Patou pour Homme Privé Jean Patou 1994

I received a bottle that belonged to a friend in the fragrance community who passed away, there were only 10 or so millilitres remaining and most of it evaporated during shipping so I wanted the one spritz I sprayed on that was left in the sprayer tube. It opens up like a 90's Fougere, lavender-centric with coumarin from the hay, oakmoss in the background and galbanum driving herbal bitterness to tame the creation. In about ten minutes the perfume starts to resemble Patou Pour Homme EdT, patchouli, leather and pepper brings about a facet reminiscent of the animalic-spice of its precursor.

It's painfully beautiful, restrained where it has to be, masterfully created by Jean Kerleo's capable hands - I truly believe the man is the most talented perfumer of our age.

Patou pour Homme Prive is a masterpiece and Jean Kerléo is a genius. I could stop this review right there and have covered what you need to know, but with a scent this amazing, I feel I would be doing one of the all-time great scents and noses both a great disservice.

Patou pour Homme Prive is a reference quality fougere that opens with a brilliant lavender note combined with subtle hints of citrus. I am not a lavender fan at all, but this lavender is so well-done that one can't help but be swept away with its incredible execution in Prive. The scent then moves to its coumarin heart with the lavender still hanging around creating a bit of a powder to mix with a nice clean hay accord. Later, a sublime primary sandalwood note couples with patchouli and subtle vanilla accents forming the amazing base that may be the best part of this near-perfect concoction. Classy, subtle, harmonious, perfectly blended... I could go on and on but it has been all said before by many others who know how to express their feeling much better than I.

Alas, just like many of the all-time greats, Prive has long since been discontinued and sells for insanely large sums of money on eBay and elsewhere (if you can find it at all). I can safely say that if you could only own one fougere in your wardrobe, this is it and it deserves a purchase even at the unbelievably lofty prices it now commands. Everyone should purchase a decant at the very least before the dwindling supplies are exhausted. 5 stars out of 5.

A full fourteen years after Patou pour homme, the (purely nominal) flanker Privé was released in 1994 (oh, delightful slowness), and Jean Kerléo faced the challenge of complementing absolute perfection. Fortunately, he was still at the zenith of his creative power, and he succeeded in presenting a worthy counterpart to his masterpiece from 1980. It has often been written, but it is always worth mentioning again that Privé begins its Fougère journey with the most perfect and beautiful lavender note in the universe. The wonderfully clear lavender is entwined with very gentle citrus notes, as well as a delicious green note (galbanum) and a jasmine that, seriously, penetrates me physically to the core; my vegetative nervous system literally starts to dance from this accord. I already think I can perceive the sandalwood, which will later become even more pronounced, and it is not a synthetic note or a natural substitute, but clearly real Mysore Santalum Album (once you have smelled it pure, you recognize it immediately, even in traces). It remains wonderful as the current coumarin note unfolds, with smoky aspects, integrating into the existing harmony, with some brilliant solos. But perhaps the approaching base is the most beautiful aspect of Privé? Rarely have I experienced such a kneelingly perfect base made from simple, classic components: powdery iris, smoky oakmoss, and patchouli, milky-sweet-woody sandalwood; fine vanilla can be clearly identified if one concentrates intensely, because, as with Patou pour homme, the blending is masterful and rivals the greatest variations of the Guerlinade. The fact that the best Fougère of all time exhibits distinct oriental tendencies may be a reference to the mastery of genre-juggling in Patou pour homme (see my review from yesterday) and again shows with what genius Kerléo masters the keyboard of raw materials and the French perfume tradition to - in stretching all rules - create wonderfully perfect accords for the world. Overall, Privé is more accessible than its older cousin and, despite all its artistry and aesthetic perfection, is sheer joy for the nose - truly a platonic essence that reduces legions of perfumes to mere shadows. Anyone who loves perfume MUST inhale this scent at least once in their life; at the very least, obtaining a tiny decant is a primary civic duty for the parfumista, because this perfection belongs to a bygone era, and being able to experience it is akin to witnessing Atlantis before its downfall.