Top Notes 
Heart Notes 
Base Notes 
02/02/2013
Greysolon
74 Reviews
Greysolon
2
A fragrance out of the past
Even though this is the first review of Eau Divine to appear on Parfumo I’m going to go ahead and predict that it will be rated unfavorably by many people because elements of its oriental genre are often perceived as being old fashioned and cliche. That would be an unfortunate and superficial view of this complex and interesting fragrance.
Eau Divine shares many aesthetic traits with Chanel Allure Homme and therefore, like Allure, will be scorned for not being particularly original or in keeping with current fragrance trends. Like Allure, Eau Divine is something of an old soul in the fragrance world. What I mean by an “old soul” is that it’s a relatively new release that, in spite of it’s youth, uses the fragrance vocabulary of an earlier era. Not simply a vocabulary that’s “so last year”, but one that seems grandiloquent and antiquated. That’s just fine with me. I live my life as a musician admiring art from the past and fragrances are no different.
Just as when I wear Allure, Eau Divine brings to mind the art, design and popular oriental trends of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s a swirling, complex arabesque of a fragrance that seems to embody the artistic qualities of (as I similarly noted in my review of Allure) the Impressionistic music of Claude Debussy and the Art Nouveau complexity of Gustav Klimt. I’m certainly not synesthetic but I always imagine the opulent use of gold in Klimt’s paintings when I wear Eau Divine or Allure.
The sad thing is that for all the craft and care that has gone into Eau Divine I think it will find a small audience. If this were a vintage perfume formulated in 1912 everybody would be gushing with nostalgia over it. Instead, many will simply call it ordinary or old fashioned. An old lady's perfume.
The promotional copy for Eau Divine reads:
“Crystalline, the first notes emerge... from the top, Eau Divine combines the green coolness of Italian citrus with the sparkle of spices...”
“Crystalline” and “sparkle” are the last adjectives I would use to describe the top notes of Eau Divine. The blend of top notes is very complex yet beautiful and rich; an opaque oil painting of citrus and florals. As the fragrance develops it becomes more open, more translucent and, as I mentioned previously, develops a swirling arabesque quality of harmoniously blended florals, citrus and spice.
While I’d describe both Eau Divine and Allure as opulent, I tend more towards Allure because it’s deeper and more blended, which I prefer in an oriental fragrance. If you’ve been looking for a more open and layered oriental similar to Allure then you may find Eau Divine more to your liking.
Eau Divine shares many aesthetic traits with Chanel Allure Homme and therefore, like Allure, will be scorned for not being particularly original or in keeping with current fragrance trends. Like Allure, Eau Divine is something of an old soul in the fragrance world. What I mean by an “old soul” is that it’s a relatively new release that, in spite of it’s youth, uses the fragrance vocabulary of an earlier era. Not simply a vocabulary that’s “so last year”, but one that seems grandiloquent and antiquated. That’s just fine with me. I live my life as a musician admiring art from the past and fragrances are no different.
Just as when I wear Allure, Eau Divine brings to mind the art, design and popular oriental trends of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s a swirling, complex arabesque of a fragrance that seems to embody the artistic qualities of (as I similarly noted in my review of Allure) the Impressionistic music of Claude Debussy and the Art Nouveau complexity of Gustav Klimt. I’m certainly not synesthetic but I always imagine the opulent use of gold in Klimt’s paintings when I wear Eau Divine or Allure.
The sad thing is that for all the craft and care that has gone into Eau Divine I think it will find a small audience. If this were a vintage perfume formulated in 1912 everybody would be gushing with nostalgia over it. Instead, many will simply call it ordinary or old fashioned. An old lady's perfume.
The promotional copy for Eau Divine reads:
“Crystalline, the first notes emerge... from the top, Eau Divine combines the green coolness of Italian citrus with the sparkle of spices...”
“Crystalline” and “sparkle” are the last adjectives I would use to describe the top notes of Eau Divine. The blend of top notes is very complex yet beautiful and rich; an opaque oil painting of citrus and florals. As the fragrance develops it becomes more open, more translucent and, as I mentioned previously, develops a swirling arabesque quality of harmoniously blended florals, citrus and spice.
While I’d describe both Eau Divine and Allure as opulent, I tend more towards Allure because it’s deeper and more blended, which I prefer in an oriental fragrance. If you’ve been looking for a more open and layered oriental similar to Allure then you may find Eau Divine more to your liking.
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