booonbooon

There's something cool about this, isn't there? Clean Suede to me evokes a very realistic scent of a new car (did you know new dishwashers also smell like a new car? I learned that recently). It's fresh, clean, a bit citrusy and a bit pine-y like an air freshener hanging on the rear view. The slightly sweet and warm base makes it feel comforting and attractive. The effect is a bit standoffish and classic, accessible and light enough to wear fairly regularly if you would like to. It draws lines between a classic gentleman, a cool car, and the adventure that cars are supposed to link us to.

It's been a while since I've tried this, but so far it's my only 1 star on Parfumo. Something about that camphor note is just really really terrible to me. Noxious and sickening and alarming and strange to me. ELDO does great work so I don't really know what the process was here, maybe just a difference in what I am into vs what this was. But ohhh man. Somehow like the most offensive thing I've smelled so far, with Tobacco Vanille Eau de Parfum.

I think this fragrance just covers a lot of things that I don't really like, and I didn't quite realize it until I tried this. I don't think I like tea scents very much personally. I definitely don't really like a lemongrass/litsea scent. It also has kind of a weird, stinging galbanum-y note that I don't tend to like much either. So ultimately, Wulong Cha X is evidently a NOT FOR ME kind of smell. I could see someone who likes these things liking this, but for me it's tingly and sour and stingy and dry and too yellow-green and just overall kind of gives me a headache.

I'll preface this with the fact that I haven't tried that many orange blossom fragrances. Also, there's elements of the presentation I really loved. I got a free sample of this bottle from the LV store near me and it came in a nice little box and in that box was a beautiful little sample bottle with the bright orange gradient on the glass. Even the atomizer was just astounding. Coming from the world of the Etat Libre D'Orange discovery set that has terrible atomizers, it was a whole new world. So there may be a halo effect from all that. But that said, I found this to be a really really gorgeous, well blended scent. I don't think that about every LV - I found Imagination and Symphony to be quite boring, I loved L'Immensité, liked Nouveau Monde, and thought Ombre Nomade wasn't for me. Sun Song, however, is just wonderful. So bright, so playful, so joyous. It really does feel like sunshine on your skin, like a beautiful pick-me up when you're feeling down. In that way, it's reminiscent of Isola, another citrus + floral freshie I adore, and Pretty Machine which I like as well. The materials or the blending or something here just feels extremely well done.

All that said, performance is pretty terrible. It lasts like four hours max on my skin. Maybe it's the cost you get from not filling it with boosters or from using more natural(?) ingredients, but it just doesn't last at all. I get that citrus and some florals are quite fleeting, but I really wish this lasted longer, especially considering its very high price point. Maybe JC-B is just a genius and fragrances below this price point just can't capture the magic this one does, but I'll keep an eye out for other orange blossom scents to see if one can do the same. For now, I'll probably just look to get a decant of Isola.

Among the most utilitarian scents out there. If you just want to smell clean and like you have a fragrance on, this gives great value. It doesn't smell bad, but it's definitely synthetic and faceless, and I don't know how everything really fits together. The Sichuan pepper and basil notes feel like they're on one side and then there's this ringing synthetic wood note. I have made similar critiques about Reflection Man which also feels faceless to me, but at least that is undoubtedly smooth, attractive, naturalistic, and well blended. I don't know. I'd never be mad at smelling this on someone but I would just almost always feel like there's better options to wear, personally, even when I want to go unnoticed and blend in.