Guaiacwood being display front and center! Musky, warm, with a touch of warmth and herbaceous sweetness and smokiness from the Gaiac. This to me is the perfect Guaiacwood scent, coming to a close second with Etro Musk - which is very similar to this creation from M. Micallef. I have always feel that Gaiac 10 tends to go a bit soapy in a sort of "generic dog shampoo"-esque in the first few hours, that is why Gaiac is just that superior to me. Definitely a love from the house!
I'm normally anosmic to smartypants molecular perfumes, so it's with great surprise that I've accidentally filled my whole living room with the very strong smell of Molecule 01 by applying one spray to each inner elbow. It's great! It's very sandalwood leaning for me, but I'm excited to see how it layers.
Spicy citrus (orange/tangerine) in the opening, morphing to an ambery, dirty iris and vanilla base. Longevity and projection is eh. Great for date nights or for collectors who love anything Mark Buxton, slightly disappointing if you are looking for something a bit more artistic.
I love this, it's another cheap gem that I'm delighted I bought (along with Leather Jardin by Zara).
A bland scent that disappears immediately. This makes me lose respect for the brand. It would be too expensive even if it were three times cheaper, so as it stands it's a joke. Do they test their perfumes? They have two decent ones, Musc Amber Gris and Cuir Cúrcuma, but this one is a total dud.
I had the pleasure of sampling this on paper and found it to be a one accord perfume. Stable leather. Fittingly, it is inspired by beautiful and elegant Arabian horses. It is quite a harsh leather at first, but dries down to a softer version of itself. It smells moneyed and chic. If you're looking for a leather fragrance, this would be a great place to start. Follow me on Instagram: @TheScentiest
Ame du Couer opens with a fruity, realistic, vibrant mandarin with a side-helping of blood orange which, with the spicy addition of pepper, cardamom and ginger comes off like a wintery, festive orange. The woodsy notes unfurl into a base of modern vanilla and the cacao, tonka and plum fill out the spaces in between, giving it some heft. The top notes, which burn fast and bright, are ephemeral and once beyond this stage, AdC will appeal to lovers of woody vanilla fragrances. I highly recommend testing this on skin as it comes off completely different on a test strip and much better. Really love what this brand do and their perfumes are typically unique and driven by an artistic motive from imaginative briefs. Follow me on Instagram: @TheScentiest
I don't really pick up on Red Temptation other than the Litchi note in the Summer flanker. It's not nearly as sweet as Rose Gourmand, which is sugary and syrupy. However, Love Explosion does remind me of Club De Nuit White Imperiale, again because of the Litchi + Rose. It's just a tad bit more sour and screechy compared to CDI.
For 25 euros, I got this banger, which, if you told me it was by Dusita and cost 250 euros, for example, I'd totally believe it. Wonderful! It rectifies the screeching, cheesey, aldehydic nightmare of Cabochard, rendering the same concept as a delicate but tenacious shimmering haze of leather, rose and citrus. It reminds me of Shalimar without the vanillic sweetness, perhaps the Philtre de Parfum without the sweetness and with a gentle leather reintroduced. The floral element is beautifully crafted and reminds me of Dusita's green florals, though toned down skank-wise. That's not to say there's no animalic edge, there is, but its Guerlain-like in it's sheerness and beauty. This is a unique masterpiece, in my opinion.
Slightly troubled by the execution of this perfume. There's definitely a good kernel of an idea here, like I said I think the execution is lacking in subtlety and nuance to say the least. A fruity musk with I can smell Osmanthus, something I'm increasingly more attracted to these days. I can smell fruity accords which are potent and somewhat appealing from a grapefruit/melon (that fruit that is basically a mix of the two, name escapes me...ahhhh Pomelo!!!! that's it!) top to a more enduring 'tropical' fruit accord which is pleasant for about ten seconds then starts to get on your tits, thereafter. There's much less 'air' and that dry, geraniol effect you get in more faithful interpretations of Osmanthus, this is a bit of a syrup, concentrate, sledgehammer which does not do the kinda peach inflected scent any good whatsoever. What's interesting is that I do get a very small hint of a woody accord right from the opening then throughout I was getting phantom wafts of an oud rose perfume accord and sure enough it's listed here in the notes, (well rose and leather) I can't work out whether that's very restrained and clever of the perfumer/development brief, or just a little bit wishy washy and flimsy? It's a fine line not even my arbitration skills can decipher. As far as the ambroxan is concerned, I think Vra Vra Vroom a pretty good use of the material, goes well with osmanthus and any fruity musk stuff if you ask me. I've used Ambrofix quite a bit and although I migrated towards Ambrox super, I still think it's decent. I'm wearing this today and can't help the way I feel, I don't really like it, I don't want to ever wear it again but I'm being prevented from slagging it off because there's enough to think and type about that I can't hate the perfume, it's weirdly appealing in some sense. I did initially note when I wore it on my arm that it was extremely fleeting to the point I'd be pissed off if I paid top dollar for it, well that's not been the case today, it really does cling to clothes and hair, which give it reasonable staying power, but not many fragrances DON'T last on clothes so it's hardly a ringing endorsement, and my skin ate it all up in rapid quick time, something to be aware of.
Okay so this fragrance was the one from Celine which I'd heard people talk about in terms of how different an how much it smelled of Palo Santo, a much confused material and I'm sorry but I don't find this particularly indicative of the smell of palo santo. Thank god as well because that is such a bizarre thing, certainly my experience of it is. I recall someone, somewhere saying this Californian name thing is actually fitting because it smells like the Palo Santo grown in Southern California, and while I can't say I've smelled that, the Palo Santo I know is not dissimilar to Sandalwood but with mad, almost untamable facets, or 'side effects' I think they'd be called if Palo Santo was a drug. I don't doubt this formula contains some sandalwood aroma chemicals, but I wouldn't call it a sandalwood(palo santo) based thing but some folks do and that's worth noting. I like the opening, it's very classy, fresh bergamot and immediately woody in that linalool way and actually vaguely reminiscent of rosewood if anything, and a touch of the Serge/Sheldrake feminite du bois, spirit wise not suggesting this smell of that as such. What I do perceive is a sort of modern, French woody Iris accord, not shying away from it's Iso E Super base and elegant orris accord, the woody facets of approximated vetiver & cedar, but mild, fluffy and without the edge and scratch of those raw materials, probably because they're not present (at least not in any great quantity) I think it's a very nice perfume. That's about the most bland statement I could muster, and I'm afraid this is quite a bland perfume, complete with a bit of a lack of presence and persistence. I would place it in a category with Bois D'argent and L'eau d'Hiver and it's no less classy and understated, just not as good. It's actually far more like Prada Infusion series but even lacking some of the prettiness of those, and they were a revelation at the time, this feels greener, mossier and to me slightly more masculine leaning but no better off for those characteristics. I like the perfume, I know it doesn't sound like I do but I do, I'm just underwhelmed and I have to be honest it doesn't grab me the way I'd hoped, I thought this would be up there with Nightclubbing but there's far less to get excited about here.
The strongest note coming off my skin is mimosa! It reminds me of Une Fleur de Cassie. Lovely perfume. I recently discovered this and Melograno in short succession, both of which made me reassess my hatred of aldehydes. This has a sort of musty, funky floral thing which, with the soapy sparkle is just magical, and magical in that special Chanel way. I have, and love Coromandel, although I find it pretty unsuitable for most situations, and Le Lion, which is spectacular too, but Cuir de Russie is the easiest to wear of the three. It does warrant mentioning that I have to reapply this throughout the day, unlike the other two, which says a lot about the performance. Personally I don't mind as I don't wear it often so the huge bottle will last a lifetime, but it sure is expensive considering this fast dissipation. Update: it gives me old, forgotten, wistful vibes, sort of like flowers in an old library, or perhaps Mrs Haversham surrounded by old tomes, not having left the library for several days, wearing a little leather pouch filled with dried flowers and twigs to mask the stagnant air. It's an incredibly complex and breathtaking perfume where no note stands out but every note plays its part creating way more than their sum total, a bouquet of dusty old flowers which once trumpeted their scents proudly but now sit in a murky corner with just a ray or two of sunlight flitting over their petals, showing their colour, and the fact that they're not dead, they're just still, dormant. There's an old pipe lying there too with some dregs of tobacco inside, and a dried banana skin on a plate, long-forgotten, and so only the faintest odour remains.
Watered-down Beach Hut Man, 0% oud. Not bad but not remarkable.
Synthetic oud bumhole pong (not a problem for me) with delicate rose and some sort of pissy índole reminding me of narcissus or chamomile. It's sort of like Oud Silk Mood without the clinically pristine facet and with a more realistic seeming barnyard oud accord and a more spicy zesty shimmer from the ginger and olibanum I guess. It's nice but these scents are ten a penny. Or perhaps ten a grand. Update: the drydown gets aggressive and scratchy. It's too much, which I guess is in keeping with the brand. If you like fragrances that scream and choke people out, this is right up there.
As with all of Kurkdjian's pretty florals and freshies, there's an overdose of some sort of scratchy musk or woody amber. Same as the MFK Aqua line.
Sweet iris. Soft creamy warm powderyness with that sweet nuttyness added. This is an absolutely stunning iris gourmand scent. Defo 1 for us iris lovers
Love this! I got it for like 2 euros and it's a lovely spicy classic scent, and doesn't smell remotely cheap, and the deodorant is delicious, it amps up the spices with cinnamon and cumin.
Musky lemon very similar to the plethora of musky lemon Kurkdjian scents. Not bad but not special, also extremely light and fleeting.
Spectacular opening soon becomes horrific chemical naphthalene suffocation cloud. I have to hand it to them though, this somehow is the smell of a moth.
Very bland, inoffensive, jasmine-heavy floral! bearing no resemblance to the above-listed notes.
Another Aventus clone, zzzzzz, what's the point? The opening is cloying and sweet; this perfume is hella strong. So yeah, a worse, happy-shopper Aventus with a sickly, cloying vanilla note. Whatever accord they're using to give pineapple turns cheesey after 20 mins. I have to scrub this off. Hate hate hate aaaaaagh
Let's be clear about this, the strongest note here is a soapy aldehyde very akin to Chanel No 5, but where the Chanel EDT is harsh, dated and difficult to wear, this is joyous and fresh. My initial reaction was EURGH aldehydes EURGH, but a couple of days later I kept thinking about it. The aldehydes don't mask the other notes, nor do they seem abrasive or metallic. They're giving me finely milled, expensive soap, which, on a crisp or warm sunny day, is a treat to experience. It's expert perfumery from the past which still holds up in 2024. By the way, performance here is insanity levels, I cannot accept this is an EDC. One tiny spray to a wrist, then dab other wrist and neck, that's enough for me. A few wears in and I'm completely in love with this, it's magical.
Awful, strong, nauseating, devoid of complexity, obnoxious, sour, and worst of all cheap-smelling. How this is so popular is beyond me. At first sniff I thought it was OK, but as soon as I had it on my skin and was forced to smell it for a few hours I found it intolerable. It's also completely linear and is indelible on clothes, so all in all it's a relentless, shouting, chest-beating, screeching baboon of a scent. Ghastly.
This perfume is crazy. If you thought Alien was a bizarre floral, this is Alien cubed, with bells on. Hypersweet, minty, nose-burning (get it?!) chemical tuberose. One spray (or blast) will singe the nasal hairs of everyone in a 2km radius. And hell, why not? I like it, although it's basically unwearable.
