StellaDiverF

Creed Verveine Narcisse has a fairly linear development on me, with incremental changes during its 10-hour wear as it hovers closely above my skin.

It opens with a relatively dry herbal note, with few dewy drops on the grass and barely any citrus nuance. The narcissus arrives fairly quickly to mingle with the herbal note, with its slightly astringent and bitter tobacco aspect accompanied by a subtle vanilla-like creamy undertone. Verveine Narcisse then remains this softly mossy, creamy tobacco skin scent until the end, turning more amorphous and with a more prominent sweet vegetal musky undertone.

Overall, I find Verveine Narcissus a pretty solid unisex musky tobacco perfume. Its fairly low-key performance makes it a perfect everyday perfume with elegance, but on the flip side, it’s not very exciting, especially if you already have your everyday tobacco perfume covered. I think fans of Ormonde Jayne Montabaco who seek a slightly more opaque and creamy version might have fun sampling Verveine Narcisse, but otherwise I don’t think one would miss much without sampling it, especially considering its limited availability.

Wearing Community is an unexpectedly nostalgic experience for me, because its first 3 hours smells very reminiscent of a cucumber facial wash cream that I used during my teenage years. It's probably the kind of dewy, aqueous, almost crystalline aspect of melon minus its juicy sweetness, combined with a subtle, ivory soap-like silky creamy undertone, that creates this association to me.

As this "cucumber facial wash" vibe gradually fades, a slightly spicy grassy note emerges, which is quite similar to how I perceive cis-3-hexenol, the main fragrant component of freshly cut grass. I, like many people, find the smell of freshly mown lawn invigorating when I catch whiffs of it by the wind. But it often appears quite harsh and overpowering to me in a perfume, because I'm more or less trapped in its range for hours, which is unfortunately the case with Community too.

Luckily, a tender, slightly melon-y but mostly abstract fruity sweetness soothes the brash grassy note with time. And softly resinous and grassy labdanum also peeks out from time to time in the dry down to anchor the fragrance without weighing it down. I also occasionally catch a faint whiff of a bitter and salty herbalness, but it's not concrete or strong enough to evoke any particular note to me. The sillage is mostly moderate during its 7 hours wear on me.

Because of its "cucumber facial wash" nostalgic factor, I was quite amused when sampling Community. The subtle warming labdanum in its far dry down is also a wonderful touch to anchor a fresh grassy perfume instead of the more cliché route of mainly relying on soapy white musk. However, it still doesn't overcome the harsh feeling of many grassy perfumes that rely on cis-3-Hexenol or similar components in my opinion. Overall, I'd say Community does its job as a conventional fresh perfumes in the Niche market, as long as one is not too sensitive to those grass-imitating aromachemicals.

The opening of Louis on me, is quite reminiscent of a lot of commercial men's sports cologne, the kind of assertively fresh aquatic and vaguely metallic citrus-y note not unlike that of dihydromyrcenol. I'm not much of a fan of this type of opening, but fortunately, Louis has a few engaging elements up its sleeve.

Underneath the sporty mist, there's a subtle oily green and chocolate-y nuance from galbanum, a discreet melon-like suave fruitiness, and most prominently a spicy cumin note. I personally find the cumin note here rather woody, and not particularly evocative of body odour. Therefore, it adds an unexpected and interesting twist to the otherwise routine fresh fougere, without appearing overly dissonant.

With time, the fresh aquatic opening note completely wears off, while the delicate sweet spicy coolness of clove becomes more noticeable, as well as an almost waxy, lipstick-like texture of orris provides a bit more heft to the overall fresh scent. The combination of cumin and orris here, reminds of that in Francesca Bianchi Under My Skin and Jean-Michel Duriez Seine Amoureuse, but much less complex and more lean and airy. It's as if diluting the cumin + orris core of those two perfumes, then mixing it with the herbal, transparent clove and orris of Slumberhouse Grev.

Louis mostly maintains this softly cumin-y and herbal orris skin scent and turns more and more amorphous with time, but there's an unexpected surge of beet-like earthiness towards the dry down after about 5-6 hours, and occasionally an almost cotton candy-like sweetness which might stem from orange blossom. The sillage is moderate to soft, and it lasts around 8 hours on my skin.

Based on my personal preferences, Louis is not really my cup of tea. Besides the "sport cologne" opening that bothers me, I also prefer the richer, more layered treatment of cumin and orris in Under My Skin and Seine Amoureuse, as well as the more ethereal Grev. But as a commercial sports cologne with a gentle cumin touch as a twist, Louis is quite adequate.

Club Design opens with a fizzy, petrichor-like humid earthy smell, as well as a pungently marine, almost fishy saltiness. The humid earthiness reminds me of the opening of Thierry Blondeau Narcisse Emoi, while the brash fishy note smells like a relative of Calone to me. Because of the pungency of the opening, and my struggle with most synthetic fishy marine notes, Club Design can be quite nauseating to me, unless on a hot day when the opening evaporates much more quickly.

The soft suede leather reveals itself on my skin usually around 2 hours in, and doesn't completely shake off the fizzy humid earthy aspect and pervasive fishy marine note until after about 5 hours. I can see the rubber/new car interior comparison, as the fragrance is indeed quite artifical-smelling for a leather-themed perfume, but more on an overall, abstract level. On a more specific detail level, I'd agree more with the comparison to Hermès Galop, as the suede in both perfumes shares this chewy texture similar to turkish delight to me, as well as an abstract musky fruity undertone. However, the fruity syrup in Galop is replace by fake petrichor and artificial marine notes here at first, and then by a more heightened medicinal bitterness of saffron later on.

When those artifical-smelling opening notes completely disappear in the late dry down, Club Design is indeed quite comfortable as a sleek suede skin scent, flankered by a discreet musky fruity woody cedar to my nose. The sillage is usually moderate on my skin, while the longevity is often 8-9 hours with one good spray.

My opinions on Club Design have been constantly swinging left and right during those a few weeks when I wore it. At first I was instantly repulsed by the difficult opening notes, then I began to doubt whether its artificality is actually a masterstroke, and again I question myself if I'd given Club Design a second thought if it had come out from a brand with a much lower profile than the Zoo, and again and again. But then, when I compare it to other perfumes that play around the idea of artificiality, such as Vaporocindro and Dinudisit by January Scent Project, Womanity by Thierry Mugler, La Fin du Monde by Etat Libre d'Orange, Club Design doesn't feel as compelling as them to me.

While I was initially taken aback by most of them, the dissonance between unabashedly synthetic elements and more natural-smelling elements soon evolves into an unexpected harmony as well as a fascinating, complex puzzle that draws me in. But Club Design just feels like layering an elegant suede perfume with openly synthetic elements to make it more "edgy". The suede skin scent is proper, the synthetic petrichor and marine notes are provocative, and a salty suede leather skin scent has great potential, but the end result in Club Design doesn't seem to elevate the idea beyond individual elements.

As a side note, I only tested Club Design on my skin, but haven't yet tried it as a fabric scent as it's intended (apparently its coumarin and safranal exceeds the upper limit for a skin perfume according to the official website). It's possible that it might work better on fabric, but as a personal perfume, I would only recommend Club Design if you're looking for a scent reminiscent of "new car interior" with an unapologetically synthetic vibe.

Etoile d'Une Nuit is very much in synch with the previous two entries of Oiseaux de Nuit series to my nose, especially with Tenue de Soirée, being a fruity gourmand perfume alluding lipstick with iris. The iris in Etoile d'Une Nuit is more starchy or doughy than creamy at times, and is accompanyed by a honeyed rose, strawberry and raspberry candies without any tart flavour of the real berries, and a caramelised resin undertone. As a result, it sometimes smells like a sweet fruity rosy waxy lipstic, and othertimes like a loaf of brioche bread with honey, rose and raspberry jam baked within.

The fragrance remains mostly the same and only becomes more and more abstract with time. Occasionally it also has a slightly plastic vibe to my nose, probably a combined effect of the starchy texture of iris and the overall artificial berry sweetness. It has a moderate sillage during its 9-hour wear on me.

Overall, I find Etoile d'Une Nuit mostly coherent with this new line of Annick Goutal, a gourmand not awfully saccharine, but not anything innovative or sophisticated either. Personally speaking, there are other lipstick-themed perfumes that I find are either more refined or with more character, and not necessarily more expensive. Therefore, I would not particularly recommend it as a first choice.