Top Notes 
Heart Notes 
Base Notes 
08/02/2012
jtd
484 Reviews
jtd
Top Review
7
the night sort of smells like this in my dreams
Rive Gauche has grown on me. I’ve always liked it, smelling it a bit late in the game in the early 1990s on a friend who had a perfect balance of chic and practicality. She had a discerning, unpretentious knack for picking from high and low cultures what suited her best. She wore Rive Gauche and it fit her perfectly.
Recently I wrote that I preferred Paco Rabanne’s Calandre to RG. Call me sometimey, but today I prefer RG. Their similarities allow their differences to come into view clearly. Calandre is an aldehydic rose floral that winds up with a vaguely bitter green chypre drydown that I wouldn’t have expected at the outset. It’s a beautiful trajectory over time. RG’s aldehydes last longer and move the rose into the sweet viscous shadow of a tonka/galbanum gumminess that feels like a thick incensy resin. Despite Calandre’s reference to metal (chrome grill), RG has more of a metallic feel. It’s cool with a bit of that flinty smell shared by metal and stone. There is a constant question among the perfume set. What is a good rose for men? Here’s your answer.
Recently I wrote that I preferred Paco Rabanne’s Calandre to RG. Call me sometimey, but today I prefer RG. Their similarities allow their differences to come into view clearly. Calandre is an aldehydic rose floral that winds up with a vaguely bitter green chypre drydown that I wouldn’t have expected at the outset. It’s a beautiful trajectory over time. RG’s aldehydes last longer and move the rose into the sweet viscous shadow of a tonka/galbanum gumminess that feels like a thick incensy resin. Despite Calandre’s reference to metal (chrome grill), RG has more of a metallic feel. It’s cool with a bit of that flinty smell shared by metal and stone. There is a constant question among the perfume set. What is a good rose for men? Here’s your answer.
