Man! Obsession (vintage) comes heavily loaded with insinuation. Sexually supercharged and almost going into overdrive, but at the same time not overtly obvious. The bitter green opening might seem deceiving, the slight plumpness might make you think there’s a fruity sweetness there. And there is, for a few seconds, before a heavily ambered velvet curtain falls. Forget amber as warm, cozy, chewy. It’s dark, smoldering and slightly acrid, heavily charged by resins and spices and slightly sweetened like sweat drops sliding down your skin. The bitter green opening I’m sure hides some galbanum, the fruitiness is simply a glass of water for the rest of the notes to bloom. Coriander lends a slight lemony touch before a floral heart reveals it’s dark beauty. It’s not pink roses and immaculate jasmine petals; it’s a dark almost black boozy rose. It’s a highly indolic and ripe jasmine that sometimes goes to banana territory. Orange blossom feels like the most innocent note here, with its honeyed sweetness. But everything is covered in a veil of spices, mostly nutmeg and allspice without the glow of cinnamon present, and then some more amber powder, which feels as if it’s been ground with genuine civet paste. And this civet here is the real deal; rancid, pissy, shocking, smooth, erotic and enveloping. It lends its power to the entire composition making every second of it appear as if covered in this divine and unctuous balsam. What surprises me here is that I don’t find the civet I’m used to in stuff like La Nuit or Kouros or Ysatis; in all cases it’s the real glandular secretion but here the civet feels and smells as if dried by the sun, to evolve into fairy dust (and what a kinky fairy we have here!!) and smell purposely more acrid than the warm and sensual civet of other fragrances. It could be the effect of spices, but for all its worth Obsession smells on me like dirty amber powder with slight touches of everything else. I love it! Most perfumes with rich animalic notes showcase a crescendo of dirtiness that slowly rises to a climax. It can be more or less intense and always present, but it builds up. Obsession feeds you an orgasm at the very start and slowly starts again as if to get you to a second co(u)ming at the end of its 24h lifespan on skin! The end result is a smell that now I know and recognize from the past, no wonder still clinging on the skin of someone that sprayed it in 1985! Vintage built in sprayer bottle reviewed, edp.
So I got the new bottle of Obsession and I have to say it's less feisty than I recall it being years ago. Perhaps lacking that strangely animal muskiness, it's still there but a little subdued. I'm only focusing on this as I've bought some new formulations of classics recently because I refuse to pay exorbitant prices on eBay and the like. I think vintage snobs might have a point on this one, but crucially, did they 'RUIN' this perfume? No! Obsession is still excellent in it's current formulation and the sign of a great idea in the first place that even paler representations of it are great. It smells strange in that way that A heavy, amber, chypre I'd say, with a apricot yoghurt creaminess, light floral powder, and otherworldly tone similar to a Dior perfume of a similar era in Dune. They don't even smell remotely alike but the association is there as a perfume which side steps the feminine tropes and tries to do something different, and achieved it. Some say that this is much more of a masculine perfume (possibly compared to the Men's one) but I wouldn't say that this evokes any binary gender divide at all. It's just 'there', a perfume for perfumes sake, a piece of art, and not very CK for what CK became in the 90's, aside from the androgyny or unisex appeal of it of course. Style wise it's an outlier and something they've not really returned to favouring more of a minimal 'fresh' aesthetic. I really like this and such an enjoyable wear for me.
