Je Ne Sais Quoi Téo Cabanel 2020

Absolutely beautiful! A masterfully well done tea scent. Opens with warm hazelnutty undertones paired with toasty rice. As the scent develops you get a rich, robust, and aromatic maté note paired with powdery ceremonial matcha and a hint of fresh violet leaves. The dry down maintains the rich tea aromas paired with dry and warm woods. Just perfect. If you thought Arielle Shoshanna’s Sunday felt flat or bland, this is a similar scent profile but much more refined and complex.

Out of all Téo Cabanel fragrances this is the most unique one, and my favourite. Je ne sais quoi really lives up to its name as you really don't know what this fragrance is, it reminds me of no other fragrance before it, and notes are quite undetectable.

At first I thought this was a gourmand scent, but in order to be one it is too green. However, it is not "fresh" green, but rather a "creamy" green, with a sweet aftertaste. At a first glance I can sense warm freshly cooked sweet rice that develops into matcha, somewhat sweetened.

This is a modern scent for sure, very unlike anything before it, and suitable for all occasions and seasons.

It's a blind buy for me. I bought it after watching some review videos on youtube. I have to say I'm not head over heels in love with it but it IS a cozy scent to wear on my body--not overtly sweet, not overtly "perfume-y" and I'd say it's quite subtle compared to some of the gourmand fragrance. Kinda like a matcha daifuku vibe? I could smell the tea note but it's more mate than matcha for me. I know for some people the opening rice note is hit or miss and I'm not a huge fan of it either (although not hating it), but I like how the powdery feeling lingers and the smell stays rich. I got quite some people that'd commented on the scent (not all of them were enthusiastic compliments, most told me they smelled it) and they usually noticed the woodiness of it. There was this one time a customer came in the tiny record shop I work at and asked if it was a perfume boutique coz I was wearing it. I'd recommend it, but I'm still deciding whether or not this could be my "signature scent".
I also compared it to Un Été from Obvious which is a citrus-y matcha fragrance. I'd say Un Été smells more perfume-y and sweeter and more "feminine" and Je Ne Sais Quoi gives me a richer experience.

This is by far the most unique fragrance I have owned. It starts with a rice-forward opening giving that warmth and coziness, but the dry down has this fresh, green and almost-fougere kind of profile (which makes this perfume ever so slightly masculine-leaning but most certainly unisex). This is neither matcha nor genmaicha, rather I am getting hints of maté but this is definitely more akin to a south-east asian rice dessert as someone who used to eat a lot of it during my childhood.

Je Ne Sais Quoi opens with a startlingly realistic sensation of lifting the lid off a pot and inhaling the aroma of steamed rice. It feels warm, softly nutty, and lightly sweet, a scent of comfort. I am also reminded of pandan leaves, the savory, grassy vanilla floral quality of them. The rice accord transforms to the more puffed, roasted scent of popped rice in genmaicha green tea.

It's fascinating in that it can at once feel milky and then starchy, and the sweetness is tempered by the slightest bitter-astringent grassiness and powdery wood fond. While the first half hour of wear is a real showstopper, the remainder of its development is subdued yet no less beautiful. It gives me the same sort of satisfaction for carbohydrate-as-fragrance as Robert Piguet Zazen or Serge Lutens Jeux de Peau.