fragrances
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My Signature
627 reviews
At first you may think, yes, OK this is a cute, delicious scent but nothing extraordinary. However when you wear it, over the course of the day you might, like me, start to notice what sets this apart from the average gourmand. The richness, complexity and delicacy of the balance is astounding, and it becomes creamy and enveloping. I must say I don't get any rum from this, and on my skin there is a shit-ton of vanilla, but it's fine by me as it's beautiful. The cacao comes and goes, and the fragrance oscillates between buttery cream and dry, bitter, sometimes fruity chocolate.
I find the first hour or so of this scent to be a bit of a slog. It has an aggressive chocolate note similar to the monstrous screech of Parfumerie Générale's Musc Maori, a plasticky, kinderesque milk chocolate similacrum, coupled with a loud, sweet burst of unidentifiable floral chemicals. Once the patchouli starts to take hold and the desperate, needy opening fanfare dies down, it becomes interesting. It's a choco-patch treat which performs well and smells expensive. However, the opening is so challenging to me I'm not sure if it's worth suffering the ordeal of the first phase. In this respect it reminds me of Lilac Love and Love Tuberose, insofar as it takes an hour before I find it wearable, but then I really love it.
Instant headache. Same cheesy, scratchy, screechy, synthetic leather accord found in certain fragrances by Alessandro Gaultieri. I really hate this, and of course it's insidiously nuclear. Edit after wearing on skin: I'd sprayed this on card and found it intolerable, and I didn't want to wear it. However now I have it on my inner elbows and wrists (it was a free decant, and the decant sprayer allows me to do little sprays, mercifully). It's different on skin. The cheesy leather is muted, though still present, and the warmth of my skin brings out the resins, labdanum and orris. It's more tolerable. I will say, though, that for my tastes this perfume suffers from the same issue as Shem by Nishane, namely a cypriol/leather overdose. It's just too screechy and scratchy for me personally, and it stills feels likely to give me a headache or become irritating at some point. I'd say this is a perfume whose sillage is way better than if you smell it up close. And one small spray, away from the face and neck area, will suffice. Chris Maurice is incredibly prolific, and many people seem to love his perfumes, but I've yet to find anything close to subtlety in his work, instead it's a smorgasbord of shouting opulence which I can imagine would seem apt in a Dubai shopping mall. I agree with the below reviewer, that this is for bros. Bros who perhaps first fell in love with Sauvage and are now a bit older with a bit more money. --- Yeah, I'm 20 minutes in and I'm gonna have to scrub it off. --- Whoopdi-frigging-do, it's impossible to scrub off 🙄
Roses and play doh!
Boring generic designer. Smells like everything and everybody else.
Staggeringly good gingery, salty lily. It seems delicate in the opening but it deceptively enveloping and intoxicating. This perfume is pure class, perhaps a but too classy for me, but I'm glad I have a bottle. It's in my top five Malle fragrances. Performance is relentless.
I really like this, it's much more interesting than the name, marketing or general brand image would suggest. Despite the wealth of gourmand notes, I find it a little too soapy to be a gourmand, which is fine by me as there plenty of ice creamy, sweet perfumes of this type already. This is more like Noir Extreme but done through a summery, pistachio lens. It's quite subtle and delicate for the genre.
Strong fixative base, just like Homme A La Rose. Inexcusable for the price. There are hundreds of better rose fragrances for way less.
Licorice and TCP.
Xerjoff really do love putting out these sickly, tropical, caramel, fruit explosion nightmares don't they! It's so obnoxious, I struggle to think of any context where anyone would want to smell like this.
The sprayer is top notch, mercifully, meaning you can apply carefully and enjoy the wonderful BBQ wafts and smokey complexity. Smells unlike anything else (I haven't smelled any other Beauforts). Everything everyone says here is true, but I love it. Update: I've smelled loads of other Beauforts now, and many of them have this same smoke overload going on, but I think this is the least harsh of the smokey range.
