Encens Flamboyant (Annick Goutal)

Sometimes I read about a perfume and think that it would be a great one to try, but never bother because something in its name puts me off. Encens Flamboyant is a prime example - I've read about it for years, but "Flamboyant Incense" simply does nothing for me as a concept. Incense is usually flamboyant enough, full of embellished floral tones and always plenty loud. Jim Gehr passed a sample along to me, and I gave it a wearing earlier this week. My feelings about the fragrance are mixed, trending toward good. 

How does it smell? The easy answer: It smells like Vetiver Extraordinaire with incense instead of vetiver, and nutmeg instead of curried saffron. The overbearing theme to both fragrances is "Earthy Green," their forms relying primarily on woody-resinous evergreen notes that are composed in a fizzy and vaguely soapy manner. I feel as though these recent Earthy masculines revolve around the green/fresh axis of Creed's Original Vetiver (and Mugler Cologne by proxy), with Goutal's scent orbiting just a little bit closer to freshness than Malle's. My impression is that the cleanness in Encens is evocative of bathing in the rough, perhaps in a stream somewhere, surrounded by trees and the fetid smell of damp woods.

The incense here is quite noticeable, but when set against tree needles and mastic resins, its silvery sheen gets overshadowed by sap and pine cones. And that's where the weirdness comes in - this should really be called Epicéa Flamboyant, because the blaringly obvious evergreen note is quietly gussied up with incense. This isn't a "spruced-up" incense, pardon the pun. I wonder if they named the fragrance before smelling it? This may seem minor, but if they'd called it by a moniker more suggestive of fir and spruce, I would have tried it sooner. Lovers of incense may be unimpressed, but if you're a bonafide conehead, don't procrastinate like I did.

Petite Chérie (Annick Goutal)

I don't say this kind of thing often, but the boys at Creed could use a tutorial from Annick Goutal on how to use pear in perfume. Petite Chérie is a successful composition that perfectly illustrates the unique youthfulness of peach and pear. As Tania Sanchez pointed out in The Guide, Goutal's only problem here is that the aroma chemicals for the fragrance of pear are unstable and difficult for some to perceive properly. She also suggests they have a short shelf-life. Supposedly these chemicals go "off" pretty quickly. I'm not so sure - for years my ex-girlfriend left a forgotten bottle of Petite Chérie within reach of direct sunlight, and it smelled just fine. I think Sanchez herself has difficulty perceiving pear (therefore others must have the same issue), and someone - gee, who could that be - told her that its constituent parts are weak, a declaration that might require a second opinion. But I digress; this is one of those fragrances that feels innocent and chaste, very pink-frilly, and therefore is something Clint Eastwood types should consider.

Petite Chérie is fairly straightforward: pear, a touch of peach, and some green florals of the synthetic rose-and-freesia variety. Don't be surprised if pictures of Sunday-dressed six year-old girls on flower-petaled swings in verdant, sun-goldened fields flit through your head every time this juice hits your skin. Frankly, I'm not sure how anything else could come to mind. It's that charming and sweet. Actually, it's the very definition of a "delicate smell." As such, I'm of the opinion that Petite Chérie is redundant on good girls and nannies. In the interest of keeping the culture of fine fragrance alive, I encourage tough guys to go against their grain and give this a try. Despite its girlishness, it's a fragrance that projects itself simply as shower soap, the kind Garnier Fructis puts out, and it would no doubt intrigue the ladies in your lives to smell it off you. Sometimes unpredictability comes in pretty little bottles with ribbons.

Duel (Annick Goutal)

For some reason, Duel reminds me of Ireland in winter. It gets bitter in the northwestern region, specifically Sligo, Cumeen, Donegal, Ardara. The bright country air silvers into glistening canine teeth, and snaps mercilessly at bare skin, tormenting whoever is unfortunate enough to hurry home from a pub after sunset. Dusk settles in at four p.m. sharp, by the way, with total darkness ten minutes on its heels, so drink up. It's not my favorite time to be in Ireland, but there's nothing quite like seeing a robin's-egg blue frost on Sligo's mossy, curvaceous hide by the pale morning light.

There are some warm associations as well: brisk mugs of tea at Henry Lyons & Co. on Knox Street in town, the faint whiff of spices from the bakery, the humid air as the January sun sucks dew droplets off stiff briar petals, all adding to the charm. Smelling Duel's lucid black tea top note brings these associations to mind, with accents of petit grain and green notes really heightening the experience. Fragrantica shows votes for holly as a prominent element, but frankly I just smell a nondescript "sweet-green" effect. It's the perfect encapsulation of an Irish morning, sitting by the cafe window with tea in hand, looking out at the mountains. Duel reminds me that perfume is capable of this sort of thing - one sniff can transport you to a different time and place. The human nose, I'm convinced, is inextricably connected to whatever part of the brain controls memory.

The drydown isn't particularly complex, a simple medley of artemisia and something mildly floral and sweet, presumably guaiac wood oil, or something similar. If Yatagan and Balenciaga Pour Homme are meditations on the brute force of artemisia, Duel is an exploration of its gentle side. Isabelle Doyen's EDT (more an EDC, really) is a breezy, evanescent affair, gone within four hours, but lovely while it lasts. It's arguable as to whether Duel is a traditional fragrance or an olfactory poem of sorts. It is fluid, it is green, it is woody, and it is rather inarticulate, the way Ulysses would smell if Joyce's words wafted up off the page. Who knew airy freshness could be so deep? Wear this and travel to a distant emerald shore. It's one of the best tea/green scents ever made.

Rose Absolue (Annick Goutal)

Broadly speaking, there are two categories of rose perfume out there: those that employ the relatively-new "headspace" technology, and those that render the flower the old-fashioned way by using absolutes. Rose Absolue is of the second method, and stands as one of the finest in the genre. I prefer this type of rose scent over the headspace stuff because the experience of inhaling rose fumes from several inches away for a sustained length of time usually leads to a headache. 

Its dense and somewhat rubbery oil of rose possesses none of the heady green loudness of modern perfumes. The redness is turned a deep purple. The smell is that of raw rose, mixed with ground stems, soil, and burnt mulch. The sweet verdancy of a young rose is nowhere to be found. Rose Absolue conjures the feeling of deep roses, old, ripe roses. 

The intensity of the absolute is such that granny perfume is replaced with oily, Arabian-like woods and spices. This is man juice in disguise. Rose Absolue is truly unisex, beautifully made, and worth the price of admission. Wear it confidently during any time of the year, and enjoy the delicious warmth and depth of its composition.