Archives 69 (Etat Libre d'Orange)

Christine Nagel of Hermès fame (H24 line) authored Archives 69 for ELDO in 2011, and I find a stylistic connection between it and Nagel's later work. She seems to favor creating bold and bittersweet accords that are abstract, durable, memorable. Much like modernist New York School painters, she deals in the spontaneous fluidity of individual artistic gestures. In H24, narcissus (daffodils) becomes dark green bananas; sclarene sage becomes citrus; rosewood becomes magazine ink. She subverts expectations by using disparate perfumery materials as a sculptor in 1954 used wire—twisting, tying, weaving—to create new forms not previously witnessed by man.

Archives 69 is more focused than H24 in that it isolates and then cultivates our perception of incense. Nagel allows incense the flexibility to become a bouquet of flowers, and a grinder full of exotic peppercorns, and even a synthetic machine-moulded polystyrene yogurt container. After a brief, peppered-citrus topnote, Archives 69 moves to a Day-Glo dab of olibanum, kaleidoscoping its spicy, sweet, smoky, resinous, floral, woody, milky, and bitter facets into a smoothly undulating central accord. Archives 69 invites an experience of movement, color, and depth that it abandons at the thirty minute mark, to become disappointingly weak and thin. In those early moments, I find genius in how Nagel portrays incense. It possesses not any one particular quality, but all the qualities lightened to a very low f-stop, an over-exposed brilliance that gives life to a material then tends towards leaden solemnity, at least in most ecuminically-minded perfumes. Various citrus and floral nuances float and drift in and out of perception, and the fragrance feels complex yet effusive and friendly, a 1960s hippie chick in a bottle. 

Then the deflation happens. Everything runs out of puff, the notes flatten, the accords suddenly feel frozen and vaguely chemical, and Archives 69 stalls. I blame the art direction of Etat Libre d'Orange more than I blame Christine Nagel for this; the brand clearly wanted a light and evanescent incense fragrance that one could imagine as patchouli-adjacent in true post-Summer of Love, Woodstock fashion. All fine and well. But if you want that, you have to make some practical concessions, and one of those would be to accept that the only way someone can give you an avant-garde incense cologne that actually smells good for a few hours is to let the materials say what they need to, for as long as they need to. Running out of steam after ninety minutes says, "We cut the budget," and for that sort of thing you're better off naming your fragrance Archives 79. Why do I keep feeling like this brand could solve its many problems by picking better names for its fragrances? 

I am Trash - Les Fleurs du Déchet (Etat Libre d'Orange)

Etat Libre d'Orange isn't the niche brand to go for if you're looking for "natural." Unlike the offerings of Amouage, Xerjoff, Creed, ELdO's frags rarely inspire a sense of realism or depth; they clearly use synthetics, and appear to be very proud of it. I recall wearing Antiheros a while back and being struck by its harshness. It was like I'd lost a fight with a bottle of lavender hand soap from a truck stop restroom. 

I Am Trash – The Flowers of Waste goes all-in on its soapy-chemical tones, delivering a composition that wouldn’t feel out of place in the haircare aisle of a drugstore. I think ELdO was trying to emulate the smell of scented trash bags, but I could be wrong. Daniela Andrier seems to have drawn from her CK Contradiction archive of Y2K “fresh” profiles and leftover submissions when she handed this to Etienne de Swardt’s firm in 2017 or 2018. The result? A fruity-floral shampoo accord, drenched in the overly sweetened “fresh” aesthetic. A silvery flicker of tuberose, neroli, and green apple opens the fragrance before quickly dissolving into juicy fruit esters. The drydown settles into a crisp-woody base, courtesy of Iso E Super and Akigalawood. There are floral nuances that echo Tuberose Overdose, along with a heavy dose of apple, calling to mind just about anything from Donna Karan.

Fragrances like this are why the niche realm and the perfume industry in general have grown far beyond the bounds of what the market can ultimately sustain. There are too many products out there now, swamping the sub-sectors of what the average consumer will buy, with the gross overrepresentation of various segments exacerbated by needless designer-level entries in the niche realm. I Am Trash isn't really trash or trashy, but it's unnecessary, especially for a fragrance priced at over $50 an ounce. If you're in the market for something that smells like this, look to the aforementioned Calvin Klein, Banana Republic, or Donna Karan and save yourself time, money, and heartache.

Eau de Protection (Etat Libre d'Orange)

Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back at my least favorite decade, the 2000s, I now see it was a time of freshness and metallic sourness, which is vastly preferable to the dessert-cart sugared ambers that dominate today’s fragrance landscape. Eau de Protection (2007), created by the Two Antoines, Lie and Maisondieu, house perfumers for Free Orange State, smells both fresh and sour, with a gorgeous rosy sweetness. Green and pert, it undergirds the ozonics. How does this read in 2025? Is it wearable?

Wearing a bittersweet green floral like Eau de Protection in today's world presents three issues. First, those too young to remember that era will think you smell weird. Second, the public may misinterpret the scent. Third, those who do remember might find it dated. Gen Z simply won’t understand, so if you’re a guy hoping to attract young women, good luck. Wearing a fresh green floral as a man also invites scrutiny from the gender discourse brigade, always eager to apply labels. Then there’s the occasional comment: “You smell like a girl I knew in college.”

Setting aside the social pitfalls, I really like Eau de Protection. It is unisex, leaning feminine, and reminds me of Banana Republic’s Peony & Peppercorn. This version, though, is far more refined, with better materials and a more subtle approach. This should be the defining masculine fragrance of 2025, if only because women have moved away from floral scents. Meanwhile, the Ambroxan-and-patchouli-isolate trend of Sauvage and Bleu de Chanel is played out. Eau de Protection is an ode to freshness, greenness, and floralcy, a gilded beauty in an olfactory Garden of Eden. I’m here for it. Full bottle worthy, though I tend to procrastinate with niche.

She Was an Anomaly (Etat Libre d'Orange)

This smells like something Prada would 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. 

You or Someone Like You (Etat Libre d’Orange)

Chandler Burr was the creative director for this fragrance, and he told us to piss off if we want to know the note pyramid, saying, "The work is the work." He sounded defensive about it, as if he felt the fragrance was lacking and wanted to get ahead of the press. If I were him, I would've said, "It's very green, and I'll let you decide what's in there." But who am I, anyway? Certainly not a fancy-pants creative director for any perfumes, so I shouldn't deign to ask what's in the perfumes he puts out. There's supposed to be some element of artistic mystery here, and I guess that's what the brand was aiming for when they printed Burr's comment. Cloak it in mystery! Sell more bottles!

What isn't a mystery is that You or Someone Like You is loaded to the gills with mint, mostly spearmint, followed by a hint of lemon verbena and a deeper herbal element, which smoothly transitions to a subtle green cassis and rose accord that hums along in linear fashion for the duration of a work day, and even a bit beyond that -- for a fresh scent, it has amazing longevity. There is a bit of cooling Hedione/fake jasmine in the mix, which adds even more lift. None of the notes smell natural, yet all of them smell harmonious and light, a pleasant arrangement of gentle, translucent greens that avoids imparting shampoo or bar soap, while never quite shedding their slightly synthetic edge. I should dislike that part, but it doesn't bother me because the fragrance feels balanced, simple, and well done in an unpretentious way. In short, it smells really good. 

I should mention that I'm biased in favor of anything green, and since this fragrance is abundantly green, it's kind of a no-brainer win for me. However, I can see the criticism that it feels a bit more chemical than it should at its price-point, and recognize that this is likely why Burr was so cagey about notes (again, he could have said a million other things and I would've believed him). If you're interested in a pleasant spring or summer spritz for a pick-me-up, You or Someone Like You is for you. Given the current designer alternatives, this is perfectly constructed for that level of quality, and since most designers are over a hundred bucks now anyway, the ELDO isn't really a rip-off. Heck, I'd buy it.  

Tom of Finland (Etat Libre d'Orange)

ELDO is one of those conceptual niche brands, and it's clear they have a good sense of humor. I reckon this scent was intended to be a type of gay male spoof, with its obvious leather-and-rubbers accord. If you use your imagination, you can kind of detect a whiff of a freshly-opened Trojan condom in this stuff. That may sound disgusting, but given that it's peeking past stronger notes of suede, vanilla, tonka, some kind of metallic note, pine needles, and musk, the "ick" factor is minimal. Except the suede is more like Naugahyde, the vanillic notes are stale aftershave, the "metal" is gunpowdery, the pine is an air freshener hanging from a car mirror, and the musk is b.o., thinly disguised as residual cigarette smoke. Sexy.

I find Tom of Finland to be both annoying and interesting. On the one hand, I'm a little tired of the synthetic quality of these ELDO scents, especially at their price point. At ELDO prices, they should smell very dynamic and complex, with excellent note separation and top shelf materials. Instead they all smell fake and surprisingly flat, exhibiting only subtle movements, and always a few notes short of "complex," with designer-grade bricks. On the other hand, sometimes the jokiness pays off in capturing the general concept behind the fragrance, and in this case it grabbed me right away - this is how Korben Dallas would have smelled. Bruce Willis played the futuristic cabbie in 1997's The Fifth Element, and ToF seems to draw together the collective aromas of faux cab leather, stale male grooming, handgun steel, and piney mirror clips.

Does this make me want a bottle? I love The Fifth Element, and I think Korben is an underrated character in the long canon of nineties movie characters, but that doesn't endear me to the scent. Maybe if the minty pine notes accented a stronger, dirtier leather, or perhaps if those sweet notes coalesced into a tobacco-centric heart accord, I might feel some love. ToF's structure is far too muted and understated to excite. Though it drips with testosterone (at least in spirit), this particular offering by Antoine Lie is outdone by cheaper, manlier scents. Good alternatives with fuller-throated oily leather notes and brighter minty-green spices are Francesco Smalto Pour Homme and Taxi by Cofinluxe, both attainable at a fraction of the price.

Noël au Balcon (Etat Libre d'Orange)

Somebody at Bond could learn something from Antoine Maisondieu's Noel au Balcon. My main problem with the Bonds I've tried is that they acquire a potpourri or Yankee Candle effect, which is the ultimate hex in niche. Despite the number of expensive aroma chemicals or talented noses you put behind it, a fragrance that resembles potpourri will defy the odds and smell cheap. Why? Because rarely does any one element stand out in potpourri. Its smell is usually quite spineless, a mere assemblage of abstractions, essences of woods and mashed florals converging into a bland miasma, a sort of featureless olfactory cloud. Yes, it may smell rather nice for five minutes, but eventually one of two things happens: your nose tunes it out, or you get a headache.

What distances this ELDO scent from that bad association is Maisondieu's balancing act between sugar and spice. The pyramids at Giza come to mind. They are built in two layers, granite and limestone. One is radioactive, and the other insulating. Together they form a mysterious machine. Maisondieu's electrical core is a super-aromatic clutch of patchouli, chili, labdanum, neroli, caraway, and cinnamon. Alone, these materials would likely go well together, but would "bind" into a formless odor of no distinction. The fresh sweetness of neroli, cinnamon, and labdanum would not rise above the vibrating patchouli, chili, and caraway, and the result would be formless energy.

But with an outer insulating layer of animalic sweetness and fresh fruit, suddenly NaB becomes a lovely fragrance. The natural skankiness of honey directs and contains the flow of the spices, while the bright juiciness of peach harnesses the florals. The result is something immediately gratifying and truly timeless, a technical triumph of perfumery. This brand tends to irritate me with their gimmicky and overly-synthetic fragrances, but wearing this one has been a pleasure.

Antihéros (Etat Libre d'Orange)

I have no problem with the fragrance. I do, however, have a big problem with its price. Antihéros is an abysmal perfume for a few reasons, not the least of which is its contrived approach to lavender, that most-volatile of minty herbs. With real lavender essential oil, you are lucky to glean thirty minutes of enjoyable wear, and more likely to get about ten or fifteen minutes before it simply evaporates into thin air. Twentieth century perfumers have found ways of extending lavender's lifespan beyond the half-hour mark, and into the two or three hour range, without compromising its delicate freshness. A good example is Caron Pour un Homme, which pairs a very bitter-herbal lavender with a cool, clean metallic note, to carry the feeling of dawn-frosted rawness through a few extra innings. The wearer is aware of an unnatural durability to the note, but not at the expense of its smell. If you want lavender, then you get it for longer than the actual bud could ever offer.

Antihéros doesn't attempt to render lavender buds, but aims for cheap lavender-scented soap instead. It smells a bit like Yardley's English Lavender bar soap. Yardley's can be found at drugstores for a dollar and change. It smells good, but it's gone when the shower's over. If catching heady whiffs of synthetic lavender suds for nine hours straight is appealing to you, this offering by Antoine Maisondieu might float your boat. I'll hand it to Antoine - the stuff never loses its faux-lavender edge. It's strong. It lasts forever. A little goes a very long way. But movement-wise, where does the scent actually go? Fake herbal lavender on top for about twenty minutes, then bar-soapy lavender for five hours, then lavender-scented laundry-grade musk for another four hours, and then just a fuzzy hint of white musk at nine hours, and counting. Yikes.

Let's cut the bullshit and not pretend there's any cedar, or moss, or flowers, or anything but two or three massive lavender-like synthetics smooshed together in Antihéros. Yes, it's a likable smell, yes, it smells good for hours, and yes, it's something I wouldn't mind wearing, if Caron PuH didn't already exist. And therein lies the rub: Caron sells for eight dollars an ounce online. Antihéros is about fifty dollars an ounce. Sorry Free Orange State, but once again, I ain't falling for it. If your lavender actually smelled like natural lavender buds for ten hours, my money would already be yours. Your lavender smells like that Yardley soap I get at the dollar store. For ten hours. That means I should find bottles of Antihéros next to Yardley's bar soap. At the dollar store. You get my drift.

Je Suis un Homme (Etat Libre d'Orange)

I've come to find that certain marketing tactics adopted by niche brands are clumsier and more unintentionally transparent than those employed by designers. For Je Suis un Homme, the strategy is especially clumsy: make a clone of a famous seventies designer masculine, in this case a leathery chypre, and then claim that it's an eau de cologne inspired by antiquity (Napoleon's time, to be exact). Why not just admit that it's a copy of a great seventies chypre, you ask? Because then everyone would revisit the original, only to find that it's better. The hope is that some of the template's greatness will carry over into our impressions of the niche product, while the little fairly-tale about Napoleon distracts us away from associating it with something superior and cheaper. 

Je Suis un Homme is little more than a deflated Halston Z-14. It has the same crisp lemon top note as Z-14, and segues just as rapidly into the same cinnamon-leather base accord, which hums along dryly for a few hours before fading into a woodsy musk. From beginning to end, this fragrance mimics Z-14 with accuracy that would put Creed to shame. I say that because Z-14 is one-eighth the price of JSuH, and one hundred times better. While Free Orange State's chypre has perfect balance and fairly high-quality materials, it lacks depth and complexity. It possesses zero mossiness, and no floral notes to speak of. I'm doing a side-by-side sniff of JSuH and the treemoss formula of Z-14, and it's remarkable how the latter's jasmine note jumps right out. It's also strange that Liz Arden's materials seem just as vibrant as JsuH's. I think we're looking at a difference in mark-up here, not in materials.

As long as they keep selling the treemoss version of Z-14, I can't in good conscience recommend Je Suis un Homme. I appreciate that Antoine Lie considers Z-14 to be the essence of a man, and I like that he paid homage to it, but his version feels flat and more than a little boring in comparison. If you're going to do a woody-citrus, you want the citrus to be strange, i.e., an enhancement of its woody aspect, and you should marginalize the spices with heady flowers and moss notes. Throwing a conventionally dry lemon note on top of a cinnamon-birch-musk accord is okay, but a little too simplistic. When all is said and done, Je Suis un Homme is a nice fragrance, but overpriced for what it is, and no match in the manliness department for that boisterous brown blood cell from 1976.