Au Hasard Louis Vuitton 2018

There is hardly a fragrance ingredient that I hate as deeply as sandalwood. This creamy, often lactonic smelling wood haunts me even in my nightmares. So it makes sense to buy a sandalwood scent from Louis Vuitton.

I associate sandalwood with my worst olfactory experience to date. Out of ignorance, I once tried Black Phantom by Kilian and was driving in the car while wearing it. When the sweat started to run down my forehead and a kind of nausea overcame me that I had never experienced before in an olfactory sense, I knew I was smelling the worst scent of all time. Burnt milk on the ceramic cooktop was then my association, and to this day I get goosebumps when I think about that experience. My experiences with sandalwood are therefore of a negative nature.

I received Au Hasard as a sample with my order of Orage and was relatively sure upon first sniff that Au Hasard wouldn't captivate me. The only problem is when such a scent doesn't leave you alone, thoughts circle around it, and you keep being drawn back to the fragrance. After a few days, the sample was empty as I wore the scent every day. The fragrance opens with a beautifully juicy and realistic mandarin that carries hardly any sweetness and tends to drift almost towards the sour. Petitgrain complements this with a bitter citrus note and rounds off this extremely fresh and invigorating opening. My great luck with Au Hasard is the way sandalwood is used. Fortunately, it is not a lactonic sandalwood that reminds me of neither milk nor fig. The sandalwood does have a certain creaminess, which is typical for sandalwood. However, it integrates wonderfully into the fragrance, complementing it at the necessary points and not taking center stage. To me, the sandalwood here appears slightly sweet, evoking an association with fresh, slightly sweet wood shavings in a workshop. The sour characteristics of the mandarin, ambrette, and petitgrain are noticeable to me throughout the entire fragrance journey, enveloping one in a cloak of citrus moments. I don’t know many fragrances that exert such a strong pull on me and draw me in.

The longevity is a solid 7-8 hours on my skin. If a fragrance can accompany me in this way throughout the workday, that is more than enough for me.

While Au Hasard has not cured my sandalwood phobia, it has shown me that this fragrance ingredient can also take on very beautiful aspects.