Montaigne Caron 2007 Eau de Parfum

The first time I applied Caron MONTAIGNE, I obviously overdid it—a common mistake that I make with the creations of this house. They are strong and can only be appreciated when sparingly applied. I also find that Caron perfumes are quite capricious, changing a great deal with humidity, temperature, mood, and who knows what else—to say nothing of reformulation!

Happily, when all of the planets are correctly aligned, the liquid inside my bottle of MONTAIGNE turns out to be a quite nice perfume, which was something of a relief to find for someone concerned that the great philosopher of subjectivity should not be maligned. In fact, on reflection, it makes a lot of sense that this ambery oriental should be as mercurial as the self, changing constantly in the face of new events and experiences. Given that the self attends to various stimuli on a fairly arbitrary basis, dependent upon a variety of other mercurial and random factors, my reception of MONTAIGNE should, too, be prefigured by all of the same.

All in all, I can recommend this perfume to those who appreciate thick orientals. To my nose, MONTAIGNE seems to contain myrrh and/or leather, though neither is listed among the notes. Perhaps the narcissus is very concentrated and combined with the coriander produces this effect. Whatever the case may be, this is a great wintertime perfume—but also appealing on a temperate summer day, I recently learned. Exceptional longevity and medium sillage. As the final proof that this is a decent creation, Emperor Oliver aka “Diogenes” aka “Nanook of the North” aka “Orson Wells” aka “Oscar Wilde” aka “Howard Hughes” aka “Houdini” (my cat) likes MONTAIGNE a lot. Which also, come to think of it, makes a lot of sense!