03/16/2013
Drseid
819 Reviews
Drseid
Helpful Review
5
If the Costes Hotel Smells Like This I wouldn't Mind A Stay...
Costes opens with a soft rose and mild lavender floral laced "red hots candy" cinnamon accord. As the scent enters the heart phase the cinnamon spice becomes more prominent but turns dry as the early florals recede though do not completely disappear yet. Cutting through the spice and its underlying floral undertone is an ever-growing non-animalic musk spiked woody incense accord rising from the base that mixes with the spice in the later heart phase, then gradually replaces the supporting florals in total during the final part of the dry-down as the cinnamon also sharply dissipates late. Projection is deceptively strong and longevity is below average at 4-6 hours on skin.
Costes was a blind buy for me that I initially thought went awry. I sprayed a piece of paper with the fragrance initially, and the "red hots candy" and musky incense aspects went wild (it seemed all too apropos that the bottle resembled the color of red hots candy). The accord was powerful and almost cloyingly synthetic-smelling on paper, coming off as more of a high-end room freshener than a fragrance one would wish to wear. Luckily, on skin the effect is quite different. The rose and lavender floral aspects are much more noticeable on skin, softening the cinnamon and incense quite effectively by adding an almost watery floral undertone, making the scent work. Leave it to a brilliant nose like Giacobetti to skillfully make this kind of a composition work so well on skin when it seemingly fails on paper. All in all, Costes is a success and is also a rather good value at its $80 for 50ml or $135 for 100ml retail price. I am not quite sure that if I had sampled it first I would still have made the purchase (especially as it does not last as long as I would like on skin), but I surely don't regret it either and award Costes a "very good" 3.5 stars out of 5 rating outright.
Costes was a blind buy for me that I initially thought went awry. I sprayed a piece of paper with the fragrance initially, and the "red hots candy" and musky incense aspects went wild (it seemed all too apropos that the bottle resembled the color of red hots candy). The accord was powerful and almost cloyingly synthetic-smelling on paper, coming off as more of a high-end room freshener than a fragrance one would wish to wear. Luckily, on skin the effect is quite different. The rose and lavender floral aspects are much more noticeable on skin, softening the cinnamon and incense quite effectively by adding an almost watery floral undertone, making the scent work. Leave it to a brilliant nose like Giacobetti to skillfully make this kind of a composition work so well on skin when it seemingly fails on paper. All in all, Costes is a success and is also a rather good value at its $80 for 50ml or $135 for 100ml retail price. I am not quite sure that if I had sampled it first I would still have made the purchase (especially as it does not last as long as I would like on skin), but I surely don't regret it either and award Costes a "very good" 3.5 stars out of 5 rating outright.
1 Comment
