Soul Costume National 2015

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8.0 / 10163 Ratings

Soul is a popular perfume by Costume National for women and men and was released in 2015. The scent is spicy-woody. The longevity is above-average. It is being marketed by Beauty San.

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Perfumer

Dominique Ropion

Fragrance Notes

Top Notes	Bergamot Cardamom Pink pepper
Heart Notes	Geranium Leather Oud
Base Notes	Ambergris Vanilla Patchouli

Ratings

Scent

8.0163 Ratings

Longevity

8.1142 Ratings

Sillage

7.6144 Ratings

Bottle

7.5135 Ratings

Value for money

8.156 Ratings

Submitted by Michael, last update on 25.05.2022.

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Reviews

07/20/2021

6.5
Scent 8
Longevity 8
Sillage 7
Bottle 4
Pricing

Carlitos01
347 Reviews

Carlitos01

Helpful Review 5

Not my Soul mate

[short review]
Today I woke up a bit sour and perhaps my state of mind has been reflected in this brief analysis. However, I was determined to test this perfume for the first time. Hopefully, I did it seriously.
Upon spraying, I felt a synthetic whiff of fruity notes together with amber and musk. However, they seemed to be somewhat dry and boring. They arrived with a smoked vanilla praline blending that felt quite artificial. All the way throughout the evolution, it was easy to feel a reasonably strong agarwood background, but it looked like a strange kind of oud mixed with nuts and dried fruits, very medicinal, and with noticeable nuances of leathery patchouli. There was also a salty sensation certainly coming from the ambergris note.
The overall result is an intense perfume, with very identifiable medicinal oud and earthy patchouli notes, and an ethereal salty amber. It looks like an M7 flanker to me, but a notoriously synthetic one.
I think Dominique Ropion knows how to do much better when creating oriental fragrances. Eventually, the budget became too short for series production. One feels that the concentration was generous enough, but the choice of ingredients was at least poor. I've seen the same thing happen to other perfumes, and many of them were more expensive than this one. Several Middle East houses make better versions of easy to use oriental oud perfumes and at more affordable prices. Costume National has already done better as well.
Maybe Soul may be nicer than what I'm letting you perceive by my words. Maybe the problem is that I wake up a bit sour. Soul is certainly on the level of an averagely executed woody and spicy oriental perfume. But those synthetic and medicinal accords just cannot convince me. I just have to pass this one.

Music: I Should Have Known Better by Jim Diamond

04/18/2021

9.5
Scent 8
Longevity 9
Sillage 8
Bottle 9
Pricing

MrLawman
38 Reviews

MrLawman

An open mind

Back in May of 2019, when the world was in its natural habibat, I went to my local mall to try some new fragrances. I went to the Kilian section, to explore some more from that house (I already owned Black Phantom at that time).

The assisting lady asked me how I like my perfumes. I answered: ''big and sweet, just like my daily coffee''. We had a good laugh and afterwards she starting thinking which Kilian might fit my taste.

She took a good few minutes to come up with the question: ''May I offer you another brand?''. With huge feelings of repulsion, I answered: ''Of course u can!''. Let's admit: we all have been in those kind of situation where you nod in agreement, mainly out of politeness ;)

The lady took this weird looking, orange colored bottle off the shelve and asked if she could spray it on my skin. In full repulsion, I, again, answered: "Yea, sure". My plans to only test some Kilian on skins just for thrown out of the window.

She sprayed it on .... I was positively surprised.

Soul by CoSTOME NATIONAL was (and still is) so rich, dense and sweet that my repulsion converted into shame: how could I be so condescending towards the suggestion of the assisting lady? I learned my lesson: we live to explore and can only explore when our mind and attitude are open.

Regarding the smell: a complete masterpriece. I know, the word ''masterpiece'' gets thrown around like a hot potato but in the case of Soul, its indisputably fitting, in my opinion.

Warm, sensual and pure. A true art of quality, especially given the price tag.

Its a sexually seductive perfume, where ambergris combines with woody and ambery notes, to sweet, lustful and spicy effect. The vanilla creates a soft aromatic accord that soothes the fragrance but does not change its slightly oudy and ambergris nature.

For people who have a sweet tooth like me: highly recommend you to give this one a try.

For people who want to explore certain houses (like me regarding Kilian): be open minded towards others too. Only with sharp eyes, we can find hidden gems.

1 Reply

01/30/2021

8.5
Scent 9
Longevity 8
Sillage 9
Bottle 9
Pricing

Felixwinds

Translated Show original

Felixwinds

Top Review 31

Parfums de Marly Killer

Yes, you heard me right. Forget Parfums de Marly and buy this fragrance! A sweet and spicy masterpiece with character and depth in a niche version, but at a designer price. The guys from PdM can only look puzzled behind their massive bottles. Right after smelling this fragrance I knew my Layton had to go and that's saying something. Layton by Parfums de Marly has meant a lot to me so far and still does. After all, I wrote my first comment on the perfume. However, I realized that I needed to move on to new shores. The Layton went straight to the souk after that. Of course, this decision has a very subjective and partly irrational character, but maybe some who read this comment can understand my decision. Tied to this I hope with my nevertheless very lurid title straight the PdM carriers to address, in order to animate you with this comment to thinking and discussing.

Before we now turn to the perfume itself, I would first like to say a big thank you to dear JoHannes, who made this fragrance possible for me. Without him, I would never have come up with this enchanting fragrance! Thank you very much :)

Oh my, what have I put myself through. Where do I even begin with this fragrance? There seems to be no beginning and no end. Okay there are already, but just only in the scent course. The scent itself though, is just so harmoniously composed that it's hard to describe the scent itself. At least for me. Therefore, I try in the following a little to shimmy along associations.

The first impression when spraying on is a bit unattractive. Dusty-musty and synthetic, as if you were in a freshly painted attic. But after a while then pushes leather and rose geranium in the foreground, which are embedded in the sweet fragrance notes from the base. Now the fragrance unfolds and the true magnificence of the scent is revealed, like a peacock revealing its feathers. However, this one doesn't get too sweet, which the scent pyramid with vanilla and amber might suggest. I think the blame here can go to the patchouli, which balances the sweetness and gives the scent a pleasantly cool twist. The oud is also pleasantly interwoven with the notes and gives the scent a wonderful depth and strong character that makes you think of a seeming force of nature, like the Grand Canyon. Towards the end, after about 8 hours, it becomes creamy-sweet, like white chocolate and you can now draw a definite resemblance to "Carlisle". After more than 12 hours, the scent is still noticeable until it fades out after about 16 hours.

The actual fantastic thing about the fragrance, however, is in the name itself. The perfume has a soul for me! This I have ultimately also missed at the Layton, which for me now seems rather superficial to me. This fragrance, on the other hand, takes you in completely! He just knows how to inspire, but in a soul-touching quiet way.
I have to think of the visit of a friend of my parents in Mallorca. He lives with his wife in the middle of untouched nature and has built several mud houses there. The air is wonderfully warm and I can smell figs and dates. In the cool mud huts, which are built like half-timbered houses with wooden cross braces, we seek shelter from the dry heat. Inside you get a grounded feeling, you feel safe and secure inside. My father's friend is already very old and a bit musty with his 80 years, but you notice his wisdom and life experience. He knows how to convince with his inner values and his kindness. I am fascinated by his big black leather chair and the rose geraniums that decorate his house from the outside.

I also really like the bottle and I've just become a real flacon fetishist :D
Firstly, the lettering, which is placed at the very bottom, suggesting a deep center of gravity, which to me represents the inner strength I get from the fragrance. The completely transparent glass body, which to me stands for openness and confidence. The amber liquid almost fills the entire body and when you hold the bottle in your hand it feels like you are in direct contact with the contents (soul of the perfume). The spray head is kept minimalistic only decorated by a black plastic cap. However, the construction of the bottle is inexplicable to me. This is namely, very creative, slightly bent forward built, as if the perfume would lean forward.

Soul by Costume National is a wonderfully composed fragrance that lacks nothing. Quite the opposite, for me it is an enchanting perfume! Like an orchestra, the fragrance sweeps you along emotionally and leaves you wondering.
"Carlisle" has a similar smell to me, however the Soul touches me much more and the price difference is insane. Also, the Soul creates a better balance and combines cool and warm elements for me.
Forget Parfums de Marly, buy this one ;)

12 Replies

11/14/2015

ColinM
516 Reviews

ColinM

Meh...

This new addition to Costume National’s fragrances range represents the unnecessary confirmation that the only good Costume National scents ever made where the early couple of ones composed by Bruyère – 21 and Scent Intense. It almost seems the guys at Costume National share this feeling as well, since Soul smells basically like an unneeded rewriting of Scent Intense crossed with influences from some of those contemporary Middle East cheap brands which are quite invading the market lately – brands like Arabian Oud, Lattafa, Swiss Arabian and countless of similar ones, with their nuclear, and often sweetish spicy-smoky oud and/or leather blends. Soul is for me exactly halfway all of that, and I wonder why they hired some renowned nose like Ropion for such an uninspired, clerical copy-and-paste job. Soul definitely keeps Scent Intense’s peculiar bone structure of powerful, sort of dry and extremely synthetic amber-musk-fruity notes, and boringly crosses it with a smoky praline of vanilla and artificial, sort of medicinal-nutty oud with a dark shade of leathery patchouli and a greyish salty feel of ambergris. The result is basically “Scent Intense Oud & Patchouli” with a whiff of M7’s trademark ambery-medicinal oud.

Is it any good? Well, sort of. If you like Scent Intense, then that’s still way above this, as it smells richer, more quality and more fascinatingly complex, and also kind of more focused; if you don’t care for it, then Soul may be a slightly more peculiar than usual sort of “futuristic”, androgynous, dirty yet sort of “aseptic” take on oud and synthetic leather with an initially stomach-piercing galore of powdery-musky vanilla tinged with a nondescript candy vibe. A powerful sweetish musky candy with a drop of cheap smoky oud & patchouli, and an everlasting artificial and linear drydown... sounds familiar, eh? Nothing that probably some Middle Eastern drugstore brand isn’t already doing for ten dollars a bottle. Not abysmal, but go for Scent Intense anyway.

6-6,5/10

06/30/2015

6
Scent 7.5
Longevity 5
Sillage 7.5
Bottle

Drseid
818 Reviews

Drseid

Soulless...

Soul opens with moderately sweet vanilla infused black pepper spice. Moving to the early heart the composition remains moderately sweet as cardamom joins the black pepper to support an emerging synthetic Oud accord that takes on the starring role, with traces of relatively sanitized patchouli and rough leather joining in subtle additional support. During the late dry-down the sweetness fades while remaining in modest fashion as a salty ambergris accord takes control of the composition with the sanitized patchouli remaining in support through the finish. Projection is average to slightly above average and longevity very good at about 10-11 hours on skin.

When I initially heard about Soul I really didn't know what to think. On the one hand, it is by Costume National, a brand that has produced some really great compositions previously, this one composed by my favorite nose Dominique Ropion. On the other hand, the last few Costume National releases were disappointing, and the published notes list looked uninspired. It was time to give the stuff a sniff to see if Ropion could work his magic on a brief that most likely would not have been his first choice... Unfortunately, one of the first things I noticed when Soul was applied on skin is the significant sweetness level. This sweetness comes from the vanilla in the base, but it permeates every aspect of the composition's development and not really in a good way. At least the early relatively sweet vanilla is not powdery, as that would have been the death knell early-on. Countering the unwanted sweetness is a pretty decent implementation of synthetic Oud. This stuff will not fool anyone who has smelled the real thing that it is not a synthetic concoction, but Ropion to his credit utilizes the faux Oud in a way that it blends pretty well into the spices and patchouli, never calling too much attention to itself even though it is the star for most of the composition's development. The most disappointing part of that development, however, comes during the late dry-down as salty and slightly musky ambergris takes over from the faux Oud as star, with the vanilla eschewing some of its sweetness, swapping it for a subtle dry powdery sheen late. All in all Soul does smell good, but somewhat ironically, apart from its note list being unimpressive it comes off as soulless. My guess is Ropion really didn't enjoy composing this one. The bottom line is the $150 per 100ml bottle Soul is lacking precisely that despite still smelling good, earning it a "good" 3 star out of 5 rating and a hesitant recommendation.

2 Replies