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Another huge success for this line in the sense that it's Wasser delivering an exquisite fragrance, truly. However, I'm not going to give it a glowing appraisal for a couple of reasons. The main one being that I was expecting patchouli ardent to show us some exciting and dominant take on patchouli, perhaps a little naive of me to think that Guerlain would all of a sudden stray from keeping things friendly and aesthetically, just so. I kinda did though. So I'd say I actually like this one better than one I own from this line, the oud, which to me is fairly uneventful (never bland), but plugs into the whole comforting aspect of why I like a nice, minimal musk fragrance for example, it's unobtrusive and I'm unlikely to get fatigued by it. Patchouli ardent does definitely have an earthy patchouli lean to it in the start of the fragrance but it seems like it's such an amalgam of some of the others in this line, a thread running from the musc and amber right through encens and bois. So really patchouli ardent is a musky, rose fragrance with a kind of heady, airy, incense trail, darkened by a shade of patchouli, mainly manifesting when you first spray it. Like I said it's glorious, lovely, lasts forever & all that stuff but there's just no pleasing some people (me sometimes) and I'd hoped for more patchouli, and something I could gush over and need in my collection. I wanted a hyped up, muscular, Givenchy Gentlemen or Zino Davidoff re-imagined and elevated to the level of this collection not just from a quality standpoint (because frankly it hits that high water mark) but from a creativity point of view too. If you call it patchouli I want to bludgeoned with patchouli in some sense, and this didn't do it. Is it good? Yes it might even be great! Would I buy it? probably not. I will investigate this further because I shouldn't keep writing reviews based on spraying it on my wrist once, and I will concede that you can only get to know a fragrance properly through wearing (multiple times if possible) but also sometimes you have to respect that when someone has tried a lot of perfumes their intuition is pretty good and they can extrapolate out the full experience (not always accurately) but most of the time a fragrances destiny is sealed from that first few hours of trying on skin.
Refined, luxurious and bold. One of the few Middle Eastern leaning perfumes I enjoy wearing. Very rose heavy, patchouli gives a dirty base to it with the fig creating an airy sweetness to the fragrance. Can see why people would think it leans feminine however I find it’s one that really morphs with the wearer and comes across masculine on me. I haven’t had another rose patchouli match it yet.