She Was an Anomaly (Etat Libre d'Orange)

This smells like something Prada would put have put out fifteen years ago, a bready/carrot iris followed by a semisweet powdery musk. The irones and ionones are restrained and tempered by a massive dose of white musk and Amberfix™ in the base, a salty nuance that perpetually wavers between ambergris and sandalwood. The first ten minutes have me wondering if this is going to be a full-throated iris fragrance, but once the synthetics start to buzz around, it gets pretty vague in intention and a little nondescript in overall smell. To my nose, the notes that stand out are a slightly floral iris and orris accord, which ends up reminding me of a much stronger and more resolute scent at less than a quarter of the price: Deauville Pour Homme.  

Daniela Andrier claims that she asked AI to generate a formula for her, and it gave her the bones of this scent, with an expectation that she would (paraphrasing) "overdose on two materials." She obliged the algorithm, so to speak, but made a few human adjustments along the way to produce She Was an Anomaly. I find it interesting that she admits to relying on AI for a formula, because we all know that if she did it with this perfume, she's done it with a bunch of others as well. Once you rub that lamp, there ain't no putting the genie back in. Andrier used Givaudan's Carto, a program perfumers can use to develop a perfume within a month, neck-snapping in perfumery terms, even for the designer flanker mills out there. Time is money, and Carto likely saves a ton of cabbage. 

To my nose, this scent smells like an AI formula that was corrected. I'm not sure how long it took to compose, and suspect Andrier spent a more traditional length of time on it after that initial Carto suggestion. I like She Was an Anomaly, but I certainly don't love it, and I fall into the camp of people who feel that it's a bit too discreet and one-dimensional for something at ELDO's price-point. I mean, if I can spritz on a little of my Deauville and have a more satisfying experience with the same set of notes (plus a few that Andrier didn't use), why would I deviate from the ten dollar scent? Big brand cache only works when the story behind the perfume implies hard-won gains. I think ELDO would've been better off keeping the backstory to She Was an Anomaly to itself.