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Serpentine (2014)

Serpentine by Comme des Garçons
Bottle Design: Tracey Emin
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7.6 / 10     57 RatingsRatingsRatings
Serpentine is a popular perfume by Comme des Garçons for women and men and was released in 2014. The scent is green-fresh. It is being marketed by Puig.

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Perfumer

Emilie Bevierre-Coppermann

Fragrance Notes

Top Notes Top NotesGrass, Leaves, Galbanum, Iris
Heart Notes Heart NotesAldehydes, Ozonic notes, Musk, Nutmeg
Base Notes Base NotesLabdanum, Cedarwood, Benzoin, Juniper, Gaiac wood

Ratings

Scent

7.6 (57 Ratings)

Longevity

5.7 (38 Ratings)

Sillage

4.9 (39 Ratings)

Bottle

7.1 (45 Ratings)
Submitted by Michael, last update on 21.04.2019

Interesting Facts

This is a collaboration with London's Serpentine Galleries.
Serpentine's box has been designed by the artist Tracey Emin as well.

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Reviews

ColinM

516 Reviews
ColinM
ColinM
Helpful Review    3
Rich minimalism
Serpentine opens with an unexpectedly vibrant and realistic lime-green accord with a slight creamy note underneath, and also a really subtle candied feel that reminds me of elemi, and something bitter-green that resembles to lentiscus. Hyper-clean and minimal and with a contrasting soapy-powdery aftertaste providing a cozy “freshly ironed shirt” effect, and a light woody base, yet not that synthetic or abstract; the greenness is restrained and thin, but it’s sharp and natural in its own transparent way, at least at the opening stage. This thin texture is what fascinates me for the first couple of hours: the scent is vibrant and “alive”, and the sillage is solid (probably thanks to aldehydes too), but at the same time it’s incredibly subtle and faint. I don’t know how they did that, but as much contradictory as it may sound, Serpentine smells rich and minimalist at the same time, and as I said, not that synthetic as one may expect. After one hour or so, on my skin Serpentine gets warmer, more “greyish”, always clean and soapy-green but with a sort of more abstract feel, as if the initial greenness slowly faded away bringing Serpentine on a more and more “lunar” field, depersonalizing the scent until it reaches an enjoyable stage of pure grey-musky cleanness, almost mineral or concrete-like, with just a subtle, foggy pink-grey breeze of anodyne powdery-soapy notes. It’s like watching a timelapse video of a natural landscape becoming more and more deserted. And that is the drydown for quite long, which after a while, once this brilliant transition ends, gets honestly a bit boring – I get the pleasure of “grey-clean-soapy” notes, just not for that long. Apart from this, which is just my taste, I personally consider Serpentine a clever, interesting, versatile, pleasant and truly “contemporary” scent surely worth a try (not sure about the purchase, as it's a bit costly).

7,5-8/10
5.0 5.0 5.0 8.0/10
Drseid

670 Reviews
Drseid
Drseid
4
How Comme des Garcons Does Fresh...
Serpentine opens with an extremely fresh aldehyde-laced airy ozonic accord shortly adding hints of green fresh cut grass in the background. As the composition transitions to its early heart the aldehyde led ozonic accord remains, now joining light synthetic musk and mild powdery iris in support. Through the heart the white musk and iris very gradually give way to a woody incense-like accord that grows in intensity though never quite matching the strength of the aldehydes. During the late dry-down soft cedarwood takes on the starring role with a blend of very mild spice and remnants of the powdery iris remaining in support through the finish. Projection is average, as is longevity at 7-9 hours on skin.

Serpentine to the unobservant may be dismissed as "just another fresh composition," but that really doesn't come close to doing it justice. It is true it starts off extremely airy and ozonic, somewhat resembling a very mildly perfumed ozonic air freshener, but where things get interesting, however, is when the composition transitions seamlessly through its many phases. First it adds the green tinge of fresh cut grass, next adding powdery musky facets to the ozonic mix resembling linoleum, then again swapping in woody incense to the weave playing with the fresh aspects in the latter heart and finishing as lightly-spiced soft powdered woods. The journey tells a nice story and proves there is a lot more to Serpentine than one might first assume. Like most Comme des Garcons compositions Serpentine comes off synthetic at times, but it is obviously intentional here and meshing perfectly with the house style. What is not always a guarantee with Comme des Garcons is whether one would want to wear some of their offerings but in Serpentine there is no need to fear as this is probably the easiest offering from the house to put on daily if desired. On the flip side, the official notes list contains some rather avant garde notes and accords like "a little bit of pollution," but while the linoleum is kind of quirky the more "out there" aspects never really materialize, and maybe that is a good thing. The bottom line is the $95 per 50ml bottle Serpentine is an ever developing fresh composition from Comme des Garcons that is worthy of the house's great synthetic innovative heritage, earning a "very good" to "excellent" 3.5 to 4 stars out of 5 rating and a solid recommendation.

Statements

Lillibet 16 months ago
Reminds me of walking in a city park. You can smell the crisp grassy green notes but underneath is the ozonic scent of the city traffic.+2
7.0
5.0
5.0
7.5

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