead.

Juniper berries, bay leaf, and booze: that’s bay rhum, and that’s Czech and Speake’s Cuba. Some tobacco, leather, and a touch of smoke round out the structure until a somewhat abrasive woody drydown sets in. I like Cuba’s starting point better than its destination, so when I’m in the mood for booze and tobacco I’ll still turn to the richer, more complex, though sadly discontinued Havana.

Imagine the kind of dry, austere, smoky incense-and-cardamom accord that Bertrand Duchaufour presents in Dzongkha laid over a rich, bittersweet vanilla gourmand base, and you might come up with something like Baume du Doge. The juxtaposition of sweet and dry, stony and edible is novel to the point of shocking, though in an gratifying manner.

Within a few minutes of application, a minty/camphorous note wells up from the gourmand base, and somehow manages to stitch the two opposing olfactory blocks together. (Since there is nothing even remotely minty listed in Baume du Doge’s pyramid, I attribute my impression to an odd synergy between the herbal fennel and the crisp quality of clove.) At this point in the development I’m reminded of Lorenzo Villoresi’s Piper Nigrum, which also uses mint in a sweet oriental context, but Baume du Doge displays a smoother and more fully integrated structure. Where the opening of Piper Nigrum can come off as jangling or cacophonous, this new scent is suave and articulate. Baume du Doge also dries down crisp, woody, and slightly sweet, which is a far cry from Piper Nigrum’s powdery vanillic-amber exit. It is tenacious, with moderate sillage and projection, and it strikes me as relatively gender neutral – leaning perhaps slightly toward the masculine.

To the best of my knowledge, a gourmand woody oriental represents new territory for Duchaufour, and I believe he navigates it quite adroitly. I may be in a minority of one in finding Duchaufour’s recent excursion into peppery aquatic florals in the guise of Magnolia Romana more interesting than Baume du Doge, but I can heartily recommend this new scent to anyone who enjoys a spicy oriental.

Apparently there aren't too many things a perfumer can do with the fig accord. You get either a milky, leafy, sap-filled approach, as in Diptyque's Philosykos, or a more fuity, tart version, as in Parfumerie Generale's Jardin de Kerylos. Heeley's Eau de Figuier falls into the latter bucket. Prominent citrus and floral accents make Jardin de Kerylos more interesting to my nose, but if you're looking for a straightforward, crisp, fruity fig scent, Eau de Figuier might be just the thing for you.

The coconut and tuberouse accord has been done much better in Dominique Ropion's sublime and ethereal Carnal Flower for Frederic Malle. This sweet, clumsily executed version smells like a floral flavored suntan lotion. What's the point?

Congratulations to Maurice Roucel! His Dans Tes Bras for Frederic Malle wins my award for Weirdest Top Note in Recent Memory: mushrooms. Not earthy forest-floor-and-compost mushrooms, either. Nope. These are cultivated mushrooms – the ones that come pre-sliced in the produce section of your local supermarket. Heck, I can even smell the little cardboard cartons that they come packed in. The much commented upon and peculiar “hairspray” top notes of Roucel’s Insolence have nothing on this oddball opening gambit.

The mushrooms dominate for roughly half an hour before a slightly sweet, aldehydic (or is that salicylate-seasoned) violet accord partially displaces them. The dank, musty echo of the mushrooms offers an unconventional but effective counterweight to the violets, and keeps Dans Tes Bras from becoming cloying or claustrophobic as some violet-rich scents can be. (Dans Tes Bras’s violet accord is also spiked with a cool, brisk, peppercorn/camphor accent that I’ve caught in Bertrand Duchaufour’s Magnolia Romana and perhaps Serge Lutens’s recent Serge Noire. Could this be the new niche fragrance note du jour?)

As it evolves, Dans Tes Bras becomes progressively more dry, warm, and woody. After two or three hours there’s very little sweetness remaining – just a shadow of floral notes over velvety-soft woods. The Frederic Malle marketing copy proclaims that Dans Tes Bras is meant to evoke “the odor of warm skin.” I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but I will assert that Dans Tes Bras functions as a “skin scent.” While not exactly weak, it is highly transparent and wears very close to the skin.

In temperament and style Dans Tes Bras is about as far removed as possible from Roucel’s first composition for Frederic Malle, the flamboyant and extroverted Musc Ravageur. Where Musc Ravageur is a brash and provocative exhibitionist of a scent, Dans Tes Bras is a guarded, demure, yet mysterious fragrance. Anyone expecting the exuberance of Roucel’s Insolence, Tocade, or Misssoni will be disappointed, but Dans Tes Bras’s understatement mustn’t be confused with blandness. It’s an odd, puzzling, and unique scent, with a decidedly “synthetic” flavor. Not synthetic as in “cheap smelling,” rather synthetic and proud of it. Once the mushroom accord recedes, there’s nothing remotely naturalistic about Dans Tes Bras, and even those photorealistic mushrooms possess an oddly surreal quality.

My lasting impression of Dans Tes Bras is of a subtle, sophisticated, abstract scent that travels far during its development without ever making too much noise. I must also say that why Frederic Malle is marketing it as a feminine fragrance is completely beyond me: Dans Tes Bras is as gender neutral a scent as I have smelled in years.

Coromandel is the patchouli entry in Chanel’s Exclusives line, and was apparently composed by the new house perfumer Christopher Sheldrake. Sheldrake’s fingerprints are all over this scent, and I agree on the oft-observed resemblance to his earlier Borneo 1834 for Serge Lutens. The two scents are very similar in their drydowns, sharing as they do a fuzzy, if slightly generic, synthetic woody amber base accord. In neither case is this accord as crass or heavy as in say, Lolita Lempicka au Masculin or Guerlain Homme, but I would have liked something more original by way of basenotes, especially the second time around.

Before it dries down Coromandel is a sweeter, spicier, and hence more approachable scent than Borneo 1843, the dusty patchouli-cocoa accord being softened by a creamy iris note. Between the extra sweetness, the texture of the iris, and the gentle spices, Coromandel borders closely on the gourmand, though it never quite ventures as far as “edible.” I attribute the inedible quality to a sharp, tangy edge on the patchouli. This piquancy very noticeable up top, but persists well into the heart of the scent. If it lingered even longer it would make a wonderful counterweight to the somewhat flat woody amber in the drydown. Coromandel’s sillage and projection are contained as patchouli rich fragrances go, but it’s by no means a weak or stingy scent. While I’m not in love with it’s drydown, I imagine many others will be happier with it, and since the rest of the fragrance is rich and beautifully composed I have to rate Coromandel an overall success.

Ténéré was one of those odd birds: a green floral scent marketed to men. Like the Carolina parakeet and the passenger pigeon, Ténéré is long extinct. For a sense of just how fragile such a species is, consider that even in the more forgiving niche fragrance environment Ténéré’s close cousin Virgilio was discontinued. Under the commercial pressure of the mass market, Ténéré never had a chance.

In character, Ténéré stands somewhere between Virgilio and the reissued Givenchy Insensé. It’s darker, sweeter, and more overtly floral than the former, but more green and astringent than the latter. Ténéré starts out with an original and intoxicating accord of galbanum and bergamot before it settles into its bittersweet heart. Dry floral note, crisp herbs, and dusty aromatics are set against a honeyed background in a manner that’s at once ideally balanced and fraught with tension. The animalic honey and indolic jasmine components in the central accord add much appreciated warmth to what could otherwise have been an overly cold and aloof scent. Some may find these notes disturbingly “urinous” in combination, but to me they read as animal comfort.

The drydown, when it arrives, is sweet, spicy, and balsamic in a surprisingly oriental vein. This transformation is itself enough to make Ténéré interesting, but that it occurs within a scent of rare and idiosyncratic character makes Ténéré’s demise all the more regrettable.

Inspired and imaginative titles notwithstanding, Ungaro I, Ungaro II, and Ungaro III are all scents of exceptional character. That I and II disappeared in rapid sequence doesn’t surprise me. Their baroque construction was utterly at odds with the minimalist fragrance fashion of the 1990s, and they were probably too bold and idiosyncratic for the designer market anyway. They might have worked as part of a daring niche line like Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier or Parfumerie Generale. That the more conventional Ungaro III was the one that finally stuck makes perfect sense. It’s still not mainstream by any measure, but at least it’s a structure that the non-aficionado can recognize.

Ungaro I is the darkest of the three brothers, and while it’s not so lascivious an animal as Ungaro II, its profound depths can be threatening. At Ungaro I’s heart lies a vinous accord of rose and patchouli that I feel anticipates the pungently earthy structure of L’Artisan Parfumeur’s Voleur de Roses. With its aromatics and its honeyed base Ungaro I also has the boozy, raisiny flavor and translucent sepia tone of a fine St. Emilio sherry. If you’ve ever tasted Lustau’s Pedro Ximénez or East India bottlings, you’ll have a rough idea of how Ungaro I smells. Indeed, I wouldn’t blink if told that Jacques Polge modeled this scent on the bouquet of a grand old sherry. While there’s no tobacco listed in Ungaro I’s pyramid, I do get the impression that cigars are being offered with its sherry. Must be the patchouli at work.

Though perhaps only related in its use of rose, geranium and patchouli in a woody oriental context, Ungaro I has some of the seriousness, grand stature of Patou pour Homme. It’s not quite as monumental and a good deal more tangy, but it does share in that same ineffable dignity.

Ungaro I’s drydown kicks in at about T=2 hours, and it does so very abruptly. Blink (in olfactory terms) and you’ll miss the transition. One second you’ve got rose and patchouli glowing through dark brown tinted glass, then presto-change-o, you’ve got a soft, powdery, woody amber drydown. This drydown is less impressive than the rest of the experience, but it is well balanced to a degree that’s rare for its type.

31 Rue Cambon is a nutty-sweet chypre scent, lighter softer than Mitsouko and more warm and rounded than Givenchy III. It is distinct in being very rich in powdery iris. (A Chanel Exclusives trademark.) So much so that it tempts me to coin a new fragrance subgenre: the iris chypre. A peach note that emerges some time after application keeps this scent closely aligned with both Mitsouko and Givenchy III, but 31 Rue Cambon’s peach is more subdued than Mitsouko’s, and sweeter and more conspicuous than Givenchy III’s. The scent rounds out and slowly sweetens as it develops, so that within a couple of hours it has become extraordinarily plush and peculiarly enveloping.

The iris fades off for the drydown, which arrives after three or four hours. What remains is a fruity lactonic chypre base that reads very much like a padded, fur wrapped version of Mitsouko, altogether less mysterious, but also more comfortable. I’ll invoke Mitsouko and Givenchy III one last time, to affirm that like those other two great chypres, I can wear 31 Rue Cambon with complete confidence as a man.

If I didn’t already know Dzongkha and Avignon, or what Olivier Durbano did with incense in Black Tourmaline, I might be more excited about Rock Crystal. A few years ago, when incense was uncommon in personal fragrances, Rock Crystal might have made more of an impression, but in a niche market flooded with outstanding incense fragrances, it comes off as a bit commonplace.

Rock Crystal has an especially tart, brisk lemon top note, followed by an austere, dry accord of incense and vetiver. The name is apt, because the fragrance is extraordinarily transparent, hard-edged, and at the same time, substantial. The foundation is a clean leather that is also devoid of any sweetness, and which contributes to the mineralic texture.

Rock Crystal bears a stylistic resemblance to some of Bertrand Duchaufour’s incense and leather scents, including Timbuktu and Dzongkha, but it lacks the exoticism that makes Duchaoufour’s work so unique and challenging. I can’t help but think of it as say, Dzongkha in miniature. There’s just a bit less of everything: less frankincense, less smoke, even less of the two scents’ shared “stony” character. On my skin Rock Crystal also lacks the projection and tenacity that distinguish scents like Avignon and Timbuktu. I suppose if you’re attracted to the idea of a dry, austere incense scent, but are feeling too timid for those in the L’Artisan Parfumeur and Comme des Garcons lines, Rock Crystal may be just the thing. To my way of thinking, though, it’s just a little bit too ordinary.

Whether you enjoy Sables will depend entirely upon how much you like immortelle. This is because 1) immortelle is a Godzilla note that tends to trample any accord it’s used with, and 2) Sables screams like Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. (In case you haven’t experienced it, immortelle smells like gallons of maple syrup and a side of bacon.)

Try before you buy.

Iris? Not so much. Noble? Absolutely.

Sure, I suppose there’s some iris in here, but this is more of a sweet, spicy rose and fruit composition, and anyone expecting something like Hiris, Iris Silver Mist, or Iris Bleu Gris is going to be disappointed. On the other hand, if you disregard the label you’ll discover a beautiful, rich, indolic floral over a dense chypre base. I find it very hard to resist. Granted, part of my delight in this scent may lie in the utter surprise of its content, but I believe myself enough of a cynic that this couldn’t be entirely the case.

Iris does become more prominent as Iris Nobile develops, but never takes center stage. Instead it provides a smooth, plush undercarriage for the spice, fruit, and floral notes. When these subside, they expose a powdery chypre foundation that smells like an extension of the skin itself. Iris Nobile is a tenacious scent that lasts for several hours, and it offers plenty of sillage and projection, so it will not go unnoticed. All in all, an unexpected pleasure.

Maybe there’s a reason for all the short reviews preceding this one. Heck, I’m rarely at a loss for words about a fragrance (i.e., I often ramble), but I can’t find much to say about this one. Straightforward tea on a thin leather base, and not much else. Next…

Sorry, but I’m not impressed. Among the last few Serge Lutens offerings have been a few that read like safe, muted variations on the house’s more adventurous scents. There’s Sarrasins, a cautiously watered down approach to the indolic white flowers and camphor theme from Tubereuse Criminelle; there’s Louve, which is the super-sweet Turkish delight concept of Rahat Loukoum on training wheels; and now there’s El Attarine, which smells like a dilution of the idea behind Arabie: fruitcake.

El Attarine is all about potent sweet roses, spices, and dried fruit, in what I consider the typical Serge Lutens manner. It’s both more fruity and more floral than Arabie, but it’s not quite as thick and heavy. It may be more approachable, but it’s also less distinctive. My advice: if you like this sort of thing buy Arabie instead. It’s bigger and gutsier, and you won’t have to fly to Paris to get it.

I like Five O’Clock au Gingembre’s bracing lemon and ginger top notes, and I wish they would persist longer than they do. While the ginger doesn’t disappear entirely, it quickly melts into the background of a more-or-less standard issue Lutens mulled spice blend that’s not too far removed from the one at the heart of Rousse. Five O’Clock au Gingembre is supposed to evoke and afternoon tea, and with its black tea accord attendant spices, the scent actually does a credible job of mimicking a warm cup of chai.

For a Serge Lutens scent, Five O’Clock au Gingembre wears very lightly on me. In fact, after an hour or two it’s so transparent that it actually begins smelling a bit hollow. The signature Lutens dried fruit and syrup appears only late in Five O’Clock au Gingembre’s drydown, and even then it’s relatively subdued. While it's hardly a groundbreaking fragrance, Five O'Clock au Gingembre is an easygoing, affable fragrance by the standards of this house, and I think it might make a nice introduction to the Lutens line for those who normally shy away from rich oriental scents.

Well, they got the “noire” right, at any rate. Even within the first few minutes of wear, Serge Noire establishes itself as a dark, dark scent, with a dense blend of spices, incense, and aromatics that even suggests some of the big, burly masculines of the 1970s. The composition resolves into a bold, rasping accord of peppery spices and incense that’s held together by a huge dusty cedar note. The impression is one of simultaneous heat and darkness.

Notably absent is any of the familiar Sheldrake-Lutens dried fruit and syrup accord, so Serge Noire is dry as well as hot. With all the spices and cedar, Serge Noire gets me thinking about Shiseido’s Basala, which I believe Sheldrake may also have worked on. The two scents are cousins, if not siblings, though I remember Basala as a somewhat richer and more rounded scent.

All of these impressions come within the first hour of wearing Serge Noire. Soon after that, the entire structure collapses like a house of cards, so that only the dry, dusty cedar remains. The development, if you can call it that, is one of the most bizarre I’ve ever encountered. The fragrance shrinks away so fast I can actually smell it imploding. It’s not clear to me whether Serge Noire’s transformation is an inherent property of the fragrance, or due to my own olfactory habituation. All I can say is that over the course of five or ten minutes all of the spices and incense that comprised Serge Noire’s heart are crammed into a cedar box and the lid slammed shut on top of them. Utterly baffling.

IO Capri’s juicy green fig, lemon, and mint top notes took me by surprise. They’re unusually bright and vivid, and the breezy, tart accord they build practically shouts “Mediterranean!” For some reason, the prominent fig note dispels all toothpaste associations for me, and what I perceive is more broadly herbal in nature. In any case, the mint blends and then subsides within the first few minutes of wear.

As the scent matures on my skin it becomes more emphatically leafy in character, but the lemon briskness persists for some time alongside the greens. Once it fades, IO Capri reads as a more conventional fig scent. While its fig accord seems very natural, it’s less milky than the sap-drenched Philosykos, and lacks the fruity-floral buoyancy of Parfumerie Generale’s delightful Jardin de Kerylos. This leaves it smelling a touch less characterful in its later stages. By the time it’s faded I find myself wishing IO Capri had maintained some of the quirky individuality of its first fifteen or twenty minutes. In short, a nice fig with a fun opening, but far from my favorite.

I wasn’t sure what to make of Heure Exquise at first. It has quite a bit of the characteristic Goutal aldehydic floral bitterness in its top notes, but the resulting nose-tingling effect is tempered by a honeyed rose that quickly appears underneath it. Heure Exquise soon enters a sweet, dark rose-dominated phase that persists for a few hours. With time the honey accord grows bolder and takes on some of the animalic, urinous character it sometimes manifests at higher concentrations, but here, unlike say, Serge Lutens’s Miel de Bois, an agreeable balance is maintained. Previous reviewers have mentioned iris in Heure Exquise, and it does figure in the blend, but I perceive Heure Exquise as primarily a rose scent.

As a dark rose Heure Exquise bears some comparison with Czech & Speake’s No. 88, but the Goutal is a sweeter, softer, and more transparent composition, without No. 88’s aggressive spices and bitter-edged woods. It nevertheless remains a palpably nocturnal scent, calling up images of warm, languorous, humid nights for me. I should note that Heure Exquise projects for miles, with persistent sillage, so don’t wear a lot if you plan on being inconspicuous.

Bel Ami is a big, spicy leather scent with a heaping dose of dark woods in its base. It’s neither so lithe nor so risqué as its lascivious oldest brother Eau d’Hermes, and it doesn’t share middle brother Equipage’s taste for tobacco. This leaves it the most staid – stolid, even – of the Hermes leather brethren. It’s a guy you can depend on, even he’s not the most charismatic one in the room. When I'm looking for a leather scent in this general style, I'm more apt to reach for the more challenging Knize Ten or Parfum d'Habit, but Bel Ami works just fine if you're after something more congenial.

Eau de Reglisse introduces itself with a bright, cheerful accord of juicy lemon and licorice, but the licorice doesn’t last, and what I’m left with is a sweet eau de Cologne formula over a conventional woody base. Ho hum.

Gucci pour Homme opens with a pleasantly nose-tingling burst of ginger, but this doesn’t persist for more than ten or fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, what it leaves in its wake is a relatively pedestrian fresh, woody oriental composition that reminds me of an impoverished Heritage – or perhaps Armani Code. As an incense based oriental Gucci pour Homme is a Toyota Camry: it’ll get you where you’re going without a glitch, but driving the M5 of Avignon or L’Homme Sage (never mind Jubilation XXV’s Maserati,) is a lot more fun. Gucci pour Homme dries down to a bland, fuzzy vanilla, woods, and amber base that’s OK if you like that sort of thing, but it won’t get my award for originality. This one’s disappearing in my rear view.

Must de Cartier’s rich, spicy opening is made intriguing by the very smallest hint of animal musk, but what follows doesn’t fulfill this introduction’s promise. Instead, Must de Cartier develops into a polite, fruity oriental scent on a base of soft woods. It’s pleasant, it’s comfortable, and it’s utterly conventional. I give it credit for avoiding the gourmand bombast of Pi or Le Male, but there are just too many finer spicy-woody orientals out there (Jaipur Homme, Heritage, Noir Epices…the list goes on), to make Must de Cartier competitive.

Roadster strikes me as a commonplace “fresh” woody/fougere composition, not all that far removed in structure from the whole Cool Water crowd. It reminds me a bit of Fahrenheit 32, in that it uses a minty note to replace some of the usual calone and violet leaf, but then it also reminds me of at least twenty other fragrances.

For what it’s worth, I prefer Roadster to the Dior because it doesn’t contain much (if any) of the cloying base material that fouls Fahrenheit 32. Besides the mint, Roadster distinguishes itself to some degree by using drier woods than many of its ilk. That’s not enough make it revolutionary, or to excite me, but it’s still a plus.

Olene is a big, heady, indolic jasmine, and whether or not it contains the night-scented species, it creates a profoundly nocturnal ambience. It’s a touch clearer, cooler, and drier that Serge Lutens’s A la Nuit, but it is a similarly weighty fragrance. As it ages on the skin Olene's indoles grow even more potent and prominent, without the honey and spice that season the jasmine in A la Nuit’s floral oriental context. In this regard Olene comes close to being a true soliflore, one of relatively few in modern perfumery.

As so many other Diptyque compositions, Olene is a relatively linear scent, sustaining its bold jasmine accord for hours before drying down to a musky, woody base. Olene is a potent fragrance: it projects well and leaves an ample cloud of sillage behind it. If you’re looking for a straightforward jasmine scent, I recommend you give Olene a try.

Feuilles de Tabac’s top notes of sharp citrus and anise segue rapidly to a realistically rendered moist pipe tobacco and dark liqueur accord that’s backed up by sweetened woods. It’s a simple and appealing accord, though unfortunately short-lived. Within a half an hour it gives way to a very conventional powdery wood and sweet amber drydown. The last episode is an anticlimax, and I really wish that the tobacco would persist for a few hours. If it did, I’d consider this a great scent, but as it is I find it disappointing.

A superb vetiver. Period.

In my experience, vetiver scents tend to fall into two broad categories: the crisp, suave variety, as in Guerlain Vetiver, and the pungent, uncompromising sort, as epitomized Route de Vetiver. Encre Noir to some extent straddles the two groups. It is a bold, hard-hitting vetiver, but not in the earthy manner of Route du Vetiver or the sharp, dry style of Malle’s Vetiver Extraordinaire. Potent, dark, and yet transparent, Encre Noir is aptly named. It smells “moist” and rooty, but not dirty. Its vetiver is nutty, smoky, and pleasantly bitter, and it is balanced by the merest touch of sweet licorice or anise. In character it is perhaps closest to Givenchy’s reissued Vetyver, but Encre Noir is a bigger fragrance and distinctly less "polite."

Once it establishes its central vetiver accord, Encre Noir holds to a linear course, and with a heart that’s so well crafted I don’t object. While it is by no means a weak scent, Encre Noir does wear fairly close to the skin, and its sillage is not going to fill a room. The vetiver becomes woodier in the drydown, and is eventually joined by some warm musk and maybe a touch of labdanum before it drifts off altogether. On acquaintance I find Encre Noir to be a distinctive and successful take on vetiver that’s easily qualified to stand next to my favorites, which include Route du Vetiver, Givenchy Vetyver, and The Different Company’s Sel de Vetiver. If you’re fond of vetiver based fragrances, I think you owe it to yourself to give Encre Noir a try.

This is basically a very sweet gourmand woody oriental scent with a generous dollop of anise or licorice on top and a good deal of sweet powder underneath. Wearing Lolita Lempicka, I’m immediately reminded of Yohji Homme, perhaps because of the licorice note, or perhaps because the two scents are built on a similar sweet, powdery, woody base. Unfortunately, it’s a base that’s both overused and extremely cloying to my nose.

At first it seems as if the cool, bittersweet licorice accord might actually manage to balance to crude base, but instead it loses ground steadily, until after an hour, when it’s completely overcome. The base is as loud as it is banal, and projects for yards around me when I wear it. I can report that it’s also murder to scrub off, and I still smell it after raking my skin raw with a stiff brush and hot water. Too bad – without that nasty foundation it could a’ been a contender…

Missoni opens with a buxom honeyed fruit note that’s rescued from triviality by a judicious helping of …bittersweet chocolate. It’s as if perfumer Maurice Roucel decided to show off his brilliance by taking up the fruity floral cliché that now dominates the realm of mass market women’s fragrances, and through virtuosic sleight-of-hand transform it into something original and beautiful. This grand initial flourish left me curious as to what might follow, and if Roucel could possibly sustain the act. As it happens, the next episode is a cool, bright, yet paradoxically indolic/animalic floral accord that’s at the same time both heady and refreshing. Meanwhile, the fruit takes on an exotic, tropical character as it recedes a few steps to further expose the floral blend. The honey and dark chocolate march on steadily beneath it all.

With its tropical fruit and blossoms, Missoni brings to mind Estee Lauder’s Beyond Paradise, but Missoni is a richer, weightier scent. Where Beyond Paradise has hints of green aquatics in its background, Missoni rests on what smells like a trimmed down oriental amber base, and where Beyond Paradise is cool, abstracted, and ethereal, Missoni seems comparatively warm, grounded, and organic. Fruity floral oriental is how I’d sum up Missoni, and I enjoy it for the fact that it avoids on one hand the ponderous, opaque gourmand style, and on the other the crude, excessively cheerful banality of thy modern fruity floral. Nice.

Fahrenheit 32 starts out as a shot of good old goofy fun: vanilla mint with coconut cream. Ten minutes later it’s deflated into a plain artificial vanilla that's too thin to disguise what seems to have become the standard issue fougere base of loud, cloying powdery synthetic woods and amber.

Whoever makes this base must be buried in cash right now, because it’s a major challenge to find a modern mass market masculine that doesn’t use it by the gallon. I’d love to know what it is, on the superstitious principle that being able to name an evil will empower me against it. Meanwhile, this nameless horror turns Fahrenheit 32 into utter crap on me.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Some weeks ago I attended a long religious service, during which my nostrils were assaulted by a thick, cloying, powdery-sweet woody scent of excruciating potency. I was eventually able to trace the source to my wife’s cousin Howie, seated on a bench three rows ahead of us. I spent the remaining two hours of the service alternately wondering what the loathsome fragrance could be, and silently cursing cousin Howie for dumping half a bottle of it over his head.

I take it all back, Howie.

The scent, I now realize, was Guerlain Homme, of which I’ve found mere drops suffice to fill a room with a screaming miasma of crude, banal, overly sweetened base materials. It’s the same base that appears in countless cheap mass market fougeres and woody scents for men, but the magic of Guerlain manages to amplify it to nose hair curling volume.

I will concede that Guerlain Homme opens with a charming boozy citrus accord that does evoke the advertised mojito cocktail. Unfortunately, that accord lasts all of five minutes before it’s bulldozed by the powder bomb base, which plows on in linear fashion and shocking intensity for hours unless diligently scrubbed off. The scent works orders of magnitude better on paper than on my (or cousin Howie’s) skin, as the “mojito” accord persists much longer to balance out the base.

I do, as have others, detect a remote similarity to the discontinued Yohji Homme, which employed a similar sweet, powdery base, but did so with much greater finesse and subtlety. Guerlain Homme has some of the boozy anise flavor that marked Yohji Homme, but Guerlain sets it in more opaque surroundings and thereby robs it of grace.

Guerlain Homme shares with Secretions Magnifiques the remarkable distinction
of being at once boring and offensive, and I predict that men will buy it by the gallon. Please lord, just don’t let them sit near me.

This is a lightweight vetiver on me, with lots of citrus and a generous dollop of nutmeg. The citrus and “bright tobacco” note (whatever that is,) might conjure up Guerlain’s Vetiver, but the Lubin is spicier and a bit less clean and dry. There is some incense in Le Vetyver’s background, but not enough to distract from the vetiver itself. I rather like the overall effect, but unfortunately the whole experience is over with inside of an hour. Too bad.

I'm not smelling what everyone else does here. G-11 emerges as a coniferous forest, all pine needles, moss and rough green notes, with just a hint of dry leather in the background, and though it smells like neither, its forest accord and testosterone content align its opening with Caron’s Yatagan and Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier’s Parfum d’Habit. Then it goes somewhere else.

G-11 becomes drier, more aromatic, and less earthy as it matures, eventually veering towards an almost desiccated powdery cedar. And that’s pretty much where it stays. I don’t get much leather, and I don’t get any tobacco. Just pencil shavings. Maybe I’m anosmic to the rest of it, but I’m not enjoying what I can smell of G-11.

I'm afraid I can't get onto the Red Vetyver love train. This scent has gotten a lot of positive buzz on the Basenotes discussion boards, but after two full days' wearings I find it disappointingly thin, harsh, and hollow. It's as if there's some critical missing element between the sharp red pepper and the dry woody vetiver that leaves the structure barren, abrasive, and impoverished. Not one of my favorites from Montale, and not one of my favorite vetivers.

Debut starts off with a weird, strident cherry Lifesaver accord that I find highly off-putting. The artificial fruit flavor is soon joined by sharp, dry aromatics and nose-tweaking aldehydes, which at least serve to mask some of the opening’s excessive sweetness.

The aldehydes eventually dissipate and the screechy fruit esters recede a bit to reveal intensely soapy chypre-like foundation that’s softened by a cool white flower accord. The composition grows greener over time, and completely sheds its fruity cloak after the first hour of wear. Later on a mélange of buttery woods spreads itself over the blend to smooth out the angular and somewhat bitter base

Debut is tremendously loud throughout its duration, with extraordinary projection and plenty of sillage. Between its potency and its bold structure it works as an olfactory blunt instrument – say a mace. Don’t wear Debut when subtlety or understatement are required, and please don’t wear too much of it!

None of this is to say that Debut is a bad fragrance. On the contrary, I think it quite fine once I get past the abrasive top notes. In a market dominated by faceless fragrances, Debut is bold, distinctive, and full of personality. So much so that I’d have to reserve it for special occasions.

(As an aside, I think Debut would work well on either gender – at least theoretically. As a man I’d have to go to great lengths to apply it lightly enough for comfort.)

Guerlain’s classic Vetiver introduces itself with a very wet, round citrus accord. It takes some time before the citrus is underpinned by a relatively mellow vetiver note. Later in the course of its development Guerlain’s Vetiver reveals a touch of smoke and some crisp green notes that extend the life of the opening citrus accord.

The fragrance cruises along in vetiver-citrus mode for a long time, and I find its uncomplicated structure brisk and refreshing. Guierlain’s Vetiver is a classical fragrance in the true sense of the word. Like an ionic temple or a Mozart concerto, it exhibits perfect balance, with no extraneous elements to distract from its essential form. If you’re looking for the aggressively earthy, stark, potent vetiver of Route du Vetiver, Vetiver Extraordinaire, or Etro’s Vetiver, you won’t find it here. But if you want a comfortable, civilized approach to the vetiver root, this is it.

1000 is a somewhat sweet, fruity/floral chypre with tremendous strength and expansive sillage. Its structure makes comparison with Mitsouko inevitable, but 1000 is no sorry clone of the Guerlain classic. Where Mitsouko is dark and mysterious, earthy and smoky, 1000 is comparatively lush, juicy, and round. The forest floor that 1000 evokes is moist and decked with wildflowers, while Mitsouko’s dry understory is seasoned by a distant, extinguished campfire. There’s none of Mitsouko’s melancholy here – with its generous dose of indolic white flowers, 1000 is a much sweeter and more “comfortable” scent.

Louder and more effusive than Mitsouko, or its other close cousin, the reissued Givenchy III, 1000 is the one to wear when you want to announce your presence proudly and then fill the room. Its grand character makes 1000 more difficult for me to wear than the Guerlain or the Givenchy, but I can still recommend it as a top notch chypre.

Spicy woods, green notes, and a touch of sweet citrus dominate the opening of L'Instant pour Homme, with a warm, nutty heart accord developing in their wake. Spices - particularly nutmeg - and woods remain central to L'Instant's structure, and are bolstered by touches of powdery amber and vanilla. The olfactory texture is smooth and buttery throughout, which makes L'Instant feel oddly reassuring to wear.

L'Instant could easily have slipped into the overcrowded realm of crass vanilla gourmand scents for men, but there is absolutely nothing crude about this fragrance. The balance between woods, spices, and vanilla is so perfectly judged that L'Instant appears to float effortlessly outside of traditional genre boundaries.

My only reservation regarding L'Instant is that the drydown is too powdery for my taste. This is a matter of personal preference, though, and if you're comfortable with sweet powdery accords it probably won't put you off.

Rosy leather? Leathery rose? It depends on when in its development I sniff Rose d’Homme. The composition swings slowly back and forth between a sweet, woody rose and spicy, powdery leather, without ever moving decisively in any particular direction. The development is not so much linear as circular.

While it’s by no means a dull scent, Rose d’Homme takes fewer risks than many other rose scents that are aimed at men. It does not approach the stark barbarism of Black Aoud, the languid sensuality of Amouage’s Lyric, or the aristocratic decadence of Czech & Speake No. 88. Rose d’Homme’s aims seem more modest than these, so that it’s at once easier to wear and more versatile – an everyday scent rather than a bold olfactory statement.

Dior’s Jules belongs to a fragrance group that I like to think of as BFFFs: Big, Fat, F#cking Fougeres. These include scents like Kouros, Havana, Lauder for Men, and Pascal Morabito’s Or Black. They’re all titanic, spicy, animalic scents that somehow manage to be at once savage and sophisticated, and I love them!

To my mind, Jules occupies the middle ground among these giants. It does not flirt as dangerously with the reek of wild animals as Kouros does; it does not strive for Havana’s spicy exoticism; nor does it breathe the same dark, threatening smoke as Lauder for Men and Or Black. Jules is also a bit sweeter and brighter in its drydown than the rest of them.

For all these reasons, Jules doesn’t compel me quite as much as the others. On the other hand, I can see how this same relative “neutrality” could make Jules the most appealing of the lot for many wearers. In any case, its quality is unassailable, and if you share my taste for monster fougeres, you ought to give Jules a try!

Weird, wild, and wacky, this one. The opening burst of turpentine, camphor, and pimento left me wondering just what they were trying to get at when they concocted this stuff. Once the central rose accord secured its position, Rosa Flamenca began to make a certain type of goofball sense to me: it’s the fragrance equivalent of a dada installation.

The odors of damask, alba, and gallica roses (the ones most often used in perfumery,) all include a certain sharp, winey, yet “chemical” edge. Most perfumes try to round out this angularity with sweet white flowers, creamy woods, or vanilla. Rosa Flamenca sets it front and center, flanked by notes that you’d expect in a garage, not in a garden. I’m somehow reminded of Duchamp’s urinal mounted proudly on an art museum wall.

A mellow woods and musk base eventually reveals itself beneath Rosa Flamenca’s raucous surface, and it’s this eminently civilized foundation that ultimately renders the scent wearable. So while it flirts dangerously with being an olfactory joke, Rosa Flamenca winds up being a refreshingly original take on a commonplace note. Ole!

Comments on Insolence emphasize its aggressively fruity topnotes and its resemblance to L’Heure Bleue, and both observations are accurate so far as they go. Yet it would be wrong to characterize Insolence as a more synthetic L’Heure Bleue with berries on top. It actually succeeds on it’s own merits as a stylish, distinctive, and a meaningful modern extension of the Guerlain line for women. The overall structure of insolence leaves no doubt that the reference to L’Heure Bleue, Vol de Nuit and, to a lesser extent, Apres l’Ondee, is a deliberate gesture on the part of parfumeur Maurice Roucel. The anise and vanilla are present in abundance, yet their more aggressively spicy setting and their harder edges mark Insolence as a thoroughly modern composition.

I’ve read complaints that Insolence is overly sweet, but I do not find it so. To my nose the sweet fruit and vanilla are well balanced by the prickly spices and woods that overlay the scent’s heart accord. Insolence is unapologetically loud, with conspicuous sillage, so for me enjoying it requires a light hand in application. Used with appropriate temperance, Insolence is a very gratifying perfume.

Not a bad scent, but not one of my favorites from Hermes, nor from nose Maurice Roucel, who composed it. 24, Faubourg registers for me as a spicy floral-oriental with an intensely soapy “perfumey” character. The basic structure recalls some of the classic French scents of the early 20th century, (L'Heure Bleue, Narcisse Noir, etc.) but without displacing any of its great predecessors.

My favorite part of this scent is the drydown, which reveals rich spicy woods, vanilla, and the faintest animalic element deep in the background. 24, Faubourg is a potent scent with plenty of sillage and tenacity, so I advise sparing application. For a more interesting Roucel venture in this vein, try Guerlain's Insolence instead.

The pomegranate + anise concept appeals to me in the abstract, but not as it’s executed here. The top notes build a sour, synthetic fruity accord that doesn’t have the courtesy to fade away. I don’t get much anise out of this mix, which is too bad, since its sweet, cool scent would have done much to buffer the chemical assault. Not one of the Fresh brand’s most successful outings.

Scarlett is a woody, spicy, off-dry oriental with pronounced smoky overtones. When cooking I will occasionally toast whole spices such as cardamom, coriander, anise, and peppercorns together in a dry, hot skillet, and Scarlett recalls the warm scent that they release. A dark and slightly animalic musky-woody base rounds out the composition. I find this pleasant and wearable, and wile it’s certainly not exciting, it does avoid the sort of strident, chemical drydown that mars so many similar scents.

This is a remarkably accurate and literal rendition of fresh peaches. It’s surprisingly natural to my nose and makes a simple, cheerful, and refreshing scent for casual wear in warm weather.

This starts out harsh, herbal, and camphorous. Liniment? Bengay? No, Tiger Balm, dummy! The opening is medicinal enough to make me ask “Why in heaven’s name would anybody want to smell like this?” Once the top notes clear off the scent’s appeal is much more obvious, but the structure is also far more conventional. Within ten minutes Spirit of the Tiger has deepened and sweetened into a warm, spiced incense blend that even borders on the gourmand.

The drydown reveals a pleasantly rich spicy/ambery oriental foundation that is very nicely balanced, though not terribly original or exciting. It’s as if Spirit of the Tiger is trying to make up for its shocking entrance with an apologetically polite development. The result is an olfactory non-sequitur that’s probably too challenging at the outset for traditionalists and too tame in the end for thrill seekers.

By now I’ve tried all of the Chanel Exclusives range save Beige, and I have mixed feelings about them as a group. All are beautiful, all are superbly blended, and all smell of quality. Some, including Cuir de Russie, Bois des Iles, and 31 Rue Cambon, grip me as unique and brilliant. Others, including No. 18, 28 La Pausa, and No. 22, while just as lovely, strike me as somewhat interchangeable variations on a single theme – that theme being iris. Iris root is wonderful, but I don’t need that many iris scents.

I count Bel Respiro with Cuir de Russie, 31 Rue Cambon, and Bois des Iles as having a character distinct from the line’s pervading iris theme. It’s a crisp, yet extremely smooth, floral green scent of exquisite poise and delicacy. The balance between sharp, grassy galbanum and velvet soft floral notes achieved in Bel Respiro is nothing short of perfect to my nose. If you enjoy Vent Vert, Calandre, or Chanel’s own No. 19, try Bel Respiro. It’s transparent – even ethereal - compared to these, but also more sophisticated and complex, and I think it would make a great introduction to the green fragrance family.

Vol de Nuit is an odd experience for me, especially in light of other Guerlain classics like Mitsouko, Shalimar, and Apres l’Ondee. I love the sharp galbanum laden opening, and the transition to plush, semi-sweet iris and vanilla is a delightful surprise. The drydown of lingering vanilla with dark spices is a treat as well. What’s so funny, you ask? The whole thing zips by in less than half an hour on my skin. And that’s in pure parfum concentration! Am I anosmic to most of Vol de Nuit’s development, or is this time lapse perfumery? I don’t suppose I’ll ever know.

Ephemeral as it is, I give Vol de Nuit a thumbs up because, like a rainbow or a butterfly, it’s beautiful while it lasts.

Cuba Gold goes on with a very sweet lavender, citrus, and vanilla accord that’s at once powdery and very sweet. The lavender doesn’t last very long, leaving the sweet, powdery vanilla resting on a foundation of creamy woods. There’s a bit of oriental spice on top, perhaps nutmeg and cinnamon, but my overall impression is of a relatively bland vanilla gourmand oriental. I get little tobacco and nothing overtly animalic. The intensely sweet, powdery drydown quickly becomes cloying to my nose, limiting my enjoyment of what would otherwise have been a pleasant, if non-descript, little fragrance.

Harmatan Noir begins as a rich, very smoky tea scent, heavily spiced, and sweetened by berries and perhaps cassis. The smoky fruit and tea accord rests on a foundation of powdery cedar whose dry aspect offsets the sweet berries nicely. Like Olivia Giacobetti’s otherwise much different Idole de Lubin, Harmatan Noir manages to be at once mysteriously dark and transparent. If forced to guess, I’d attribute this effect in Harmatan Noir to a tart lemon note and a very carefully integrated dab of mint.

The spiced fruit outlasts the tea, which is unfortunate, since the fruity accord is more pedestrian than the fabulous sweet smoke of the first half hour. Harmatan Noir continues for another hour or two as a spicy, jammy fruit composition over a woody base, before trailing off into a woody-musky drydown. While it’s an attractive and distinctive scent, especially toward the start, the longevity is very, very disappointing. I’d like it much better if its opening accords persisted for another hour before the more conventional fruit pie phase set in, but as it is I find the olfactory experience a letdown.

Maxims pour Homme is one of those elusive, discontinued 1980s fragrances most often spoken of among connoisseurs in tones of awe and reverence. In other words, the kind of scent of which I’m instinctively suspicious. Maxims goes on in a cacophonous explosion that recalls the opening of the equally revered Havana: bergamot, aromatics, larger-than-life lavender, and clouds of tobacco smoke. It’s enough to make noses accustomed to Jean-Claude Ellena and Olivia Giacobetti scents recoil in horror.

Maxims takes its time getting sorted out, and remains harsh and disorganized long enough, I sure, to try some wearers’ patience. Once it settles down, Maxims reveals itself as a big, savory leather-tobacco scent with a distinctive smoky-salty accent. It’s still not worlds away from Havana in its overall structure, though its obviously more “savory,” more animalic, and more of an outright leather scent than the Aramis. Over the course of hours Maxims goes its own way, ending in a plush, smoky, animalic leather drydown of great dignity and distinction. I’m happy to report that my suspicions are allayed: Maxims pour Homme is a marvelous fragrance, and it’s a shame that it’s no longer made.

Moods opens like many a number of 1980s oriental masculines, with standard issue lavender and bergamot, plus a touch of spice. The spice endures as the top notes settle, and the heart coalesces into a smooth woody rose and sweet, anise-tinted oriental accord. The touchstone fragrance of this type is the regrettably deceased Patou pour Homme, which centered on a hugely complex and brilliantly blended heart of amber, rose, carnation, and spices. Moods pales by comparison, (as almost anything else might,) but it’s robust and pleasant without indulging in the bombast that makes so many of its contemporaries hard to wear in public.

Moods dries down to an amiable sweet vanillic/resinous accord that’s refreshingly natural in a genre marred by aggressively synthetic woody drydowns. I appreciate the way Moods avoids the gourmand clichés that have overtaken more recent woody oriental fragrances for men, and if the likes of A*Men and Le Male are just too much for you, this scent ought to appeal. That said, Moods is not an exciting scent, and it certainly breaks no new ground. I’d be more tempted to mourn its demise were its place not so easily taken by scents like Armani’s Code, Givenchy Pi, or the immensely superior Jaipur Homme EdT.

Bogart pour Homme starts with a sweet, soapy, and mildly spicy bergamot and lavender accord but quickly morphs into an equally sweet, very powdery, woody amber composition that’s only redeemed from utter banality by a quirky little bitter-astringent accent that puts some edge on the otherwise blunt accord. From there on in it’s a quick, linear trip to an unfortunately cloying powdery amber drydown that smells like a million other masculine scents on today’s market. In a field of sweet woody orientals that’s crowded with great scents, Bogart pour Homme needs to do more than this to distinguish itself. As it is, I can’t recommend it in the face of giants like Jaipur Homme, New York, or Heritage.

Francesco Smalto comes on as a truckload of soapy lavender, eventually underpinned by cedar, anise, and bergamot. The note pyramid claims leather in the base, but it must be deeply buried under the heap of moss, residual lavender, and coumarin that leaves Smalto smelling like a classic, padded shoulders 1980s fougere. The coumarin note expands over time, so that Francesco Smalto sweetens substantially as it ages. (Unlike the reviewer.) The drydown of moss, amber, and woods is notable for not smelling as cheap or aggressively chemical as that of many recent fougere scents.

While it smells convincingly “natural,” Francesco Smalto is a loud scent, and a bit crude as well. I can’t deny that it makes an impact, but I don’t think it smells terribly original in comparison to the many other rugged fougeres of its decade. I certainly won’t put myself through contortions to obtain it now that it’s discontinued. If you like this sort of fragrance, I think Azzaro pour Homme and Lauder for Men perform the same act with more flair and finesse, and both have the advantage of being in production and available for relatively little money.

Missoni Uomo makes its entrance as a fruity aromatic scent with a strong vanillic undertone, then adds wood notes and a bit of powder. The fruity top notes integrate within ten minutes or so, leaving a familiar-smelling woody fougere accord that speaks relatively quietly for the next hour. Michael Edwards calls Missoni Uomo a “dry woody” (leather) scent in his Fragrances of the World compendium, but I don’t get much leather here. I keep waiting for it to arrive, but all I smell through Missoni Uomo’s quick fizzle is a somewhat cloying powdery, woody amber. This anticlimactic, and frankly generic development makes this fragrance a disappointing experience for me.

Lauder for Men starts out a little bit like Kouros on a leash. The two begin travel on parallel trails, but Lauder’s path receives more sunlight. Where Kouros has orange, Lauder has lemon; where Kouros has incense, Lauder has crisp aromatics; and where Kouros has its titanic, beastly accord of civet and urinous honey, Lauder makes do with just the honey. In short, everything about Lauder for Men is a bit brighter and bit more sparkly.

After a half hour, Lauder’s trail takes off in a different direction, as a big, spicy tobacco accord presses into the foreground. By the time its central movement is established, Lauder has moved away from Kouros and pulled up next to…Havana! That’s right – it’s hard for me to smell Lauder’s spicy tobacco fougere heart without immediately thinking of that late, lamented offering from Estee Lauder’s own men’s division. Once again, Lauder for Men is the lighter, brighter scent, but I smell a strong family resemblance – one that only intensifies as Lauder for Men approaches its pungent mossy tobacco drydown. Aramis could probably have marketed Havana as “Lauder for Men Intense,” but the name they chose is honestly more compelling. Since Havana is to all intents and purposes extinct, those who remember it fondly would do well to give its older sibling a whirl.

If you think I’m insinuating that Lauder for Men is a Kouros/Havana wannabe, you’re mistaken. I believe that Lauder for Men stands as a great fougere fragrance on its own. Not least among its merits is its comparative wearability. The sheer immensity of Kouros and Havana limit the occasions for their wear. Not so Lauder for Men, which makes a comfortable everyday scent. What ultimately puzzles me about Lauder for Men is how such a fine fragrance can be so little known or discussed. Frankly, it’s a hidden treasure, and probably one of the most underrated and underappreciated scents I know of.

For just seconds after it's sprayed on Paul Smith for Men tantalizes with an iconoclastic hint of licorice embedded among its citrus top notes, but all hopes collapse as the scent turns instead to a predictable fruity-green violet leaf fougere structure that's not too far removed from Cool Water and its ilk.

Boooooring, and not worth another keystroke.

Aria di Capri has an arresting opening of lemon, licorice, and flowers. Its progress is consistent without being precisely linear, which is to say that the sparkling opening trifecta remains, but the balance between its components shifts. This motion is cyclical, so that one moment the citrus seems to dominate, while minutes later it is the anisic or floral notes that take precedence. Of the three it is the anise that bows out first, leaving a sweet/tart fruity floral accord to carry Aria di Capri forward.

In time the scent’s floral heart tips decisively toward indolic orange blossom, and Aria di Capri begins to sound a soft animal purr. Woody and mossy notes are revealed as the flowers fade, and eventually these come to dominate the soft, bright, and even tender, drydown. Aria di Capri lasts very nicely for a citrusy fragrance, and it offers solid projection and moderate sillage without overwhelming passersby. For me Aria di Capri does an outstanding job of evoking a bright Mediterranean summer, and I find it hard not to smile when I’m wearing it.

Theo Fennell’s Scent is an enormous rose centered oriental scent that barges into the building and takes no prisoners. Swoon-inducing indolic rose is evident from the very beginning, and only a well judged dose of saffron cuts its viscous languor. I’m reminded of Diptique’s recently deceased Opone, which also opened with rose and saffron, but where Opone was dry and somewhat austere, Scent is heady, sweet, and plush. In its spicy sweetness and its use of saffron Scent also relates tangentially to Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’s Cimabue, though it’s far more floral and less of a gourmand composition. The saffron/rose accord is bolstered by sweet spices and patchouli, with vanillic notes buried deep beneath all of the baroque ornament.

Scent cruises along in this sweet, heavy oriental lane for quite some time, projecting prodigiously and leaving plenty of sillage as it goes. Because the rose rises and falls in slow, gentle waves, Scent also sustains an unusual recursive motion as it develops. In time the swaying accords reveal a soft powder, whose appearance leads the composition in a slightly drier and woodier direction. There’s a healthy dose of warm, slightly animalic musk in the base, but this only becomes perceptible once the spiced floral accord sheds some of its opacity.

While not exactly svelte or subtle, Scent manages to avoid the kind of bombast that hobbles so many similar big sweet orientals. Even so, this strikes me as a perfume for divas, a fragrance just as big and flamboyant in its way as the very different Opium, Angel, and Fracas.

Eau d’Italie’s eponymous scent begins life outside the bottle with an extremely odd accord of incense and dewy green notes that could stand as the perfect example an olfactory oxymoron. The balance that parfumeur Bertrand Duchaufour offers between wet and dry, warm and cool, is one of the more compellingly weird effects I can remember since I first smelled Serge Lutens’s Borneo 1834. The tension doesn’t hold for long, though. After a few minutes the green notes and incense meld at their edges, and the surprise result is a much milder, brighter, and more wearable variation on the heart of Duchaufour’s own Timbuktu. Eau d’Italie sustains its cool, green tinted, transparent incense quite well before it dries down to a brisk cedar dominated base. I can’t say that it projects much, but it’s paradoxically not weak either. Eau d’Italie just seems to hover close to the body.

Once it’s run its course I’m left feeling that Eau d’Italie represents a simpler and “safer” essay on the theme of Timbuktu and the more recent Dzongkha. It’s more approachable than either of these other Duchaufour compositions, but it also has a lot less going on. If I’m going to wear a scent of this sort, my inclination is to go whole hog, and for the like-minded I’d recommend Dzongkha or Timbuktu (even though I detest it!) over Eau d’Italie.

Aimez-Moi is an uncomplicated anisic green floral scent that impresses me most for the clarity of its construction, the apparent quality of its ingredients, and outstanding blending. It’s entirely free from pretension, and on its own simple terms it is very successful. If I said that it expressed “freshness” I’d do it a disservice, as “fresh” carries all of the wrong connotations. There is no calone here, nor any of the overused ozonic or aquatic notes. Aimez-Moi’s clean, fresh character comes instead from a well-judged combination of crisp, grassy botanicals, anise, and bright floral notes. It smells “nice” without smelling trite – a difficult feat for a modern floral bouquet. It also manages, despite the prominent anise, not to smell like Apres l’Ondee – which is perhaps even more of an accomplishment. It’s the grassy sweetness that accounts for much of the distinction, making Aimez-Moi a brighter and less nostalgic scent than the Guerlain.

Aimez-Moi grows powdery as it progresses, but the persistent green notes keep it safe from grandmotherly fustiness or Victorian frills. While never overpowering, Aimez-Moi projects well and leaves a persistent veil of sillage on the air. The drydown is mostly fluffy-textured white musk and sweet powder, which is in keeping with its clear, clean heart. If your aim is to smell “pretty,” and not at all provocative, then Aimez-Moi’s overall balance and quality make it good bet.

This is a very delicate, powdery heliotrope-almond-vanilla confection shot through with the odd, chilly element that sometimes accompanies “mimosa” fragrances. A more assertive bitter almond accord takes charge soon after application, though the scent’s edges remain soft thanks to the persistent vanilla. Mimosa pour Moi could easily have been insipid in its tenderness, but the delicately judged balance between sweet and bitter keeps things lively for the short time that the fragrance lasts.

Mimosa pour Moi moves quickly to a cool, candied vanilla drydown before trailing off completely. Before it disappears entirely the edge on its bitter almond morphs into a peppery little kick that makes the exit both piquant and teasing – a wonderful touch! Nevertheless, Mimosa pour Moi is ultimately a mild, limpid scent that speaks of youth, innocence, and fragile objects. I think of it as a happier great grandchild of Apres l’Ondee, whose most serious vice is probably its failure to persist.

It should come as no surprise that Bertrand Duchaufour’s rose composition for Eau d’Italie includes plenty of dry cedar and incense. Indeed, both of these are more conspicuous when Paestum Rose goes on than the rose itself. When the rose does arrive in force it is a beautiful bloom – soft, rounded, and ever so slightly fruity. It rides in on an earthy patchouli and vetiver blend that contributes both warmth and depth to the plush woods and florals.

Over the course of an hour’s wear Paestum Rose settles into a rose and patchouli accord that’s not too far removed from Voleur de Roses and Bond No. 9’s West Side, though drier and woodier than either. As it ages on the skin Paestum Rose’s dry, somewhat powdery cedar overtakes the patchouli to usher in a soft musk and woods drydown that’s occasionally haunted by an echo of the rose. Beautifully done, if not earth shattering in its originality.

Diptyque’s first scent has a stupefying opening: it’s a blaring accord of cinnamon Red Hots candies and citrus rind that while blatantly artificial, keeps me sniffing just because it’s so utterly weird. As things progress the citrus settles down, the cinnamon candy mutates into cloves, and a soft rose emerges in the background, all of which results in a much more conventional carnation accord. At a distance L’Eau’s main movement is a pleasant rose/carnation over creamy woods, but smelled up close there’s still something harsh and disturbingly “chemical” about it.

Like so many of the Diptyque scents that have come since, L’Eau remains relatively linear once its core arrangement settles into place. As it wears on I feel that this represents Diptyque’s trial run at personal fragrances – which of course, it was. As such, I can’t say it was a promising first effort. Its oddness soon begins to look like clumsiness, with the clove note in particular being far out of balance. In retrospect it’s both remarkable and gratifying that L’Eau’s successors include such beauties as Virgilio, Eau Lente, and Philosykos. More an item of historical interest, I think, than a significant

Because it emphasizes the bright and fruity, rather than the milky aspect of fig, Jardin de Kerylos could be my favorite fig scent to date. As beautiful as Philosykos and Primier Figuier are, their milky olfactory texture wears very flat on me. Not so the more juicy and tart fig of Jardin de Kerylos. Whereas Olivia Giacobetti’s well-regarded fig scents lean towards coconut and powdery woods, Pierre Guillaume’s uses floral accents to balance the potentially cloying character of its star accord.

Jardin de Kerylos wears close to the skin, and holds closely to its crisp, refreshing course until its quietly musky drydown sets in. My chief complaint is that the scent is very short-lived, and lasts only three hours on my skin at best. Even so, Jardin de Kerylos merits praise for its distinctive approach, and while it lasts I still enjoy it more than the other fig fragrances I know.

Drole de Rose is a cheerful fruity-sweet green rose scent that reads to me a bit like a brightened L’Ombre dans l’Eau and a bit like a rosier, happier Calandre. It’s the combination of fruit and rose that reminds me of L’Ombre dans l’Eau, and the hay and fresh-mown grass that bring Calandre, or even Vent Vert to mind.

Drole de Rose is rounder, softer, and sweeter than any of the others, and absent the influence of strong indoles, it’s also extremely clean and innocent. That it manages this without any of the stereotypically “fresh” notes and without being insufferably bland is a tribute to Olivia Giacobetti’s artfulness. What keeps my interest in Drole de Rose is a lightly honeyed hay and floral accord that’s highly suggestive of narcissus. This accord is very stable and persists for hours on my skin. If ever a fragrance merited the adjective “adorable,” this is it.

So this is Iso E Super. Woo hoo. And not so super.

On me this is a flat, powdery, cedar-like accord that’s initially just dull, but eventually winds up irritating. I’m not certain, but if Molecule 01 is representative of Iso E Super in relative isolation, I may have found the tiresomely overused base material which in overdose ruins scents like Yohji Homme for me. I’d have to live with it longer to be certain, but I don’t want to.

Chocolate. Patchouli. There’s not much more I want to say about Borneo 1834. It’s a simple, weird, and compelling accord – I’m just not sure that I like it. My preferences aside, this is a bold, original scent, and an outstanding take on patchouli. Just try it first!

Chant d’Aromes is an assertively pretty peaches-and-cream floral on top, with a clean, green underpinning and a solid dose of aldehydes. Cream eventually overtakes the peaches, so that after a few minutes on the skin Chant d’Aromes is less a fruity floral than a very soft textured, pale, aldehydic bouquet with a dab of vanilla on top. Bright, chaste, and innocent are words that come to mind as I inhale it. In fact, Chant d’Aromes is what my young daughter would refer to as a “girly-girl” fragrance.

It doesn’t take too long for the creamy vanilla in Chant d’Aromes to rise to prominence, and within a hour I find that it dominates the composition. Whatever chypre element there might be buried at the core of Chant d’Aromes escapes my nose completely. For me what remains is rather dull, and lacking in the complexity and sophistication I expect out of a successful Guerlain composition. Not, in the end, the best that this house has to offer.

Aldehydes and citrus are what you get when you apply Cristalle, joined almost immediately by sharp, bitter green notes and a balancing dose of sweet flowers. Cristalle’s components come rushing in at high speed, and arrange themselves with equal haste into a clean, grassy floral heart accord, wrapped in a shimmering cloud of aldehydes and resting on a nutty chypre foundation. The blending of components is exemplary here, so that it soon becomes extremely difficult for me to isolate individual notes.

Bright green floral chypre territory is where Cristalle settles for several hours, with only moderate projection, but paradoxically persistent sillage. As Cristalle ages it does not so much develop as it very slowly fades away, its soft chypre base accord being the last element to exit. Cristalle is one of those cases - like some of the Diptyque scents - where I enjoy the heart accord so much that I’m happy that it remains relatively linear! After spending some time with it, Cristalle impresses me as a very well-made and alluring fragrance in a style well removed from Chanel’s accustomed aldehydic floral manner.

What an unusual scent! The name had me expecting a conventional aldehydic/indolic white flower, but what comes out of the bottle is something else altogether, and I can see why opinions are so deeply divided.

There are indolic white flowers here, but they ride in on a bold and novel accord of pepper and overripe cheese that reads like an exaggerated take on the pungent (and, yes, cheesy,) undertone that distinguishes gardenia from other white flowers. You’re liable to find it either mesmerizing or whiplash-inducing, depending upon your temperament. The pungency is slow to fade, but as it does the tuberose becomes more conspicuous, to the point where it eventually dominates the composition. At the same time, Tuberose Gardenia grows more simple and transparent, and as it does it starts to reveal the spicy - woody base that has all along provided a firm backbone for the composition.

Three or four hours on and Tuberose Gardenia has evolved into a spicy/woody composition, generously topped with tuberose. The scent remains remarkably potent, even after the indole and aldehydes have retreated, and the generous sillage hangs around for hours. I don’t know that this will ever be a crowd-pleaser, but at its price it probably was not intended to. Distinctive and surprising, and I rather like it!

Dab on Calandre and you get a quick aldehydic, bittersweet, green floral kick in the pants, soon bolstered by a whiff of fleshy indoles. The aldehydes subside to some degree over the next few minutes, as Calandre settles down into an indolic green jasmine and white flowers accord. At this stage I find Calandre rather ordinary in and old-fashioned “perfumey” manner.

Happily Calandre’s floral blend is eventually joined by a honeyed, evocatively hay-like note that I read as green narcissus. Beneath this emerges an intriguing smoky/salty caramel component that quickly drags the composition out of the conventional white floral territory. In the course of hours Calandre pares itself down to the faintly smoky green narcissus over a soft and somewhat sweet musky base. Throughout its evolution Calandre projects well and offers plenty of sillage, with better than average lasting power. I like the surprising destination that it reaches after its nondescript start and consider it a useful scent for everyday wear – and unisex to boot!

Chamade starts out as a surprisingly aggressive spicy floral with green overtones and more than a trace of sweet vanilla in the background. The spices settle down very quickly, while the green notes amp up to balance the florals in seamlessly blended off-dry and pleasantly bitter accord of great balance and beauty.

The spicy and vanillic components of the opening reassert themselves ever so slowly as Chamade evolves, moving the heart deeper at a rate that is nearly imperceptible. At the same time, a wave of soapy/powdery aldehydes wells up, and this keeps Chamade from growing overly heavy as it sweetens.

Following Chamade’s progress is like watching a slow, formal 18th century dance, the sort where the participants continually exchange positions while remaining in two lines. The end result is an accord that is extraordinarily soft and velvety, but at the same time light and bright, not ponderous or treacly.

The vanillic drydown that Chamade reaches after a few hours marks it clearly as a Guerlain product. It is an oddly “innocent” fragrance for Guerlain, but it upholds the house’s standard of complex development. It is a pretty, easily worn, and versatile scent that manages not to be trivial. A good thing.

Truth in advertising: Aromatics Elixir starts out green and floral with a bracing dose of aromatics adding their rasping accent to the principal accord. Aromatics Elixir grows steadily more floral as it develops, but the green and aromatic notes persist as counterpoint behind the flowers.

The whole composition remains crisp and dry, with a clean yet earthy “outdoors” quality that reminds me of freshly cut hay. A sharp, almost peppery woody accord in the foundation adds depth without threatening the balance with excessive sweetness. Nice stuff, and no wonder that its managed to survive for decades.

The arrestingly dry, dusty green opening of Fleurs de Sel smells to me like a variation on the aggressive vetiver theme of fragrances like Vetiver Extraordinaire or Etro Vetiver, but soon turns toward the floral arrangement promised on the label. The sharp, resping opening accord continues to cut like a bone knife, even if it’s concealed in a bouquet of wildflowers.

There is a beautiful, if somewhat forbidding austerity about this stage in Fleurs de Sel’s development that keeps me mesmerized even as I cringe at its starkness. Like Yatagan, though by very different means, Fleurs de Sel’s first hour paints the olfactory equivalent of some parched, desolate landscape. In the case of Yatagan it’s an arid pine forest, while Fleurs de Sel conjures up barren, windswept dunes, sparsely sprinkled with seaside grasses and a few stalwart herbs.

Unfortunately, this phase does not endure more than an hour, by which time the floral elements take over. The result is a more conventional sweet green floral scent, albeit one distinguished by a crisp, dry woody-aromatic foundation and a mysterious wisp of smoke. The projection is limited and the sillage quite mild, so that Fleurs de Sel functions mostly as a skin scent. Its lasting power is more than reasonable for so light a scent, and I’ve gotten a solid four or five hours’ wear out of it.

Two details of Fleurs de Sel’s composition stand out to me. One is the way the normally volatile and relatively fleeting aromatic notes are retained well into the development, and the other is the success with which this fragrance manages to evoke the seaside with nary an aquatic note or a drop of suntan lotion. While the drydown lacks the bracing novelty of the opening and heart accords, the scent is always beautiful. Hats off to Lynn Harris for composing "beach" scent that avoids all the hackneyed gestures that permeate this overexploited genre!