blindy
Reviews
Filter & Sort
Detailed
A niche Sauvage?
Eris was one of the spontaneous discoveries: I didn’t know this niche house existed up until I randomly came across it in one of the shops in Prague. I was testing bunch of perfumes and randomly picked up that bottle. Long story short - I was thorn between getting Corpus Equus by Naomi Goodsir and this. Well, having read the title, you know what I walked home with.
This might be the best use of ambroxan that I’ve ever tested. You probably know ambroxan very well from Dior Sauvage - that smell of a washing powder should be it. I never liked Sauvage and I still don’t like it. Scorpio Rising might be the “niche” interpretation of Sauvage that I truly enjoy. It is still an ambroxan bomb but way better blended. Apart from ambroxan, the composition explodes in your face with spices: peppers, clove and cinnamon (I don’t feel cinnamon here). It has sharp, spicy-green opening, it comes across as somewhat dry and pungent and I certainly like it.
After some time it settles down to a more woody-leathery-amboxany composition, but I still can smell certain spiciness here. It performs very well on my skin and sometimes reminds me of dry gin without the alcohol smell. Much better than Sauvage in terms of ambroxan use: here it enhances the performance of the ingredients without overshadowing them. Great choice for almost every season: I got it in summer and it sat very well on me but I can easily imagine it being worn in colder times as well.
This might be the best use of ambroxan that I’ve ever tested. You probably know ambroxan very well from Dior Sauvage - that smell of a washing powder should be it. I never liked Sauvage and I still don’t like it. Scorpio Rising might be the “niche” interpretation of Sauvage that I truly enjoy. It is still an ambroxan bomb but way better blended. Apart from ambroxan, the composition explodes in your face with spices: peppers, clove and cinnamon (I don’t feel cinnamon here). It has sharp, spicy-green opening, it comes across as somewhat dry and pungent and I certainly like it.
After some time it settles down to a more woody-leathery-amboxany composition, but I still can smell certain spiciness here. It performs very well on my skin and sometimes reminds me of dry gin without the alcohol smell. Much better than Sauvage in terms of ambroxan use: here it enhances the performance of the ingredients without overshadowing them. Great choice for almost every season: I got it in summer and it sat very well on me but I can easily imagine it being worn in colder times as well.
Bring it back!
I am not a huge fan of Tom Ford. Surely, they have some good fragrances but I get the feeling that all the interesting and “experimental” perfumes that they’ve created will be inevitably discontinued if they aren’t already.
The same fate befell Noir Anthracite and I genuinely don’t know why. It is the best and the least sweet and boring perfume in the noir line. Instead of developing anthracite TF decided to stick to the “safer” options to sell more bottles I guess. Sadly, their other noir perfumes are not to my liking.
Anthracite is a beast in a suit. Why in a suit? Because I believe the best occasion for this beauty is a formal meeting where you’re not scared to “offend” people a little bit and show your strength at the same time.
It opens with a sharp note of pencil shavings and coal? At least that’s what I smell here: the coal is not burnt yet. Later on, I sense some pepper grounded on top of that mix. That’s all I sense until the end of its performance but that’s all I need from it to be honest. It’s quite straightforward and doesn’t evolve much as I said or maybe I am just noseblind. I don’t smell a lot of notes listed on Fragrantica, to me it’s all well-blended in one strong and dark composition. I hope TF will re-think about the discontinuation and will bring it back to life.
The same fate befell Noir Anthracite and I genuinely don’t know why. It is the best and the least sweet and boring perfume in the noir line. Instead of developing anthracite TF decided to stick to the “safer” options to sell more bottles I guess. Sadly, their other noir perfumes are not to my liking.
Anthracite is a beast in a suit. Why in a suit? Because I believe the best occasion for this beauty is a formal meeting where you’re not scared to “offend” people a little bit and show your strength at the same time.
It opens with a sharp note of pencil shavings and coal? At least that’s what I smell here: the coal is not burnt yet. Later on, I sense some pepper grounded on top of that mix. That’s all I sense until the end of its performance but that’s all I need from it to be honest. It’s quite straightforward and doesn’t evolve much as I said or maybe I am just noseblind. I don’t smell a lot of notes listed on Fragrantica, to me it’s all well-blended in one strong and dark composition. I hope TF will re-think about the discontinuation and will bring it back to life.
My personal Time Machine
I love ELDO fragrances for their creativity. They’re what I like to call a “creative niche” that strives for bringing out things that surely not everyone will appreciate but everyone will certainly remember once they’ve smelled it. It’s not even love or hate type of relationship: I couldn’t find any ELDO fragrances I would truly love and wear every day but I certainly would want to have some of them in my collection just because they’re like art objects, not accessories.
Rien evokes a lot of childhood memories in me. Upon smelling Rien, I almost instantly go back in time. I find myself being 7-8 years old again, standing in my grandmother’s flat, going through the old tool box until I would find an old duck tape that seems to be laying there since 70-s. An old dusty soldering iron with some leftover solidified, almost crystallized rosin.
Rien smells exactly like that. No aldehydes, incense or leather for me: all these notes are replaced with my old memories and the smell from that long gone past. I rarely wear it but find myself sniffing on the cap pretty often to go back in time again where all you needed is a good day out with friend riding a bike or playing football (or soccer for my dear American readers). Truly a time machine!
Rien evokes a lot of childhood memories in me. Upon smelling Rien, I almost instantly go back in time. I find myself being 7-8 years old again, standing in my grandmother’s flat, going through the old tool box until I would find an old duck tape that seems to be laying there since 70-s. An old dusty soldering iron with some leftover solidified, almost crystallized rosin.
Rien smells exactly like that. No aldehydes, incense or leather for me: all these notes are replaced with my old memories and the smell from that long gone past. I rarely wear it but find myself sniffing on the cap pretty often to go back in time again where all you needed is a good day out with friend riding a bike or playing football (or soccer for my dear American readers). Truly a time machine!
Unconventional tobacco
Ormond Jayne as a brand has never really caught my attention. I knew about it and I’ve had couple of samples but that’s it. The only thing I keep in mind is their White Gold that my mom was liking so much.
For some unknown (even for myself) reason I’ve decided to try Monotabaco and its flankers. This one grew on me so I’ve decided to add a full bottle to my collection.
Verano smells nothing like a regular tobacco perfume. Instead, it’s a light and airy tea scent to my nose. It opens up with an ozony-citrusy note and evolves into a slightly spiced tea composition. Tobacco here starts showing up slowly in the drydown. This tobacco note, or a composition itself I’d rather say reminds me of an empty pack of cigarettes opened somewhere on a high altitude.
I can understand people saying it’s a synthetic fragrance. Is it a photorealistic tobacco smell? No? Does this smell synthetic because of the low quality ingredients? Also no. I believe it doesn’t smell realistic enough because it was never intended to smell that way. It’s Van Gogh’s interpretation of reality, an interesting mix of notes that doesn’t represent our reality. However, I can imagine the smell of air in the mountains being somewhat close to what you get from the composition here (mountain air is a note listed on Fragrantica). I also don’t think it smells like Bulgari Tygar to be honest, but I will have to retest Tygar to be 100% sure.
For some unknown (even for myself) reason I’ve decided to try Monotabaco and its flankers. This one grew on me so I’ve decided to add a full bottle to my collection.
Verano smells nothing like a regular tobacco perfume. Instead, it’s a light and airy tea scent to my nose. It opens up with an ozony-citrusy note and evolves into a slightly spiced tea composition. Tobacco here starts showing up slowly in the drydown. This tobacco note, or a composition itself I’d rather say reminds me of an empty pack of cigarettes opened somewhere on a high altitude.
I can understand people saying it’s a synthetic fragrance. Is it a photorealistic tobacco smell? No? Does this smell synthetic because of the low quality ingredients? Also no. I believe it doesn’t smell realistic enough because it was never intended to smell that way. It’s Van Gogh’s interpretation of reality, an interesting mix of notes that doesn’t represent our reality. However, I can imagine the smell of air in the mountains being somewhat close to what you get from the composition here (mountain air is a note listed on Fragrantica). I also don’t think it smells like Bulgari Tygar to be honest, but I will have to retest Tygar to be 100% sure.
Where’s my tobacco?
I don’t understand Xerjoff. The brand is supposed to produce the ultimate luxury while delivering the highest quality possible. The quality of what? Ingredients? Scent profile? Customer experience? All of the above?
I personally believe that’s a marketing trick, similar to the world of fashion where it’s 90% about the logo and 10% about the quality (not all brands are like that of course). Xerjoff’s perfumes don’t create this wow-effect in me. They are just perfumes to me, nothing extraordinary. I always try to disregard the “logos” and stories of “rich heritage and history” or any other marketing tricks brands tend to impose on their customers.
Naxos is supposed to be a blend of honey and tobacco, but where’s the tobacco here? AllI can smell is lavender and honey combination, which is not necessarily bad as it creates this warm/cold dichotomy: cold, almost metallic lavender is coated in honey. The composition doesn’t evolve any further on my skin and stays like that for a very long time.
If I were a fragrance rookie, I probably would’ve been impressed. Now with all the sampled perfumes I can say that it’s certainly not a masterpiece - just a decent frag. I am glad I paid only 50% for the tester :)
I personally believe that’s a marketing trick, similar to the world of fashion where it’s 90% about the logo and 10% about the quality (not all brands are like that of course). Xerjoff’s perfumes don’t create this wow-effect in me. They are just perfumes to me, nothing extraordinary. I always try to disregard the “logos” and stories of “rich heritage and history” or any other marketing tricks brands tend to impose on their customers.
Naxos is supposed to be a blend of honey and tobacco, but where’s the tobacco here? AllI can smell is lavender and honey combination, which is not necessarily bad as it creates this warm/cold dichotomy: cold, almost metallic lavender is coated in honey. The composition doesn’t evolve any further on my skin and stays like that for a very long time.
If I were a fragrance rookie, I probably would’ve been impressed. Now with all the sampled perfumes I can say that it’s certainly not a masterpiece - just a decent frag. I am glad I paid only 50% for the tester :)
