04/20/2021
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Neukölln 29 - Guerlain Goes Le Labo
For this "cologne of 68" the name model was not the 68 generation, but it is program music in the double sense: On the one hand, the name is to remind of the Guerlain boutique with the address "68, Avenue des Champs-Elysées", on the other hand, in this cologne record-breaking 68 ingredients are brewed.
Nothing new under the sun: the idea of naming perfume names after house numbers of shops can already be called hackneyed (I won't mention any examples from haute perfumery, but merely 4711, a Cologne house number, and 378, a house number in Groß-Meseritsch in Bohemia, see the aftershave of the same name). And the quirk of making the number of fragrances part of the name is actually Le Labo's specialty.
The fragrance is not to be confused with 'Le Parfum du 68', also by Guerlain, but released almost 10 years later and created not by Sophie Labbé, but by Thierry Wasser. Nor are they two concentrations of the same fragrance. Only a few fragrance notes are given for 'Parfum du 68', and on the German Guerlain website there is the maximally precise sentence "In this Eau de Parfum, a certain harmony of the Cologne du 68, which has already paid tribute to the legendary address, can be found again". Soso, "a certain harmony can be found again". All right.
The cologne is listed at Parfumo under "is still produced", but I have certain doubts about that, because I find the cologne on the Internet only on the secondary market, but I also have not searched for hours.
Mourning I would not necessarily carry in view of the demise of this fragrance.
Upon testing, my first cue was "tingling wood spiciness." The cologne is consistently, in all scent phases, recognizable as such. The citrusy trail is so thickly drawn that you don't have to be a pledge finder not to lose it by the end. It's no wonder, either, since 12 of the 68 fragrance notes are citrusy. For the tingle I perceived, the suspicion falls on freesia, ambrette, and two kinds of pepper, and at least three kinds of wood are there, too.
In the further course I make, in this order (not chronologically, but in decreasing order sorted by strength) fruity, floral, green and sweet-gourmandige aroma carpets, but would - already because of the pizza-with-everything concept of the fragrance - never want to argue with those whose perception prioritizes differently.
Overall, for me, although a distinctive citrus-fresh, but integrated by a broad spectrum of aromas, with time increasingly creamy-soft and densely woven seeming fragrance; quite harmonious, despite the countless and disparate fragrance notes not dissonant, restless and nervous, quite forming a whole, but for me nevertheless too directionless. Thus, like the 4711-er reviewed yesterday, which went not in the number but in the nature of the ingredients to the limits of the cologne genre, a nice and by no means failed overall experiment, but just rather an experiment than a fragrance to love and wear.
To add:
With a rather generous pricing (on 100 ml: over 2 euros per ingredient) is exercised in the performance a distinguished restraint, which does credit to a Turkish supermarket Kolonya.
Also here a relatively large agreement in the all worth reading pre-reviews, perhaps it is worthwhile here also times to scroll back to the early days of Parfumo (comments by Apicius and Ergoproxy).
Perfumer Sophie Labbé is extremely prolific (olfactorially speaking), she is responsible for 253 fragrances of various brands here, though I don't know a single one intrinsically, and at most half a dozen by name. In 2017, she created the minimalist fragrance "The Moon and I" by Floraiku with the three scents mate, matcha tea and cedar, showing that she wants to be able to do 'little' as well as 'much'.
Nothing new under the sun: the idea of naming perfume names after house numbers of shops can already be called hackneyed (I won't mention any examples from haute perfumery, but merely 4711, a Cologne house number, and 378, a house number in Groß-Meseritsch in Bohemia, see the aftershave of the same name). And the quirk of making the number of fragrances part of the name is actually Le Labo's specialty.
The fragrance is not to be confused with 'Le Parfum du 68', also by Guerlain, but released almost 10 years later and created not by Sophie Labbé, but by Thierry Wasser. Nor are they two concentrations of the same fragrance. Only a few fragrance notes are given for 'Parfum du 68', and on the German Guerlain website there is the maximally precise sentence "In this Eau de Parfum, a certain harmony of the Cologne du 68, which has already paid tribute to the legendary address, can be found again". Soso, "a certain harmony can be found again". All right.
The cologne is listed at Parfumo under "is still produced", but I have certain doubts about that, because I find the cologne on the Internet only on the secondary market, but I also have not searched for hours.
Mourning I would not necessarily carry in view of the demise of this fragrance.
Upon testing, my first cue was "tingling wood spiciness." The cologne is consistently, in all scent phases, recognizable as such. The citrusy trail is so thickly drawn that you don't have to be a pledge finder not to lose it by the end. It's no wonder, either, since 12 of the 68 fragrance notes are citrusy. For the tingle I perceived, the suspicion falls on freesia, ambrette, and two kinds of pepper, and at least three kinds of wood are there, too.
In the further course I make, in this order (not chronologically, but in decreasing order sorted by strength) fruity, floral, green and sweet-gourmandige aroma carpets, but would - already because of the pizza-with-everything concept of the fragrance - never want to argue with those whose perception prioritizes differently.
Overall, for me, although a distinctive citrus-fresh, but integrated by a broad spectrum of aromas, with time increasingly creamy-soft and densely woven seeming fragrance; quite harmonious, despite the countless and disparate fragrance notes not dissonant, restless and nervous, quite forming a whole, but for me nevertheless too directionless. Thus, like the 4711-er reviewed yesterday, which went not in the number but in the nature of the ingredients to the limits of the cologne genre, a nice and by no means failed overall experiment, but just rather an experiment than a fragrance to love and wear.
To add:
With a rather generous pricing (on 100 ml: over 2 euros per ingredient) is exercised in the performance a distinguished restraint, which does credit to a Turkish supermarket Kolonya.
Also here a relatively large agreement in the all worth reading pre-reviews, perhaps it is worthwhile here also times to scroll back to the early days of Parfumo (comments by Apicius and Ergoproxy).
Perfumer Sophie Labbé is extremely prolific (olfactorially speaking), she is responsible for 253 fragrances of various brands here, though I don't know a single one intrinsically, and at most half a dozen by name. In 2017, she created the minimalist fragrance "The Moon and I" by Floraiku with the three scents mate, matcha tea and cedar, showing that she wants to be able to do 'little' as well as 'much'.
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