We're definitely not a match.
Patricia de Nicolai is a remarkable lady and a hell of a perfumer, which is why I’m devastated to report that this one turns into a disaster on my skin. To put it short, I have to deal with lemon-flavored cleaning products used in hospitals. It almost gives me anxiety. There is nothing more to say.
Sorry for posting this as a review, it seems it is too long for a statement. So I’ll add that it performs more than decently for an "Eau", not that I'm overly happy about that.
Old-school aldehyde-rose-musk fragrance.
Old-school scent that travels the classic aldehyde-rose-musk route. It's so powdery, I'm even afraid to make any sudden movements, lest I stir up a cloud of dust around me. :)
Though I’m far from being a rose lover, I like the rose here, it’s a very perfume-y one, neither jam nor sherbet, but neither the flower in the garden, brightened, especially in the first hour, by something fruity-spicy.
For the rest, the fragrance is more reminiscent of laundry detergent than soap, the musk is on the edge, balancing on the border between clean and animalic. After a while, it gets a little tiresome.
Good longevity, good projection. Okay, but nothing to write home about.
Ageless, timeless, flawless.
For a long time, I had skillfully bypassed the New York Intense sample, because I had read the notes on another site - the F-site, obviously - and I really didn't feel like putting on something that seemed so, so animalic (both civetone and castoreum are listed there).
Well, now I'm sorry we didn't meet sooner and I'm glad I finally tried it. True, I'm still not convinced that there isn't a hint of castoreum in the base, but more animalic seems to me the labdanum in Ambre Cashmere Intense, for example.
New York Intense is a chypre-aromatic with an extraordinarily beautiful citrus opening, classic without being old-fashioned, somewhat masculine but not exclusively masculine. It shines in the cold, becomes a little dull when it gets hot, it's possible that the overdose of oakmoss makes it hard to carry in the summer heat. It's so bright and clear, it's like a brilliant-cut crystal.
Ageless, timeless, flawless. Outstanding performance. Excellent overall!
Woody, spicy immortelle. Just beautiful.
I was convinced that of all the Jacques Fath perfumes I tested, my favorite by far was L'Oree du Bois. Well, I spoke too soon. Velours Boise caught up to it over the last few meters and pushed its chest out at the finish line, managing to win the photo finish. :)
It's not an easy fragrance, on the contrary, the opening is an incomprehensible dirty-alcoholic mess, but out of that mess emerges a woody, spicy immortelle so beautiful, it actually glues my nose to my wrist. To me, immortelles smell like bittersweet myrrh with hay/dried herb inclusions, and I like them so much, I don't even have one in my wardrobe. :)) It's not that I don't want one, but I want THE ONE, and I'm not willing to settle for less than that. Either that, or not at all! It's like one of those childhood games where we'd hide an object around the house, and whoever was assigned to find it would be given clues depending on how far away from the object they were looking: icy, cold, lukewarm, warm, warmer, hot, hoooooot! The imortelle in Velours Boise is warm, but I want it hooooot. I'll keep looking.
To some extent it reminds me of good old Sables (Goutal), then it has moments when it slightly resembles Le Participe Passe (Lutens). Good lasting power, perfect for fall.
Frivolities are totally missing here.
In the first few minutes after spraying, Les Frivolites is an authentic fruity fragrance. No synthetics, zero plastic waste, just candied apricots and sweet-sour raspberries, on the border between fruit and jam. But things don't stay that way for long. A leather accord immediately appears, a rather odd one. Not only is there nothing animalic about it, it doesn't even smell of faux suede, PU-leather or any other kind of leather substitute. I'd say it smells more like heated bakelite. It's not distracting, it doesn't dramatically transform the scent, it just takes it a bit off the trajectory I would have liked for it.
After a while, the smell of phenoplast - or whatever it is - fades away, the less and less obvious fruits are joined by a musky rose, but the fragrance no longer has any projection power, it sits close to the skin and that's it.
All in all, an easy to wear, medium-performing fragrance, probably best suited for warmer weather, and the frivolities have to be sought elsewhere, as they are totally missing here.
