Bakerscookie

On my last trip to Paris, I paid less attention to the "big" houses, but rather visited smaller perfume brands - including Parle-moi des Parfums and Parfums de Nicolai. I took a handful of fragrances home with me and now I sit here, slightly shocked by some statements of the Parfumo Community.

Because it is not clear to me how a "Milky Musk" from PMDP should have musk as the main note and on the other hand hardly anyone here smells oud. This is probably because no one smells the real material anymore, but refers to Western mixtures that would never use real oud or real musk in their lives (even if they were allowed to).

For both materials are traditionally "fixative" and therefore appear on stage - if at all - only as subordinate notes. It would simply be too expensive to create a fragrance with a prominent oud note (made of pure oud). And it wouldn't be sustainable either.

What I'm getting at is, yes, that perfume has oud in it. Not much, but certainly more than in most mixtures that smell like "oud" (i.e. mostly the synthetic substitute). I find the combination with lavender particularly interesting, because I have not smelled that yet. All in all a quite transparent, slightly sweetish scent, which remains the same most of the time as in the beginning. Only it gets a little sweeter at the end. But I am happy about the change to the typical rose oud, which seems to exist in every house and which I deliberately avoided at PDN.

The Sillage could be better. It is rather a calm scent, which lasts for about 7 hours but is still very solid. Could also be due to the potent spray head. The processing is excellent for the price

So, friends, please don't be put off by the online world or the big houses and if in doubt always try it yourself ;-)

I got to know Pure Oud by Kilian for the first time at the beginning of my perfume journey. Oud fascinated me from the very beginning, because for me (like for many) everything started with Tom Ford Oud Wood, due to several appearances of the fragrance in interviews and YouTube blogs. Relatively early I learned that TF-OW should not contain so much oud, which sent me on a journey to explore the ingredient

I quickly learned that Oud smells "somehow hot and smoky". Therefore, when I first sniffed Pure Oud by Kilian, I would probably have given it a 10/10. Because he's smoky, with a slight medical acuity. If the fragrance DNA were to develop over the course of the fragrance, it would have been able to perform very well even now, but unfortunately the (in itself quite beautiful) fragrance remains pretty much the same over its lifetime as after the first spraying on. On the positive side, it doesn't smell as sweet and spicy as "His Majesty The Oud" by Atkinsons, which reminded me more of a Christmas candle than of real oud. Yet the DNA here is slightly dull and flat.

Which brings us to the point: I doubt there's much oud in here. And what's in it doesn't come from an exquisite part pervaded by resin, but probably from a bright part of the tree. Under the "smoky" smelling roof I can hardly perceive the "main star". Sure, there's "something wooden"... but "something" isn't enough anymore. As a rule, oud distillates are bright, complex, long-lasting. It's a pity this is all missing.

Compared to other fragrances of this size (e.g. the XerJoff Oud Stars collection or Tom Ford Oud Wood Intense), durability and projection are moderate. I don't notice anything after two hours, it's four to five on the skin. I should mention that many fragrances feel weak to me today that didn't a year ago (Tauer's L'Oudh would be another example). If the durability were better, I would be a fan despite the linear fragrance. But that's not enough for me anymore (unfortunately).

Therefore, Pure Oud by Kilian may be worthwhile for those who like a smoky fragrance that shows this typical medical oud facet without containing much of the actual active ingredient. And those who want to get rid of the scent quickly. For the price I paid, I'm satisfied. But I wouldn't lay down full retail for it under any circumstances.

A little Rant: I don't understand why they at Montblanc decided on such a marketing move. Everything went really well, didn't it? Legend Spirit and Individual are, if we disregard the flacons, quite good fragrances in the designer sector. So how does Montblanc get to copy Creed Aventus? I don't get it.

The fragrance itself is, as mentioned several times in the other comments, a kind of mixture of Aventus and Sauvage... at least in the drydown. To be fair, I have to admit that in the first 90 minutes Aventus is hardly present and the parallels only show up later. It's as if I had a more fruity version of Aventus in front of me, where Ambergris was swapped for Abroxan and the smoke was missing or the woods were shut down. Explorer starts fresh and spicy with a fat dose of Ambroxan, then after a while he moves more and more towards Aventus. Except for the fat dose of Ambroxan, which remains for a very long time.

For me, a lot of things don't add up. Aventus is so much finer and more balanced, more transparent and complex and so beautifully LIGHTLY simple. This one's never gonna get to me in my life. It looks simply synthetic and cheap, the Ambroxan does not fit and is too present. Explorer is only worth a blind buy if the fragrance is at some point in the same price segment as Legend or Individual. I hope that I get rid of the reasonably stable value again... :-D

First of all: The wheel is probably not reinvented with a fragrance like Bleu de Chanel. Accordingly, I find the wave of criticism that Bleu's 2018 version of "Parfum" is also being criticized here understandable. Whether it is justified, however, that is the question...

In my opinion, even a house like Chanel with a mainstream fragrance like Bleu should not be forbidden to adapt its releases to the current time. So I don't think it's a bad thing that a "revised" version will be released in 2018, regardless of the fragrance. I am now in possession of all three concentrations and I think they have managed quite well.

I first got to know the original "Bleu DNA" when I was 18, when I started to deal with scents for the first time. At that time, I only knew one Hilfiger aftershave, which I had received as a gift once, and just One Million, which turned out to be an instant mistake. But well, fragrances like Bleu or Terre d'Hermès seemed more exclusive and "more bang for my buck" to me, as you can understand. Unfortunately, I didn't have the "buck" part at that time, which is why it stayed with the turquoises during an occasional encounter.

From today's point of view, the EdT smells like a toilet block to me at first. So much hot citrus in the opening, is that bergamot? Whew! I'll have to deal with that first. Fortunately, this ebbs away and leaves behind the typical "blue" scent, which has so often been copied by different houses. But to be honest, one of the better ones right from the start, probably because the citric freshness remains a little longer and relatively quickly for me at that time indefinable woody notes are added. The EdP, on the other hand, goes directly with a very sweet and hardly spicy lemon into the solid. And she's really very cute and it stays that way for a while. Almost like dextrose. What were they thinking? A little sandalwood in the drydown nestles imperceptibly to the lemon and supports it in its lemoniness and with increasing duration the Eau de Parfum for me goes almost in an oriental direction.

Actually already a quite chic alternative to the youthfully fresh Eau de Toilette. But to be honest, I already wanted more wood from the first smell of the EdP version. I don't like things like Invictus Aqua or Hawas. Especially not this new "Y Eau de Parfum" from YSL, a completely superfluous fragrance that can hardly be surpassed in sweetness.

And that brings us to the Bleu de Chanel perfume. As if someone had answered my prayers at Chanel, the original Bleu DNA is present in the perfume version, but with much more sandalwood and less citrus. I find it interesting that the appearance here seems to be reversed: first the wood comes, then later the fruits. As a result, the fragrance appears to me darker, more mature, more adult and also rounder, because the exhausting beginning is missing. The fragrance is also much denser, more complex than the other two. The sandalwood is a very light one. But was also to be expected at Chanel. All in all, I think it is a very good composition and a worthy update - I doubt that the youngest ones will take advantage of the perfume concentration, and that's why it fits quite well, or not?

I can't complain about shelf life and Sillage, by the way. I experience it more often that Extrait is tighter on the skin than EdT or EdP, and as long as I get enough of it (which is quite the case here), I'm not complaining. Because I wear scents mainly for myself, not for others.

A few weeks ago Dmitry Bortnikoff was kind enough to send me a sample set of his current collection. After the initial cheese shock from Oud Maximus, I tried Vetiver Nocturne relatively quickly, but had to swallow a little when listing the notes... because there are so many floral ingredients listed, from Champaca, Frangipani and Jasmin Sambac to Sandalwood and Oud infusions with Jasmin and Champaca, that I was almost sure I wouldn't like it

And what can I say? The absolute opposite is the case. The first time I spray it on, I am greeted by what is probably the most realistic version of a fresh bouquet of flowers I have ever smelt. The best part? The dusty synthetic rose à la Oud Satin Mood is missing. Yes! A direct hit! What awaits me here are juicy, bright flowers standing in the flower shop. No fun, I get goose bumps every time I think about it. In an interview with Dmitry I once heard that infusions of flowers in sandalwood or oud represent the traditional way of making oriental attars. Interesting.

With this first floral push, or almost immediately afterwards, a base of creamy sandalwood resonates directly. Deep dark, slightly musky and animal-like. That's why even after a few hours it still looks as if the flowers are still there - but I think that the mainly natural (I hope so!?) ingredients are the combination of sandalwood and vetiver. Natural floral notes supposedly evaporate quite quickly.

Speaking of... the vetiver here is very different from anything I've ever known. It is much greener, grasier, somehow more "realistic" than usual. Weird. I mainly see it in the drydown and sniffing the nebulizer (which I do, by the way, because I love this perfume so much). So no sooo vetiver-heavy perfume at all, as you might think at first. The drydown is complemented by a slightly spicy, balsamic oud note. But mainly it's sandalwood, then vetiver and then the oud.

I ordered the 9 ml filling directly before my sample was empty. I wasn't allowed to pay customs, I didn't care. As soon as it is empty, the full bottle is on it.

For me 10/10.