Psychédélique Jovoy 2011

If you are thinking of getting a patchouli fragrance and you do not know which one, search no further.
If you are looking for a sign, this is it! Guys, this scent is simply amazing. You have the gourmandish chocolate cake patchouli feel in the opening which dries down into and intoxicating ambery, earthy and sweet patchouli that just wont leave your skin. Pungent and sexy, the trail is to die for and you will get noticed. Longevity and projection is above average, borderline beast mode! 12+ hours on the skin, days on the clothes.

Chill and let yourself go in the damp, musty, and sweet arms of Mother Earth.
Peace and Love brothers and sisters.
Let’s all sit together around a warm campfire in the woods after the rain, and feel our long locks gently brush the naked skin of our bodies, as we bask in the glow of the moon.
Ravi Shankar and Joan Baez may be playing their funky music, but we’re talking Woodstock for the 21st Century here.
The Age of Aquarius perhaps, but this is more Hippy chic than Hippy shack.
A bombastic patchouli with a mega personality as it is known for, coupled with a healthy dose of yummy vanilla.
Nice one Jovoy.

Psychédélique by Jovoy. Wow, now when I think about it, this is one of the first perfumes I purchased back in the day. And it still holds the spot as one of my favorite Patchouli compositions. I love Patchouli as a note, yet I get bored quickly with it and never felt the need to own multiple takes on this genre. Moreover, there are many facets of this shrub that can be showcased, and I tend to go for those perfumes that focus on the musty, earthy, dank, and earthy facets. Psychédélique falls in that category and is the only patchouli-based perfume, next to Borneo 1834, in my collection. While Borneo complements the patchouli with cocoa and cistus, the former focuses on the warmth and sweetness of the amber resin accord(here cistus and vanilla) and the musks. Much like with Borneo, this perfume delivers a big dose of that dank, earthy, and dusty patchouli, only that it feels even larger here. And it irons its creases with a sweet, glowing amber accord and musks. An ambery-patchouli that is larger than life and lasts forever with intoxicating sillage. It passes the test for me in the sense that when I think of ambers and dank patchouli compositions they have to make me think of old dusty books and chambers. And this one does. In the opening, there is a hint of booziness and an almost chocolaty feel, liquor-like nearly, before it recedes to the patchouli heart and later in the amber base. In the colder months, it is an utter delight and I feel it is one of those compositions that shine in the sillage more so than smelling them up-close. It is my favorite perfume from this house. A solid house all around with many great offerings and unique and beautiful sturdy bottles (seriously now the bottles are gorgeous).

IG:@memory.of.scents

Psychedelique opens with a quite sweet and almost ginger-like dark candied fruit accord before it changes completely as it enters its mid-section. As the fragrance enters its early heart, the candied fruit from the open begins to slowly morph into a relatively clean musk, slightly sweet amber and earthy patchouli starring trio with dark rose support with the overall early heart accord coming off as a rich dark chocolate. As the fragrance enters the late dry-down, the patchouli takes over in a big way with the amber and musk still present now firmly in supporting roles. Projection is above average and longevity outstanding at over 12 hours on skin.

Psychedelique provides the wearer with quite the ride. It starts off with a nice sweet gingery drunken fruit that turns into to a dark earthy chocolate before finally revealing its true nature in the later part of its dry-down as it proves a real earthy patchouli bomb. When you examine the sparse official list of notes, one might expect a fragrance with a completely different profile but Jacques Flori does a fine job taking familiar notes and accords, skillfully combining them in interesting ways to reveal unexpected surprises. The open and close are the most appealing parts of Psychedelique's development to this review's preferences, as the earthy dark chocolate mid phase is just a bit too gourmand-like. That said, even during its least desirable parts the composition remains interesting and smells quite good. One observation made while wearing it on skin was Psychedelique smells much better when sniffed from afar (or on others) in sillage form rather than up close. The bottom line is Psychedelique is not without its flaws but they are rather minor, and this near excellent 3.5 to 4 star rated composition is definitely sniff worthy and maybe even purchase-worthy despite its $180 a 100ml bottle price tag. Recommended.

By God, this is good. Thick, creamy swirls of dark (but not too dark) chocolate underpinned by a rich, boozy amber that just beg you to sip it rather than spray it on your skin. The patchouli is clearly patchouli – green, dirty, earthy as hell – but a transubstantiation of sorts occurs as you inhale, transmuting the soil to a fine-boned, liquid mass of chocolate, dried fruit, double cream, and whiskey. Spray-on truffles by way of Pierre Hermès. Despite the glut of gourmand notes, Psychédélique veers towards masculine, possibly thanks to the hand of Jacques Flori, who did many of the Etro fragrances, and whose signature (if he may be said to possess one) is the addition of mint, geranium, and carnation to keep even the most ambery of drydowns fresh and lively. In the end, however, Psychédélique cannot sustain the rich chocolate truffle accord for very long, soon devolving into a pleasant but standard ambery-patch, of which I have shamefully multiple variations.