What did you try today? (2023)

[PaTomas]

Yes, I tried for the first time upon blind buying a full bottle off a friend's recommendation. How well can a friend know you! I love this scent and would consider it worthy of signature. It's fascinating because its reminiscent of some sweet spicey, and to me, unrefined designers like Spicebomb and The One (Sorry to those fans), but after the beautiful opening, an oud texture smoothed by sandalwood and moving together with lavender and nutmeg (I detect) make a warm polished classy fragrance.

 

[Melbourne21]

1st wearing of FdB Solstis today - not bad.

 

[hednic]

I tried Vanille Riviera by Maison Rebatchi which I found to be a wonderful vanilla scent with very good performance.

 

[Mythrol]

Davidoff Adventure Eau Fraiche.

A nice citrus, woodsy, musk. Perfectly acceptable and wearable as an everyday scent. Good enough that it made my cut of fragrances I'd keep and wear vs sell or get rid of. I'll use it as an office / go into store type fragrance. If you find it at a discounter or for a cheap price it's a safe blind buy for someone looking for an office scent but I wouldn't pay marked up prices or go chasing after it. Like hundreds of other fragrances I've tried it sits in that 6 or 7/10 range that is good but not spectacular.

 

[PStoller]

Vivamor - Tobacco Supreme

…the ultimate tobacco fragrance…

Whether Tobacco Supreme is “the ultimate tobacco fragrance” depends on what sort of tobacco you want. This is of the Tobacco Vanille stripe: mild, sweetened, mass-appealing pipe tobacco. (Dr. T. remarked that I was wearing candy, and she didn’t mean it as a compliment.) I prefer it to the Tom Ford, as I get plenty of tobacco, albeit thoroughly defanged, and not so much vanilla. Aside from the candied amber, I think I detect the tiniest bit of (synth) guaiac, but otherwise all the lovely notes in the pyramid elude my nose.

The result is pretty straightforward. It’s quite good of its kind, but I wouldn’t call its kind “ultimate” or “supreme.” Had there been some real interplay between the tobacco and the alleged florals—and had it relied more on the rose than high-fructose amber for the sweetness—it might have been more captivating. Still, if you love Tobacco Vanille, this might just curl your toes.

 

[RedRaider430]

Mature Premiere Bois d'Ebene: Thought I was really going to like this when first sprayed. But not 20 minutes later....

 

[hednic]

I tried Rougewood by Maison Rebatchi which I loved.

 

[hollywoodforever]

Musc 25 by Le Labo (Los Angeles City Exclusive)

It's nice. It shares a LOT in common with Kiehl's Original Musk, but Musc 25 is a sharper, sparklier, "more expensive" smelling take on that classic. There's a lovely fruitiness up top, and some vetiver in the base. 100% unisex. The price is absolutely offensive.

An attempt to conjure the brilliant highlights and dark shadows of Southern California... 3/5

 

[Schubertian]

I'm wearing Cuir d'orient (Sous le Manteau) on one arm and Cuir velours (Naomi Goodsir) on the other as I type this.
Earlier in the day I tried Dior's Gris Dior and Bois d'Argent at the store (on skin).

I see reviews are lukewarm about Cuir velours - but I'm loving it. Sooo lovely. I have to wear it properly because it is fairly sweet and there is a fruitiness. Sweetness can sometimes do a trick on me: smelled in a limited way the scent is amazing, but quickly becomes cloying on full wearing. (Edited to add: it did turn quite sweet in the drydow and more fruity than leathery for sure.)

Cuir d'orient I can't smell much, and I wonder if it's because it is very soft or because I'm partially anosmic to it.
Neither smells very leathery to me, more like very plush suede mixed with other notes.

I was a bit disappointed in the Diors. I realised now why Bois d'Argent is compared to VcA Bois d'Iris; they are highly similar. The Dior is perhaps a tad less sweet, and a bit sharper if I can put it like that. I didn't like it very much. Gris Dior.... well I got something very soft, quite pleasant, nice - but fuzzy and indistinct. Certainly nothing I'd blindly swear costs €225 a bottle. Glad I tried.

 

[Schubertian]

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable response to Dryad. I've come to really appreciate it after sampling several times, but I still find it a bit heavy - more of a cold weather scent than I was expecting given the notes. All told, it feels quite dense and "perfumey" for lack of a better word, though the ingredient quality seems quite high. I'm nearly done with my sample and might pick up a decant at some point, but I doubt I'll spring for a full bottle.

I adore chypres, and I really like Dryad. I agree it's not light or fresh at all, rather dense and lush. Like you I don't think it's a summer perfume; I found it worked well recently when I wore it, and also in the autumn. I haven't found it very similar with any other of the chypre genre that I've tried, so in that sense it would be a worthy addition to my stash - but a decant would make more sense because it's not that often I'm in the mood for Dryad.

 

[PStoller]

Another week, another house:



As seems to be the vogue these days, an old French house has been revived, this time by the grandchildren of the founder—or rather, of the founder’s wife, a distinction the website doesn’t explain, but that suggests her children were conceived in another union. Whatever. The relevant part of the story is that five of the initial six offerings by the house are reinterpretations of Volnay scents from roughly a century ago, based on original formulae but tweaked to modern sensibilities and restrictions. The sixth is a new composition inspired by one of the revivals.

I have samples of four of the six, including the modern one and its inspiration. I’ll try those last. Up first:



Volnay - Ambre de Siam

This perfume is a dream of Asia. Using ingredients from Indochina in 1920, René Duval and Germaine Madeline created a captivating fragrance. The woody notes take us to the heart of the myths of the colonial empire, Saigon, the Mekong, the rubber plantations, Cochinchina, the golds of the palaces of Siam are revealed in an accord of exotic scents like an imaginary and sensory journey.

This magnificent perfume of ambers, resins and woods is sublimated by the very original association of ginger and bergamot. Soft and delicate, warm and tasty, its power of seduction is amplified thanks to the sensuality of saffron. When you wear Ambre de Siam, you feel a sense of serenity because its aura is comforting.

Last week, I didn’t quote a lot of the Vivamor promotional text because it was mostly a few semi-random adjectives and verbs stringing together the notes in the pyramid. Somewhat useful if one hasn’t the note pyramid at hand, otherwise lame, though at least not the puffier puffery common to perfume marketing.

Volnay’s little essay on Ambre de Siam likewise doesn’t drip with purple prose, but it indulges in the sort of colonialist orientalism that should be consigned to the era of the original 1919 issue, not revived along with the perfume in 2015. I’m not sure why Volnay has chosen to romanticize rubber plantations, or to emphasize Indochina (including Cochinchina and Saigon). Would you advertise Ambre de France with references to Florence?

That pet peeve aside, Ambre de Siam is a nice enough amber, which as usual I note is not my favorite genre. Dr. T. says she likes it, and that it reminds her of Samsara or perhaps Samsara Shine. For my part, I could have used more of the ancillary notes—the “envolée” of ginger, bergamot, and green tea, or the “caractère” of incense, cedar, and sandalwood—rather than the white musk, benzoin, Cashmeran, and “Amber Wood.”

I should also note the historical “base 4092,” the creation of Volnay’s founding perfumer Rene Duval, which Volnay now describes as powder, dew, vanilla, and clove. Alas, I’m only getting vanilla, possibly not from 4092.

Bottom line: I found Ambre de Siam pleasant but unremarkable. Although the aromachems aren’t amped up to the levels of the more egregious designer fare, I don’t detect either the creative ambition or reverence for the past suggested in the marketing hype.

Time to wash it off and see if my wife’s Samsara really smells similar.*

*No. Or at least, not to me. Dr. T. explained that there was a single note she rarely smells that she detects as common between the two; whereas, for me, the totality is so different that a common single note isn’t relevant.

 

[Schubertian]

^ PStoller, you are indefatigable! Lucky for the rest of us.

(I have suspicions about most of these trendy revivals of old perfume houses... mainly because they can't possibly actually revive old scent profiles with the restrictions or outright bans on key ingredients that we have today, and the "reinterpretations", as you say, are also carefully tuned to modern tastes to make sure they actually sell. They seem to me more like yet another way to make up a fluffy brand story than any serious attempt to recreate an old masterpiece. But maybe that's just me being very, very cynical and grumpy today.)

 

[Pheusinger]

https://basenotes.com/fragrances/sybaris-antonio-puig.26121546

 

[hednic]

I tried Cuir Nilam by Atelier Materi which I absolutely loved.

 

[Akahina]

I just splashed on some Rania J. Ambre Loup for the first time. This is a bit different somehow. Drier, spicier and a vanilla that is maybe restrained by spice and woods? I'm not really a fan of vanilla...

I discovered this brand last week at Fumerie. I was impressed with every one on paper, even the ones not my style were impressive.

 

[PStoller]

I have suspicions about most of these trendy revivals of old perfume houses... mainly because they can't possibly actually revive old scent profiles with the restrictions or outright bans on key ingredients that we have today, and the "reinterpretations", as you say, are also carefully tuned to modern tastes to make sure they actually sell. They seem to me more like yet another way to make up a fluffy brand story than any serious attempt to recreate an old masterpiece. But maybe that's just me being very, very cynical and grumpy today.

I tend to agree with you. I was impressed by what Barry Gibson achieved in reviving Crown Perfumery in the 1990s, but times were different and he was in a unique position with his access to old formulae. (I keep trying to acquire samples from Gibson’s new house, Art of the Perfumer, but after several unanswered emails, I suspect the business is DOA.)

Volnay may have grandpa’s old recipes, but it’s a safe bet those didn’t use ambroxan and cashmeran. While I’m all for the heirs capitalizing on their inheritance, I would hope that respect for it would be embodied in the actual fragrances, not just the marketing and packaging. We’ll see how the other samples go. The reborn Maison Violet has a couple of winners; hope remains alive for Volnay.

 

[Tea_Lilly]

I’m off to scrub, because nothing here merits marital discord.

No truer words have been spoken.

 

[PStoller]

Volnay - Brume d’Hiver (Winter Mist)

Heir to "Rose Brumaire" created by René Duval in 1922, this transparent and luminous rose is associated with bois de oud and vetiver, whose original accord combines femininity and masculinity. It is a spicy-woody that draws you into a freshness with teak scents associated with the exotic and sensual note of cypriol (papyrus).

The fresh timidity of the first notes rises in power and curls up in the reassuring and warm trail of warm, slightly spicy wood, as winter encourages us to curl up by the fireside.

I’m not quite sure what the promo prose is trying to say, but let’s be nice and chalk it up to Google Translate. While I didn’t click every note wafting by, Brume d’Hiver does feature a cool, translucent rose, abetted but not overshadowed by judicious use of contemporary aromachems. Otherwise, it feels much more in the respectful spirit of perfumery past than did Amber de Siam. Yet, it doesn’t smell antiquated.

I’m not sure Brume d’Hiver separates itself sufficiently from the plethora of other roses out there to clinch a “must try,” but it’s well worth sampling if you want something in the family that bridges generations. There’s hope for this house yet.

 

[Tea_Lilly]

Nine hours later after application and the synthetic sweetness is still hanging around. It's still the exact same smell but what was inoffensive if not particularly pleasant nine hours ago is heavily overstaying its welcome.

Starting to debate if I have to take back what I said about this not being a scrubber, because I am getting sorely tempted...

Update: Scrubbed and finding myself wishing I did that sooner!

Thanks so much for the info - I almost bought a sample of that today - now glad I didn't.

 

[Tea_Lilly]

Chanel no. 18. I liked it when I smelled the porcelain jar in the shop - so I got a sample and so glad I did.

At first all I could smell is cumin, then some pencil shavings - then the florals on top. Close up, the cumin/shavings eclipsed the other notes, but the scent was more pleasant from further away, as I could detect the florals.

I'm really glad that I tried this first and did not blind buy.