Sensual & Decadent LM Parfums 2015

Actually, I never wanted to write a negative review. Until yesterday, I hadn't tested a fragrance that truly deserved it, as I am an olfactory optimist like Voltaire's Candide.

User Ergreifend recently started an excellent series of negative reviews: "Too Tight Thongs." Today, I caught a wearer of a too tight thong: it is Aphrodite - the graceful goddess of love among the Greeks, the erotic fantasy of every sculptor!

However, in Laurent Mazzone's interpretation, Aphrodite is not wearing a charming garment with a dangerously deep neckline, but just one thing: a too tight thong. The once graceful goddess of love and delightful niche perfumes… Overstuffed with caramel. Aphrodite paid 400 euros for 100ml of caramel from Laurent Mazzone.

I do not want to withhold Laurent Mazzone's marketing text from the interested reader: Sensual & Decadent is said to be the scent of sacred love. Somewhere in a dark forest, there is supposed to be a bed of moss and shiny leaves. Surrounded by aromatic resin. A secret love nest where Aphrodite secretly indulges her pleasures with her lovers. But she must be careful of her jealous husband, the somewhat slow-witted and clumsy god Hephaestus, god of anvil and hammer.

Anyone expecting a sensually seductive, possibly even frivolous love scent from Roja Dove will be shocked. Just like during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit to Rome, they covered the naked Aphrodite. Here with a sticky layer of caramel.

Sensual & Decadent primarily smells of caramel, prepared in a student flat. A men's shared apartment, single men's shared apartment, to be precise. Well, I do not smell the delicate, erotic Aphrodite in Sensual & Decadent. I smell the Gorgons. Gorgons are terrifying figures in Greek-Roman mythology with wings and snake hair, who caused anyone who looked at them to die of fright. Laurent Mazzone has excellently translated this olfactorily. Everything is frozen under a shell of caramel.

Sensual & Decadent starts with caramel. And a pinch of hors-sol rhubarb. However, it could also be hors-sol cooking apple or unripe hors-sol tomato. And at the same time, a rather penetrating caramel note breaks over the wearer and their environment.

Not really grandma's caramel, prepared with overflowing love, but rather an unspecified caramel concoction made from supermarket ingredients. Prepared by students from a science faculty. Probably specializing in "very theoretical physics."

After a few minutes, some flowers join the caramel concoction. Why are the flowers there? Because they were told to be. They are doing their duty as instructed. At least without complaint. They are white. As required of them. So more white like how men wash white laundry "white." Hm.

This causes discontent in the caramel concoction. It decides to punish the rather unmotivated flowers with some persistence. The caramel concoction prepared by physics students does not quite succeed in this. Nevertheless, this tension, whether the caramel concoction will become really penetrating or not, creates a certain suspense.

The scent progression is not really distinguishable into top, heart, and base notes. The caramel note smells more or less equally penetrating all the time. At least a perfect harmony - albeit of olfactory Tartarus. With the progression of the scent, the caramel note may become just a tiny bit weaker and shifts towards a dry-powdery vanilla and resin.

A pale wood note from old discarded garden furniture joins in. Occasionally, a bitter-sour note stands out. Does the rhubarb still have some flow? One does not know.

Over time, the caramel concoction burns a bit for the physics students. A slightly smoky note makes itself known. Did the pale wood stick some smoky feathers up its backside to pass as oud? Again, one can only speculate.

I consider Sensual & Decadent to be absolutely unisex: I can equally advise both genders against the scent. The scent is as interesting in its progression and complexity as women's soccer in the USA.

Hm. I have been wondering for about 12 hours whom Aphrodite intends to seduce with Sensual & Decadent. Because the caramel note rolls through the scent like the crazed Cretan bull. I fear that if Aphrodite's bed smells like this (as her press spokesperson claims), she first stuffs an entire pot of caramel (at 400 euros per 100ml) into herself - and then takes matters into her own hands. In any case, her thong will pinch in the near future.

If I were to enter the hell described by Jean-Paul Sartre in Huis clos, Laurent Mazzone would incessantly spray Sensual & Decadent on me. And I would scream Aphrodite out of my little black book.