Rien Intense Incense
Etat Libre d'Orange (2014)

Rien Intense is a spikey leather chypre, surprising similar to Knize Ten but with a bit more sweet spice, incense, and florals. Long lasting. Moderate sillage with a mostly linear dry down. Outstanding.

Nothing succeeds like excess, I suppose. Rien Intense Incense by Etat Libre d"Orange (2014) is for the person that somehow thought the original Rien by Etat Libre d'Orange (2006) wasn't potent enough. Here. we see the same ode to Pierre Bourdon's work in Kouros by Yves Saint Laurent (1981), still removed from the fougère elements as the original was, but now moving somewhat away from the substituting leather chypre structure of Rien, to something more like a liturgical incense or Middle-Eastern olibanum bomb. You'll feel "sucked into a bagel" of oblivion just like the movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, except you won't win an Academy Award for you efforts, just ushered out of the movie theater for stinking up the place. This is very much a one or two spray fragrance at max. and puts even the deep vintage Charles of the Ritz production run of Kouros to shame with the sheer intensity of the so-called urinal cake notes, although deep vintage Kouros may still feel somewhat more animalic because it is rounder, so the animalis notes there can shine. Here in Rien Intense Incense, the animalics and leather end up under a pile of unburned incense sticks.

For those who don't know, "Rien" means "of nothing" in French, which is part of the humor, having such an intensely animalic and strident fragrance as Rien was. Composed by Antoine Lie for ELDO, Rien gave the vintage heads everything they thought was gone forever in fragrance, and he gave it in a way that the profile still felt fresh and exciting, or at least challenging. With Rien Intense Incense, the old-school alipathic aldehydes take a step down from the lead, and in their place we see more rubbery, leathery, ambery touches take hold. Davana is the cause for some of this, and more cumin alongside what I detect as more birch is the rest. Rose, orris, black pepper, and labdanum all make a showing like the original, while vetiver creeps into the fragrance alongside the animalis musk note (similar to civet), giving a barnyard feeling like the discontiinued Dzing! by L'Artisan Parfumeur (1999). After that, the frankincense takes over, merging with the leather and musks, the spice, and an oily layer of patchouli based out with an oakmoss accord. If the Vin Diesel movie Pitch Black had a fragrance, this one would be it, for sure. Performance need not be mentioned here. This one will last until you sand-blast it from skin.

Running right up against some of the strongest Amouage and Bogart fragrances I have ever smelled, Rien Intense Incense will go down in history among fragrance aficionados as the scent that managed to out-Kouros the almighty Kouros itself, out-Gold-Manning Amouage Gold Man (1983), and out-Bogarting the great Bogart One Man Show (1980). If you want a scent that looks at both the early 80's powerhouse era, and the Middle Eastern market, then says "hold my beer", Rien Intense Incense is for you. Unlike Rien, which has some slight homoerotic overtones as many Etat Libre d"Orange scents do, Rien Intense Incense is just so butch, so black-leather-and-jack-boots, that it feels less like a bondage bar, and more like a movie in the Hostel series by Eli Roth. There are no safe words for Rien Intense Incense, and it will have its way with you, whether you survive or not being of no concern, since there is an endless stream of tourists to kidnap in your place once the guy in the gas mask has finished turning you into kibble. You think I exaggerate? Go sample this fragrance and see for yourself. Call out of work the next day too, you'll need it. Thumbs up

Very smoky, leathery, unique and animalic. Reminds me of an oriental kind of store where they sell buddha's and other oriental gifts. Not in a bad way tho. Blind bought this scent and i love it. Not wearable at all for me but still a successful blind buy.

7/10

On one hand, the most beautiful, piney incense I've ever sampled.

On the other, urinal cake.

I can't reconcile the two, and it is an absolute travesty. Nuclear performance, great longevity, beautiful notes, but stewing brightly in a urinal cake bowl.

7/10, maybe your skin chemistry and climate will fare better than I

Smells exactly like the original Rien...for the extra money, and uselessly large bottle (considering the brute strength), this seems totally unnecessary.

Holy Toledo, Rien is a mega-aldehydic incense torpedo suited up in black leather. Talk about a stratospheric detonation of diffusive perfumery to the nth degree. Not to fear, however, Rien, for everything that its paradox of a name suggests otherwise, has a sparkling, exultant beauty that harkens back to the legacy of Ernest Beaux and his introduction of alipathic aldehyde overdoses in Chanel No. 5 coupled with the addition of muscled, burly, alpha-male trope heavy-hitters of the 70s and early 80s. The resinous incense in Rien is really the showstopper here, it reminds me of all those brightly-hued incense sticks one might peruse through at a head shop, with names like "Tarot," "Wild Nights," "Butt Naked," "My Queen." Somehow, Spencer's Gifts vibes aside, it is really addictive and somehow works to create this accord evoking so many memories of youth and rapturous restlessness (the memories one may actually want to revisit from adolescence and early adulthood).

Rien is the straight man, however, for Rien Intense Incense, which with just one single spray seems like an olfactory wormhole, a vortex pulling everything and everyone in. While the olibanum in Rien has a major role of equal billing to the leather, with Intense Incense, it is a brick of olibanum, incense in overdrive, still brimming with every alipathic aldehyde available for perfume use, and the addition of mutant orris root that is waxy, crayon-like, play-doh like, almost igniting deep within the recesses of the hippocampus distant memories of kindergarten. It must be dealt with a light hand, as it is surely one of the most potent, tenacious fragrances I've ever encountered. Utterly fascinating, with this bottle lasting several lifetimes, epochs, dimensions, matrices.

sharp, spicy, floral, incense, hints of violet. It is definitely for party wear. Life of party.

It's similar to narciscos edp version in tonality and some overlap of notes. However, rien ii is much much better.

It is a unique fragrance. Must have for those who want to create an air of mystery to those evening get together Club nights.

On the other side of the wormhole, I’ve found Etat Libre d'Orange’s Rien Incense Intense (RII), after surviving similarly sharp, medicinal fragrances like Montale’s Black Aoud and other “incense bombs” like Amouage’s Interlude Man. This is where I have arrived after all the roses, like Frederic Malle’s Portrait of a Lady or Aramis’ Calligraphy Rose. This is the future in which I’ve somehow returned to my earliest days of daubing Myrrh EO all over my body in abandon. Here, burnt rubber abounds, the remnants of sweet new tires, and, at the higher altitudes, something ethereal, like a matchstick, to remind the world that serious playfulness requires both resolve and risk.

The more I smell Rien Intense Incense, the more I realize the following paradox: no scent like this could last forever and yet this one does. The depths of space contain the debris of nothingness, and that is, in fact, intense. By adding incense to fumigate the void, Etat Libre d'Orange adds irony to the day.

Whatever notes are in this are entirely and utterly smooshed by an enormous note of turpentine.

All it's good for is cleaning paint brushes.

2.5/10
(If it wasn’t for the bottle design it would be a 1/10)

This is a big, bold fragrance. The top is too edgy for me. I could maybe grow into it.

After it develops for an hour or so, the harshness fades, and it's a more wearable, straightforward frankincense fragrance. This phase lasts so long, I'm giving this a thumbs up.

Blade Runner by Ridley Scott 1982

I've had an interesting time getting to know Rien Intense Incense. It mostly smells like quinoline, that leather chemical made most famous by Tom Ford's Tuscan Leather, but matched with incense. But not the creamy frankincense I expected, but instead very green and mulchy, like opoponax or galbanum. There's also a quiet sparkle of lemon champagne alhedydes, and something in there gives it an unexpected sweetness. In a way, it reminds me of a terrible accident at a Home Depot, a caustic puddle of paint and chemical fertilizer and rat poison and burnt wood, spritzed with a pinch of Chanel No 5. If that sounds terrible, it kind of is, but it's also utterly compelling.

The first time I wore Intense Incense, I loved it. The unique combination of smells had me completely enthralled. Unfortunately, the following times, I was out in public more and started being bothered by how strong and sharp and frankly, just weird it smelled. This simply isn't a perfume for non-perfume people, and it's got nuclear strength, so there's no hiding from it.

In all, I just have to give it a thumbs up for creativity, but I would never go through more than a little sample of this.