Fatal Charme Xerjoff 2012

It's very powdery and floral. Something for the hardcore Iris lovers. Pass for me but you can't not appreciate the beauty of the composition even if it's not your cup of tea. It's blended very well and longevity is way beyond desired with such type fragrances. Classic, elegant, a little bit boarding school teacher kind of vibe.

Miss Jennifer Honey from movie Matilda comes in mind but more upscale and traditional in manners.

I feel like a kind of Numerobis, who is supposed to quickly build a structure, in this case a pyramid. Because the little tester of "Fatal Charme" (many thanks to Yatagan!) only coughed up a tiny sip. I apologize for any corresponding blurriness.

Powdery iris with a sting of biting sour fruit. Heliotrope, baking aroma-sharp. The sweetness is complemented by liquid honey. A hint of soapy, watery noble rose. I can also smell the bitterness of iris. Underneath, amber along with resinous companions, gently emerging from honey and vanilla. Gradually, the scent becomes rounder and warmer. Already before noon, I find myself in a resinous-creamy sweetness with a lot of vanilla. In the afternoon, a background freshness of anise candy ventilates, before a waxy amber note with H-cream sprinkles takes over.

I am pleased to note that others diagnose very similar things. I hadn’t thought of anise and benzoin myself, but it fits. So here is a pyramidal attempt; I am aware of certain redundancies in the contents behind some terms:

Top note: Lemon, bergamot
Heart note: Iris, heliotrope, honey, rose, anise
Base note: Amber, styrax, benzoin, (kokel)-myrrh (some kind of resin mixture…), wax, vanilla, guaiac, sandalwood (some kind of cream stuff…)

Conclusion: The "Fatal" could have emphasized itself a bit more.

Oh dear... After being very impressed by some Xerjoff fragrances recently, I cautiously approached the "Join the Club" series - but what is this supposed to be...? The individual scents in this series are said to represent a typical representative of a kind of virtual club. "Fatal Charme" (yes, it is spelled with an "e" at the end, unlike here) is supposedly the trendy club in Milan, fashionable, ahead of trends, creative and elegant, glamorous and exclusive, knowledgeable and magnetic - really?? What nonsense... It continues accordingly: the notes and components are kept secret to maintain exclusivity, however, every buyer receives an ID card with which they can meet other initiated buyers of this supposedly special fragrance in the real (as opposed to the virtual) club. Incredible, who comes up with such nonsense...

Is there even a scent? I mean one that is somehow worth mentioning or even actually present, aside from all the marketing noise...? Well, what can I say...

There certainly is, and it opens up really enticingly and appealingly! Of course, I lack the exact references here, but the fragrance unmistakably opens briefly with a bright, yet restrained and elegantly orchestrated citrus accord; I recognize lemon and especially mandarin in the first 20-30 seconds. Then, subtle but still distinct white, milky floral notes join in. Not Ylang, not Jasmine, it smells more like a Calla looks ;-) The mandarin-juicy, slightly sweet accord from the opening remains present, but has now rounded into a broader floral character.

Soon, greener notes come in, like the stem and leaves of the Calla, complementing its white juicy radiance with its defining green aspects. In this heart note, we have an overall dense, excellently balanced and multi-layered, not necessarily white but bright-juicy floral component - very appealing and quite complex!

A delicate creamy-balsamic slightly sweet caramel note comes in, not vanilla or honey, but rather a slightly caramel touch. Or is it vanilla after all...? In the drydown, it almost seems so, not the flat sweet but the restrained-dark-full natural variant, but very subtle, nonetheless full and round - slightly sweetened, mossy-fern-green floral notes form, in my perception, the base, and thus the fragrance fades out.

I really dislike this disgusting marketing game with supposed exclusivity and secrecy, but I must begrudgingly acknowledge that this fragrance is really well made, in every respect, from architecture to execution to the quality of the components, there is not the slightest thing to criticize. A highly elegant, wide-awake-clear hint of floral nobility and contemporary transparency. Annoyingly good, this fragrance... ;-)

I was immediately smitten ... what a beautiful scent enveloped me after the first spray. I sprayed again. Already after a few seconds addicted? This beautiful soft yet alert fragrance accompanied me all evening until the early morning and awakened feelings of happiness within me. Even at night, I could still smell it. It calmed me while simultaneously stirring me up. It made me strong, emotionally.
Powdery yes, fresh too, MYSTERIOUS in any case. A scent made for ME, for my soul, love it. Fatal Charme, yes indeed. The fragrance even makes one charming, yes, indeed, that’s true. You become more relaxed and CHARMING in perfected form. An extraordinary scent that will not find its equal. I am completely enchanted.
I only wear it for going out on the weekends so that I don’t get used to the high feeling and can look forward to it anew each time.

My first test of a Xerjoff fragrance. Welcome to the Club! I would have preferred something like Nio or similar, but this perfume from the Join the Club line is not made by bad perfumers either. I have never encountered such a powdery lemon in this way; it is almost chalk-like and extremely high-quality. Comparable to a luxury Iceberg Twice.

Fatal Charme starts off citrusy. At first, I thought it was creamy, but it landed somewhere between powdery and creamy. You can almost smell the thick scent particles, almost like chalk. Yet it is citrusy, slightly floral, and very sweet. The combination of sweetness and powder quickly brings to mind powdered sugar. This note dominates the fragrance for an extremely long time; the citrus fades slowly, and the scent becomes sweeter, more caramel-like. The floral aspect also evaporates, and the fragrance almost turns into a milk-honey gourmand. I like!

Bottle: I like the colors less, but in person, Xerjoff will hardly show any flaws here again.
Sillage: Medium to strong. But definitely not a party perfume yet.
Longevity: very long. I stopped counting at 10 hours. Perfect!

Even though the marketing, including the secrecy of the scent pyramid, the club/ID card, and the high price, is certainly controversial, it could appeal to the super-rich. But only if a few other fragrances are as beautifully and undeniably special as this fatal haute couture charm bolt.