Herod Parfums de Marly 2012

I know, I know you could say my title is inspired by Kilian's Straight to Heaven...it is...but that has nothing to do with the scent of Him. This is more about Herod
Why is this scent so special to me? Why does he get a 10/10 from me and why Straight to Heaven ???

Quite simply, it's my first niche fragrance.

My entry into the world of fragrances began with designer fragrances. You go through the classics. You go through the "top" fragrances, Dior, Chanel, etc.

At some point you reach a point where you have already smelled everything. To everything his opinion has made itself and now his preferences so slowly or even already discovered. Do I like fresh, oriental, sweet scents? Possibly also brands? (With me it was e.g. Guerlain)

After a while I noticed that many things smell similar or the same. That's when I thought, "That's it? So that's it? That's all the best known scents in existence? That's it?"

A few months went by and I came across this page. (A new world opened for me)

I've often heard of the Parfums de Marly brand, but they weren't available at Douglas or Müller. After doing some research, I came across a perfumery that sells all kinds of niche fragrances. You can guess it, I went there right away.

Arriving there I noticed the flacons of Pdm. The horses, the massive caps, everything looked different from the designer scents.

About Herod I have already read in before and that this one should be one of the best of the brand. I have to say that I had no to low expectations. What is supposed to be great now ? After all, I have already smelled everything possible.

Accordingly, I had myself sprayed onto a test strip.

I can't explain what happened then either. There was this "Straight to Heaven" moment that I wrote about. While the salesgirl told me about it and introduced me to the other fragrances, I stood there like rooted to the spot. For a short time I completely blanked out my surroundings including the salesgirl and concentrated only on the fragrance I had never smelled before.

The scent was sweet, elegant, oriental and somehow dark for me, no idea how to describe it dark. I had the feeling that the perfumer was allowed to do what he wanted, because this fragrance is complex and yet "mass appealing", but in a more interesting form. Another possibility would be that there was no budget like with the designer fragrances, but as I said, it's just a guess
Herod is balanced with woody notes, musk, tobacco and vanilla. In my opinion, these notes harmonize very well with each other. There is not THIS ONE NOTE that either doesn't fit in or that worsens the fragrance as it progresses. I also liked a light cherry note, which is not listed, but it was still there. Of course, it could be that my nose has already said goodbye after this odyssey and that's why I smelled cherry.

The shelf life and silage are also good to very good. On my skin it still smelled the next day.

All in all I have to say that this fragrance has made the entrance into the niche world for me. It just matched my taste for sweet, oriental, spicy notes. These are so well coordinated that for a short time I was somewhere else, probably Straight to Heaven