[perfume] My Etat Libre d'Orange samples
Mar. 26th, 2014 03:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettFAT ELECTRICIAN
semi-modern vetiver
sublime branleur
the curse of beauty
vetiver, chestnut cream, olive leaves, vanilla, opoponax, myrrh
So this one I got because I'm on a vetiver kick, I proper adore the other thing-with-olive-leaves I own (BPAL Alecto), and all of the notes are things I think sound tasty.
... and in the vial it smells like PVA glue. The thick white stuff you cover your fingers with and peel off when you're a small child? THAT. With a side-order of neat acetone (I'm a chemist; sue me) and something dark brown & woody desperately trying to get a word in edgeways underneath the PILE OF GLUE.
Wet on it's still acetone, but the olive and chestnut jump out.
Dry, it's got none of the spikiness I normally associate with vetiver; chestnut cream and olives, yes, and opoponax ditto, but I'm not getting any myrrh or vetiver, which is weird.
It's not PVA all the way down, but I'm not love either.
FILS DE DIEU
du riz et des agrumes
de la confusion des genres a la theorie du sexe des anges
he/she brings the sun
ginger, coriander, lime, shiso, coconut JE, jasmine, rice, cardamom JE, cinnamon, may rose, vetiver, musk, amber, castoreum...
In the bottle and wet on skin, this is pure lime juice - my mouth starts simultaneously watering and puckering over it. Cardamom comes out almost immediately, though, before the sharp notes start smoothing out into a vanilla-ish scent that's a combination of the amber and coconut and rice. The cinnamon's really restrained on me all the way through, which is lovely - the BPAL cinnamon note takes over absolutely everything else within about five minutes, on my skin, which means any BPAL scent containing cinnamon isn't worth it for me. Musk & vetiver start to come through at about ten minutes on, with the lime having faded back to a pretty discreet sharpness. Rice-and-amber still very much the body of the thing (but it's jasmine rice, naturally). The florals are really restrained on me, which I'm delighted about - I got this for the jasmine/vetiver/rice combination. There's not as much jasmine-vetiver as I was hoping for, but it's absolutely lovely in other respects, if decidedly gourmand and therefore not for everyone. Half an hour in and it settles down to the lovely amber-musk-jasmine rice edged with vetiver & lime, & swelling with musk that it stays as. It doesn't last amazingly on me, but it's good for 4-6 hours (depending on how much I'm wearing fabric over the place I've applied it). Subtle but really comforting.
NOEL AU BALCON
cette fille est un cadeau pour hommes trop sages
this girl is a gift for wise men
tangerine, vanilla, honey, orange blossom, apricot, red pepper, patchouli, musk, cistus, cinnamon, nigella
I have an abiding and enormous weakness for sweet citrus and apricot - it's the mandarin note at the top of Penhaligon's Endymion that got me hooked on perfume, not least because mixed in with the leather it goes through an early stage of smelling like apricots on me.
In the bottle this is the flowers - predominantly the orange blossom - with spikes from the red pepper and patchouli. Wet, it's instantly tangerine-and-florals with just a hint of patchouli, but the moment it's dry the apricot comes out to play, & it is ripe & gorgeous & delicious & layered with the vanilla and honey without smelling baked, with the tangerine lurking. And pretty soon after that comes the patchouli and musk and a hint of the spikiness of pepper, and the cinnamon (see my concerns above) subtle but noticeable -- but most of all the apricot, fuzzy and texturally perfect (I get very clear texture-and-colour off the apricot, that is how good it is).
This does go floral on me and I love it anyway, which is a deeply weird feeling - mostly I'm leery of them (partly because gender expression, but mostly because risk of hayfever). Orange blossom and the others over the vanilla and honey and just a whisper of the musk; the pepper doesn't stand out as an individual note, and nor does the patchouli, but it's obvious that it wouldn't be the same without them in. I really love this for the apricot in the opening, but I wear it with delight all the way down, because it's a crisp and precise and brilliant orange, and so very evocative of exactly what it says it is.
RIEN
nothing is everything
incense, rose, leather, iris, labdanum, mousse de chene, styrax, patchouli, amber, cumin, black pepper, aldehydes
... and this was my first ELdO perfume, acquired on the strength ofrydra_wong's rundown of the leathers. It had spilled a little in transit so the entire package smelled of it, and that little escaped bit is still enough to scent my room, and I am sorry that I am biased but I fucking adore this.
The aldehydes and black pepper make it very sharp in the bottle, but the leather is there & supple & gritty all at once all along. Oh, and incense. Wet, it starts out smoke-and-cumin sour, styrax and aldehyde and oakmoss and biting - but it pretty rapidly mellows into something rich & smooth & sweet & smoky leather, with the rose and labdanum and amber swelling out. Which is very nice, in its way, but for me this perfume is armour with the spikiness of the start and the rich leather of the body, so I started experimenting with layering to see if I could persuade it to stay sharp without losing heart.
Turns out, a splash of No4711 over the top does that exactly. (No4711, by the way, is the original eau de cologne, the reason they are called that and the base formula for, well, things that call themselves colognes, at least in the traditional sense, and was my Grossmutti's favourite.)
TOL asked me to put together an introduction to butch perfumes for her birthday. She showed up to my housewarming wearing perfume already so I couldn't put things on her; but by the time she was leaving, they'd worn off, and I asked if I could try just one scent. This was it.
She fell instantly in love, even though it goes even softer & sweeter on her without the No4711 than it does on me (though interestingly, the layering works the same for her skin chemistry as it does for mine).
I got her a bottle.
I have been delighting ever since in the moment when a member of the polymer who hasn't met it before will bury their head in her neck and go "you smell gooood." It is a very nice feeling indeed. I may be just a little bit smug. ;)
semi-modern vetiver
sublime branleur
the curse of beauty
vetiver, chestnut cream, olive leaves, vanilla, opoponax, myrrh
So this one I got because I'm on a vetiver kick, I proper adore the other thing-with-olive-leaves I own (BPAL Alecto), and all of the notes are things I think sound tasty.
... and in the vial it smells like PVA glue. The thick white stuff you cover your fingers with and peel off when you're a small child? THAT. With a side-order of neat acetone (I'm a chemist; sue me) and something dark brown & woody desperately trying to get a word in edgeways underneath the PILE OF GLUE.
Wet on it's still acetone, but the olive and chestnut jump out.
Dry, it's got none of the spikiness I normally associate with vetiver; chestnut cream and olives, yes, and opoponax ditto, but I'm not getting any myrrh or vetiver, which is weird.
It's not PVA all the way down, but I'm not love either.
FILS DE DIEU
du riz et des agrumes
de la confusion des genres a la theorie du sexe des anges
he/she brings the sun
ginger, coriander, lime, shiso, coconut JE, jasmine, rice, cardamom JE, cinnamon, may rose, vetiver, musk, amber, castoreum...
In the bottle and wet on skin, this is pure lime juice - my mouth starts simultaneously watering and puckering over it. Cardamom comes out almost immediately, though, before the sharp notes start smoothing out into a vanilla-ish scent that's a combination of the amber and coconut and rice. The cinnamon's really restrained on me all the way through, which is lovely - the BPAL cinnamon note takes over absolutely everything else within about five minutes, on my skin, which means any BPAL scent containing cinnamon isn't worth it for me. Musk & vetiver start to come through at about ten minutes on, with the lime having faded back to a pretty discreet sharpness. Rice-and-amber still very much the body of the thing (but it's jasmine rice, naturally). The florals are really restrained on me, which I'm delighted about - I got this for the jasmine/vetiver/rice combination. There's not as much jasmine-vetiver as I was hoping for, but it's absolutely lovely in other respects, if decidedly gourmand and therefore not for everyone. Half an hour in and it settles down to the lovely amber-musk-jasmine rice edged with vetiver & lime, & swelling with musk that it stays as. It doesn't last amazingly on me, but it's good for 4-6 hours (depending on how much I'm wearing fabric over the place I've applied it). Subtle but really comforting.
NOEL AU BALCON
cette fille est un cadeau pour hommes trop sages
this girl is a gift for wise men
tangerine, vanilla, honey, orange blossom, apricot, red pepper, patchouli, musk, cistus, cinnamon, nigella
I have an abiding and enormous weakness for sweet citrus and apricot - it's the mandarin note at the top of Penhaligon's Endymion that got me hooked on perfume, not least because mixed in with the leather it goes through an early stage of smelling like apricots on me.
In the bottle this is the flowers - predominantly the orange blossom - with spikes from the red pepper and patchouli. Wet, it's instantly tangerine-and-florals with just a hint of patchouli, but the moment it's dry the apricot comes out to play, & it is ripe & gorgeous & delicious & layered with the vanilla and honey without smelling baked, with the tangerine lurking. And pretty soon after that comes the patchouli and musk and a hint of the spikiness of pepper, and the cinnamon (see my concerns above) subtle but noticeable -- but most of all the apricot, fuzzy and texturally perfect (I get very clear texture-and-colour off the apricot, that is how good it is).
This does go floral on me and I love it anyway, which is a deeply weird feeling - mostly I'm leery of them (partly because gender expression, but mostly because risk of hayfever). Orange blossom and the others over the vanilla and honey and just a whisper of the musk; the pepper doesn't stand out as an individual note, and nor does the patchouli, but it's obvious that it wouldn't be the same without them in. I really love this for the apricot in the opening, but I wear it with delight all the way down, because it's a crisp and precise and brilliant orange, and so very evocative of exactly what it says it is.
RIEN
nothing is everything
incense, rose, leather, iris, labdanum, mousse de chene, styrax, patchouli, amber, cumin, black pepper, aldehydes
... and this was my first ELdO perfume, acquired on the strength of
rydra_wong's rundown of the leathers. It had spilled a little in transit so the entire package smelled of it, and that little escaped bit is still enough to scent my room, and I am sorry that I am biased but I fucking adore this.The aldehydes and black pepper make it very sharp in the bottle, but the leather is there & supple & gritty all at once all along. Oh, and incense. Wet, it starts out smoke-and-cumin sour, styrax and aldehyde and oakmoss and biting - but it pretty rapidly mellows into something rich & smooth & sweet & smoky leather, with the rose and labdanum and amber swelling out. Which is very nice, in its way, but for me this perfume is armour with the spikiness of the start and the rich leather of the body, so I started experimenting with layering to see if I could persuade it to stay sharp without losing heart.
Turns out, a splash of No4711 over the top does that exactly. (No4711, by the way, is the original eau de cologne, the reason they are called that and the base formula for, well, things that call themselves colognes, at least in the traditional sense, and was my Grossmutti's favourite.)
TOL asked me to put together an introduction to butch perfumes for her birthday. She showed up to my housewarming wearing perfume already so I couldn't put things on her; but by the time she was leaving, they'd worn off, and I asked if I could try just one scent. This was it.
She fell instantly in love, even though it goes even softer & sweeter on her without the No4711 than it does on me (though interestingly, the layering works the same for her skin chemistry as it does for mine).
I got her a bottle.
I have been delighting ever since in the moment when a member of the polymer who hasn't met it before will bury their head in her neck and go "you smell gooood." It is a very nice feeling indeed. I may be just a little bit smug. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-26 07:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-27 01:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-28 05:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-28 12:41 am (UTC)/drive-by from Rydra's link
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-28 12:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-27 01:39 pm (UTC)That definitely sounds like one of the satisfactions of poly. I'm drawing an analogy to how I feel when friend A successfully recommends a book to friend B which I had first recommended to friend A.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-27 01:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-27 05:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-28 12:55 pm (UTC)