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I’m not paying this much to smell like clean sweat!
This is probably the most disappointing paper vs skin experience I’ve had with a fragrance.
In the bottle and on paper, this is an incredibly evocative scent for me. It’s a very dry, woody, dankly resinous, musty, almost animalic scent that transports me to a specific childhood memory (an antique pedal organ, old wood soaked with years of incense smoke).
Now, I don’t know what it is about my skin, but it turns Cardinal, and the nearly-identical Series 3: Incense - Avignon, into something resembling clean sweat. A very light, airy, slightly mineralic, fresh and humid impression of human skin musk that ultimately resembles a faint odor of chlorine. I actually really enjoy such a scent, but it’s not what I wanted or expected from this perfume. I would question if the ambergris is responsible, if not for the fact that I’m regularly exposed to real church incense smoke and have noticed that from a distance, in small quantities, it also takes on this clean-sweat quality, so it’s not just my skin chemistry or the particular notes used here, but my perception of small quantities of frankincense that is the problem. I have also smelled incense fragrances that do NOT go sweaty on my skin, so it clearly depends on the composition (large amounts of labdanum seem necessary).
Where Avignon remains airy and sweaty throughout, Cardinal does become woody and vanillic in the drydown, but it’s a generic, inoffensive woody-amber profile, not the dank stinky deliciousness that I get on paper. The performance is also really poor, I can barely smell this fragrance unless I stick my nose right up in it (Avignon does a bit better in that respect). Weirdly, the drydown of Cardinal sticks around on my skin for ages and won’t wash off in the shower, even though I can’t smell it unless my nose is right up against my skin.
I definitely don’t need both Avignon and Cardinal as they are so similar on my skin, and of the two I would choose Avignon because of the better performance. It’s also quite a bit cheaper, and there is no way I would pay over $200 for a barely detectable fragrance that smells like perfumified BO.
In the bottle and on paper, this is an incredibly evocative scent for me. It’s a very dry, woody, dankly resinous, musty, almost animalic scent that transports me to a specific childhood memory (an antique pedal organ, old wood soaked with years of incense smoke).
Now, I don’t know what it is about my skin, but it turns Cardinal, and the nearly-identical Series 3: Incense - Avignon, into something resembling clean sweat. A very light, airy, slightly mineralic, fresh and humid impression of human skin musk that ultimately resembles a faint odor of chlorine. I actually really enjoy such a scent, but it’s not what I wanted or expected from this perfume. I would question if the ambergris is responsible, if not for the fact that I’m regularly exposed to real church incense smoke and have noticed that from a distance, in small quantities, it also takes on this clean-sweat quality, so it’s not just my skin chemistry or the particular notes used here, but my perception of small quantities of frankincense that is the problem. I have also smelled incense fragrances that do NOT go sweaty on my skin, so it clearly depends on the composition (large amounts of labdanum seem necessary).
Where Avignon remains airy and sweaty throughout, Cardinal does become woody and vanillic in the drydown, but it’s a generic, inoffensive woody-amber profile, not the dank stinky deliciousness that I get on paper. The performance is also really poor, I can barely smell this fragrance unless I stick my nose right up in it (Avignon does a bit better in that respect). Weirdly, the drydown of Cardinal sticks around on my skin for ages and won’t wash off in the shower, even though I can’t smell it unless my nose is right up against my skin.
I definitely don’t need both Avignon and Cardinal as they are so similar on my skin, and of the two I would choose Avignon because of the better performance. It’s also quite a bit cheaper, and there is no way I would pay over $200 for a barely detectable fragrance that smells like perfumified BO.