An oriental Woody spicy scent that lingers and transports you to the warmth of the desert and the spice of the silkroads. It’s not to harsh, yet present and smooth. Great scent that suits any occasion, maybe not for the hottest days of the year, but that‘s a personal choice.
The more I sample ELDO fragrances, the more I come to realise that, although the house projects an image of producing work that is adventurous and edgy, their scents are actually really rather conventional, but given a mild twist (I haven't, to be fair, sampled the notorious Secretions Magnifique).
This image seems to infect reviews of their perfumes too. Case in point: Archives 69. There are so many that class this as being unwearable, whereas I smell this and think, that's really nice. And then I think, do I just have a tolerance for really weird shit?
Whatever. This is peppery camphor at the outset, and it settles down to a frankincense- floral core that at times smells oddly like rose, though the notes list it as vanilla orchid. Not that I would have the slightest idea what that particular flower smells like, but it smells like a rose, apparently. There are sweet fruity notes too, with the prune especially evident, along with the odd whiff of orange. Finally, there's an animalic, musky patchouli to earth it all down and stop it being a disparate, unconnected mixture of scents. By the end, it settles to a mild, powdery incense.
I like this a lot, and it's my favourite ELDO creation by a very long way. It still doesn't strike me as being particularly experimental, and this may in part be because it's supremely well blended. Kudos to Christine Nagel for managing to pull that off. Possibly a full bottle purchase is in the offing, once my little sample is finished.
Cheapo alternative to Wood Sage and Sea Salt, sharper in tone and with more pith. It's a clean and minimal vetiver, bitter and a little herbal, with the salty sea air vibe of the original.
Relatively short-lasting (also like the original) No, it's not as subtle, and the sharpness threatens to become headache-inducing, reminding me of whatever ingredient it is that's in some Issay Miyake creations that produces the same reaction. Still, it's very pleasant and ideally suited to the warmer summer months.
I so wanted to love this. Marine smells are a positive weakness of mine, as long as they don't stray into dreaded blue territory, and the scene this is intended to evoke (walking along the beach on a cold, breezy day, the waves all dark and choppy) seemed right up my alley.
And it does evoke that scene to a degree: there's an ozonic quality, an airy freshness, then it dries down to a salty wood base that combines with something that reminds me of candlewax, for some reason. It smells very pleasant: and that's the problem, namely it never moves beyond the realm of pleasant. I wanted to be wowed, transported, to be faced with the sea in all of fury and glory, but it's too tame for that, too insipid, and then it dissipates so quickly that even those initial associations are gone and what remains is an agreeable vetiver-wood combo that isn't a million miles away from so many other scents on the market.
TX Maxx bargain bin special. Citrus infused cedar wood and leather with a pleasing, slightly bitter pine backdrop morphs into something lighly spiced and floral. The base is a pungent patchouli that is not dissimilar to an unwashed metal ashtray.
This is lot better that it need be for its price point. There's nothing terribly radical here, and at certain points it veers towards Ombre Leather territory, but it has more development and interest. Not at all bad for a cheapie and worth investigating.
This is magnificent, but far removed from what I had anticipated. I had expected to smell like an unfeasably wealthy Arabian prince who chain-smoked his way through 60 Marlboro Reds a day. Instead, this is oddly close to a gourmond, especially in the opening, which is a blast of fenugreek, aniseed and liquorice, mixed with soft caramel and chocolate. It's Amouage, so it's very powerful, undoubtedly too potent with even a hint of warmth in the air, but it positively unfurls in colder weather.
As it settles it mellows to a birch tar amber incense, heavy on the frankincense, mildly animalic, mixed with musky rose. It's still sweet, still herbal and spicy, but much more reserved ( and hence, wearable in general company). Oddly, I don't really get much in the way of tobacco at all.
As with most Amouages, its stength means spare application is necessary, but it's one of the more approachable house creations, and one I would wear in most situations.
The silky part is nice but it classes with the woodsy part. It’s a nope for me.
Mature, seductive but playful. Gets a lot of compliments because of that bold iris in the heart of the fragrance. The fresh bergamot disappears in a few minutes after you spray it but the chestnut note which follows is absolutely dreamy and pretty much lasts for 3-4 hours. Even though the notes list whiskey in it, don't let that put you off. It doesn't have that boozy, harsh alcohol smell but a more smoky finish. Lasts about 10hrs on clothes.
Can't wait to rock this more often when it gets a bit more colder outside.
Someone is wearing Tobacco Vanille, which they insist has been reformulated by aliens and, smelling it, you are not certain that it hasn't.
At the same time, they are crushing gabalnum in an unwashed metal ashtray, before suddenly abandoning it, deciding instead to recreate Ken Russell's Altered States by clambering into an empty galvanised water tank.
However, this fails miserably as they forget to actually fill it with water. Defeated, they lie there on the floor staring up at the grey, polished walls and decide to burn some incense before passing out.
You suspect said person may have been ingesting sizeable quantities of hallucinogens.
This is such an odd perfume. It uses several ingredients you would normally associate with a warm, comforting scent, but offsets them against the prominent copper note to create something that's cold and distinctly unsettling. I don't wear it often, but when I do, I kind of love it.
Imagine someone has taken several kilos of the cheapest smelling pot pourri, distillied it down to a few drops of the harshest and most intense scent imaginable, one that makes your nose hairs combust if your dare apprach it within a 50 meter radius, and you have Oud al Layl.
So it was a scrubber. In fact a five times scrubber, because that's how many attempts it took to get rid of this unspeakably vile, tenacious concoction. By the fourth attempt, it diminished to a level where it was bearable and there was the suggestion that somewhere in amongst this hideous, beyond beast mode creation, there was the beginnings of a mildly tolerable perfume. But frankly, that's about the only positive I could find: there are some fragrances that are challenging but which reward investigation, and there are others that are just nasty, clumsy and cheap. Oud al Layl falls in the latter category.
Reader, I hated it (if you hadn't gathered that already).
Nice sweet amber fragrance. I use it to layer. Very versatile and affordable.
Someone has crushed up a tube of parma violets sweets, poured them into a full makeup bag, then has given it a good shake, the contents spilling into the interior in the process.
This done, the entire concoction is tipped over you while you sit in the shade of a lilac tree, sipping orange juice.
This is sweet and floral, very powdery and more than a little sickly at times. It's partly redeemed by the patchouli-amber base and had this been given a little more prominance, it would have provided more balance overall.
Marketed as a perfume for young, carefree women, it remindes me instead of the sort of thing Are You Being Served's Mrs Slocombe would douse herself in, in preparation for a day of standing at the store counter, looking at all the customers with a supercilious expression.
I didn't completely dislike this, oddly enough, but as perfumes go, it's a competent but rather unremarkable creation, one that doesn't really distinguish itself before fizzling out in a dusty pink whiff of anonymity
I can never work out Issey Miyake's marketing strategy: some of their best releases seem to get very limited distribution and disappear without trace. This, on the other hand, seems to be getting a sizeable push. Maybe it's because they have golden boy Quentin Bisch at the helm, or maybe they think they have a sure fire, mass-pleasing scent on their hands.
Which this assuredly is. It's clean and minimal, ozonic and oceanic, which means it has that salty, seaweedy odour at the outset, offset with a mild, astringent note of ginger. At times it almost seems powdery. This settles to oakmoss and wood, along with a hint of vetiver, accompanied by the trademark Bisch metallic tang.
A couple of things surprised me about this. One was its restraint, and the other was how successfully Bisch has managed to integrate his style into the Miyake DNA. A lot of the Miyake fragrances have a sharp, almost bluntly strident note that dominates, especially at the outset. This manages to avoid that, but at the same time, it's unmistakably a house creation. It's well-blended, and although there's nothing particularly original in the composition, it smells really pleasant. There's something very stark and sheer about it all, and you can easily imagine its wearer occupying one of those uncluttered converted warehouse New York lofts that at one time everyone seemed desperate to emulate.
It's resolutely mainstream and there's nothing here that pushes the boundaries, but those sorts of fragrances have their place too. I could see this fitting into almost any sort of setting, and at most times of the year: so in that respect its almost a textbook example of a dumb reach scent. I'm not sure I'd pay full price for this, but might be tempted if a bottle becomes available on the grey market.
A trip into outer space. Or maybe inner. Or maybe both. The overexcited description of the perfume's inspiration certainly implies as much, as does the 2001 inspired promo film accompanying its release. There is much talk of supernovas and infinity and reverberations of cosmic ambers. So far, so purple.
Ignore all of that: what does the perfume actually smell like? Kind of gorgeous, actually. It takes stock ingredients and combines them in unexpected ways. The opening, peppery blast of incense? It sparkles somehow. The juniper-wood undertow has unanticipated spaciousness and depth. The dirty, mineral, ambergris base is dark and a little bewildering. It really is suggestive of outer space, or the idea of outer space, the reality apparently being the much less palatable scent of burnt meat, gunpowder and piss.
Like all the Rubini perfumes, this reveals its secrets slowly. I’ve been wearing it a lot over the few months, and every time a new facet sneaks out. It also blooms in the open air, and especially in the cold, which allows the individual notes to really emerge. Both ambitious and deeply romantic, it's probably my favourite of the entire line, edging out the greasy overalls and petrol scent of Nuvolari. I'm a bit wowed by it, actually.
Powdery rose at the outset, I don't get the violet notes listed at all. There's a sly dig of raspberry, a fairly soft leather, and the merest hint of sweaty cumin. Initially it seems rather tame, but every so often the ingredients seem intensify in an almost aggressive manner, before receding again. In time, the leathery notes dominate, while at the same time it turns intensely powdery. Finally, there's a long drydown when a somewhat animalic amber pushes through.
Although the putain in the name almost certainly refer to a woman, this seems a pretty unisex perfume to me, so it could equally refer to a man and, indeed, a man could pull it off pretty easily (no pun intended). A pleasant, well-executed mainstream scent, it’s nowhere near as edgy as its name might connotate, and it suggests not so much carnality in a French boudoir as someone with somewhat questionable hygiene standards disguising the scent with overapplication of makeup
Very slightly cat pissy (blackcurrant?), minty opening, thyme, and of course as it's a Guerlain, it's very sweet. The sweetness sort of ruins it for me, as it veers away from being fresh, which is how I'd prefer this type of scent to come across. There's aldehydes too, which could possibly save it a bit. I need to see where this goes but for now it's a dud for me, especially from this expensive prestige line.
Someone has emptied a freshly filled baby's nappy and a few drops of vanilla essence into your rose garden. Nourished, the roses respond by blooming briefly and intensely before dying back to an airy, transparent scent that hangs in the still air.
Once past the shitty oud opening, this is very much a refined rose scent that clings close to the skin. Best suited to cooler weather, in the evening. You will need invest in a second mortgage before being able to purchase a full-sized bottle.
In the smoky, fetid dark room of The Anvil, in a fit of licentiousness, someone's sweaty leather jock strap has been discarded on the stained pine floorboards. You pick it up and sniff it.
Leather-heavy animalic, with an unexpected, slightly sweet undercurrent that breaks through on occasion. Dries down to a calm, post-coupling combination of myrrh and spices. Longevity is impressive, sillage moderate. This was a blind buy and is pretty glorious.
Very green, somewhat milky scent in the opening. It reminds me of the milky sap you get in some plants when the stems are broken. I get red berries too, and there's something almost like liquorice hidden deep down in the mixture. As it progresses, the green remains but the texture turns airy then powdery and there's the slightest suggestion of pepper. It still somehow gives that impression of something creamy white yet green at the same time.
I struggled to identify precisely what the green scent was until I saw bamboo in the notes listing, and that made concrete that very particular scent memory, one of being abroad, in the bamboo groves, on a hot, humid day, one that made the scent hang almost densely in the air.
Light and delicate, this fade quickly unless oversprayed, at which point it remains present for a reasonable length of time. It is very zen, very calming and rather beautiful.
This was the very first perfume I bought many years ago, in the mid 90s. It seemed both unbelievably expensive (a bottle then cost much the same as a bottle now), and totally unique. It reminded me of the Issey Miyake clothing line, which featured heavily in magazines like The Face, clipped and minimal, yet playful in the way it experimented with form. I wore it daily for years.
Recently, in a fit of nostalgia, I bought a bottle again. And it still smells good. There's the initial burst of sherberty citrus, which at the time I thought was lemon but now know to be yazu. The floral notes are more obvious as well, white floral, something that escaped me in all those years when it was my daily wear. When it settles down, the yazu is still there, but it's less dominating and the spices - nutmeg and sandalwood in particular are allowed to come through.
It still seems very clean and stipped down and there's still nothing that is quite like it. Longevity is poorer than I remember, but it doesn't seem to have wandered far from its original formulation.
A bit of a classic designer frag this, one that has worn the passage of time very well.
Or: why do I keep on blind buying these middle-eastern clones?
There's a massive blast of musty mango and saffron in the opening..subtlety is not the order of the day here. Despite the force of the scent, it still manages to be both insipid and sickly.
Then, one extreme to the other, it dries down to a powdery ozonic suede, mixed with sweet citrus, at which point it more or less becomes a skin scent.
This phase isn't unpleasant, but this is lacking something, something sharper and harder to contast with or emphasise the dominant notes. As it is, it's rather anonymous and, worst of all sins, ultimately rather boring.
And to answer the question as to why I keep on buying these? Because a) they're cheap and b) occasionally I'll encounter the occasionally absolute banger of a scent. Masa, alas, is not one of these. Pass.
In the corner of the garden, an underground pipe has sprung a leak and green and bitter gabalnum grows there in the cente of a permanent pool of rusty water. Someone stands close by, chain smoking. He is wearing leather chaps and little else. On seeing you watching, he sprawls on a nearby wooden bench and winks at you in a "come and get me" kind of way. You notice he is wearing a heavy gold medallion, which hangs midway down his noticeably hirsute chest.
A supposed clone of Thom Ford's Noir Anthracite, which in turn was a distinct nod to 70s barbershop fragrances, this really occupies 'inspired by' territory, as opposed to being an out and out clone. It very green, brash in its opening, but its really that ash-like metallic note that elevates it.
Inexpensive, long lasting and, ultimately, a really good scent. An overlooked gem in amongst the multitudes of overhyped middle eastern perfumes, most of which seldom match the level of attention given to them.
You are in Hawksmoor's Spitalfields church, the one with the austere, looming architecture and souce of sometimes intriguing and sometimes downright silly occult conspiracy theories.
Inside, it's smoky, dark and cold because someone has turned out the lights. Perhaps it's the priest, who has nipped outside for a quick fag. You are dressed in leather, sucking on an aniseed drop and for some reason are clutching a sheaf of old, yellowed newspapers. The smell of burnt incense has impregnated the stone walls. There is no-one else in the building but, ominously, there is sound of movement from the vauts below.
This is rather gorgeous. Tamer in intensity than some of the others in the Beaufort range, this is, a bit like the church that inspired it, at first cold and forbidding, but gains in wamth as it dries down, before the stone coldness rushes back. One of my favourites in the Beaufort range, and one of the very few I would consider wearing in a work environment.
Very strong and dark jammy rose scent that is tempered by metallic notes. It's both lushly decedent and aloof, as though the Berlin in which it's set is the Weimar era, with its hedonism increasingly overshadowed by the threat of curdled nationalism and war.
As this fades, the rose settles in with another contradictory combination: honied, earthy animalics.
This isn't a cozy creatuon: its beauty has an edge, and you can see why so many reviewers find it has a gothic allure. To me, the images it conjures are more modern than that: this is the scent of someone travelling through an exciting but exacting city, smartly dressed, on their way to an illicit assignation.
Depending on how you like your roses, you may find this a little too austere, or dark. It's certainly not a comforting scent, but it's a strange and beautiful one.
