Haunted Houses
April 24th, 2007
By Tove Solander
I knew Parfumerie Generale L’Ombre Fauve reminded me of something, and I kept thinking of S-Perfumes Lust and Le Labo Labdanum 18. When I saw it compared to Dana Tabu, of which I have recently acquired a couple of cute vintage minis, the pieces fell into place. Today I’m reviewing all four of them side by side: the niche, the limited edition, the “olfactory installation”, and the classic cheap cologne. Here are the notes for three of them; I haven’t been able to find any notes for Lust:
L’Ombre Fauve: amber, musk, wood, patchouli
Labdanum 18 (Ciste 18): ciste, civet, castoreum, musk, vanille, birch tar, cinnamon, patchouli, gurjaum balsam, tonka bean
Tabu: amber, jasmine, musk, oakmoss, orange blossom, rose, vetiver
All four scents belong to the family of ambery, woody, and resinous orientals. They are dry and powdery to various extents, which lends them a ”dusty” air of old places and old times. I think of different textures when I smell them, from fabrics like velvet and wool to unpolished wood but the materials are all dark and soft to the touch. Not just any dark colour; I envision them as different shades of brown, from nearly orange to nearly black.
Lust is the most evocative one but not of lust! The name made me expect something animalic or perhaps hypnotic and sickly-sweet. Instead, Lust smells like murky crypts and dusty old museum halls. There may be brocade curtains heavy with the dust of centuries, there may be church incense stuck to old fabrics, there may even be stuffed animals, mummified bodies of saints or skeletons in the closet. But no living, lusting beasts. If this is lust, it’s Hieronymous Bosch’s depiction of Luxuria in Hell. And for me, the ex-metal fan and history nerd who visited the ossuary of Kutna Hora without a shiver, a great comfort scent! Colour: dusty, shadowy earth brown.
When I first tried L’Ombre Fauve I found it highly evocative of cool cellars and dusty attics. I wrote a rave review on how it was just like seeking shade in a musty old cellar when the sun is blazing outside, on how it captured cold stone walls, cool dirt floors, warm brown velvet, and sun-heated wood. Upon retrying it, I’m afraid it’s less evocative, more of an ordinary rich, powdery, ambery/woody oriental, sweetened with a hint of high quality vanilla. Still a great scent but perhaps not original enough for the price, as I first thought. At least I can tell myself it isn’t so I won’t mourn the fact that I can’t afford one of Luckyscent’s remaining bottles… Colour: different shades of reddish brown.
Labdanum 18 is not very far from L’Ombre Fauve, especially not in the latter’s less evocative incarnation. Although amber isn’t listed among the notes it’s still for me a decidedly ambery oriental: rich, sweet, dry, powdery and slightly burnt, like burnt sugar. It has more vanilla than L’Ombre Fauve but it’s a much less cloying vanilla than the one in Patchouli 24 (am I the only one who found that scent overly sweet?) It also has a sort of refreshingly sour top note which conventionally could be called citrusy but which oddly reminds me of rhubarb. Mmmm, rhubarb… With the vanilla and cinnamon, Labdanum 18 is at some moments close to a freshly baked rhubarb pie. Think Burberry Brit Red but better. Colour: burnt sugar.
I have Tabu eau de parfum in a vintage mini bottle, and I’m not sure how much it has aged but it still smells good (I guess some of you will say it never did…). It has more green and floral notes than the other three, and it shows. Next to the others, it almost verges on chypre, although a decidedly oriental chypre. The citrusy/green chypre notes are sour, sharp and musty in the old-fashioned way I no longer find entirely unpleasant. During the drydown, the sharpness recedes, and what’s left is more of a smooth, powdery, resinous oriental. The orange blossom still shows, lending it an air of orange liquor-drenched cake. The cake is, however, old and dry – the kind baked by some elderly relative who no longer has the hang of it and who’s too cheap to eat it while it’s still fresh. If this sounds awfully negative, please keep in mind that “dry” is higher praise for a perfume than for a cake. Colour: the brown and orange hues of the seventies.
Image source: suendhaft.com, luckyscent.com, barneys.com, scentedmonkey.com
Entry Filed under: Uncategorized
20 Comments
1. Kelley | April 24th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Tove, great reviews! I am always doing the same thing with trying to remember where I smelled something before. I am currently working on Querelle and where I smelled something like it before. In fact, I put on the nice shirt I wore yesterday to run down to the store (I was painting today) and thought…what is that fragrance? It took me a while before I remembered that I had been wearing Querelle. Hmmm… Oh, yes, I will figure this out.
About Patchouli 24…yes, I think it’s sweet and do you get cloves? I end up thinking this is all about cloves! What’s up with that?
Keep up the good work.
2. Solander | April 25th, 2007 at 2:56 am
Thank you Kelley! I think I’ve smelled Querelle before in any vetiver scent, since for me it’s pretty much a single note vetiver after the citrusy topnotes have faded. I have traces of Sel de Vetiver on my skin today since yesterday (almost no sillage, but great lasting power!) and perhaps there is some resemblance? Have you tried compairing it to Vetiver Oriental or Vetiver Tonka?
Cloves? I don’t recall any cloves… I think for me it’s tar, vanilla and patchouli in that order. Or even the vanilla first. A very butch smoky/leathery/rubbery tar scent drenched in cloyingly sweet vanilla, which fades to more of an ambery oriental where I can actually smell the patchouli (I know you’re not supposed to… ) I do like it, but I wish they would have been more easy on the vanilla… I like my butch scents butch.
3. newproducts | April 25th, 2007 at 7:01 am
I love your reviews and comparisons. Of those you reviewed, I have only tried Labdanum and Tabu, but I cannot remember the latter very well. You make me curious about the other two, especially L’Ombre Fauve.
4. Solander | April 25th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Newproducts, Thank you! I think everybody should at least try L’Ombre Fauve. Or perhaps not, it’s no good to fall in love with a LE… Lust is a very interesting scent too, but I guess most people wouldn’t consider it strictly wearable.
5. chayaruchama | April 25th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Good Morning, Svenska flicka ! [I'll wager I butchered that one !]
Veddy interesting comments.
Surprisingly, I went to bed with the L’Ombre last night, and still smell vestiges now.
I agree- good observation !
While it is lovely and tenacious and soft, there are SO many other ambers with patchouli, that it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to buy it, UNLESS you need a lot of patch this time of year…[but WHEN did SENSE e3ver enter the befuddled brain of a perfumaholic, anyhow ?!]
I have a lot of Coromandel, so I don’t think this will be a must-have, despite everything.
6. Solander | April 25th, 2007 at 7:51 am
Chayaruchama, you got svenska flicka right! I don’t really feel I can live up to the label though, my eyes are not blue and my hair not long and blond enough… Also, my name is neiher Helga (which is, btw, a German name.) nor Inga.
Sense doesn’t make sense to perfumeaholics.
I haven’t tried Coromandel yet, it didn’t occur to me that there might be a connection between the two scents… I know it’s supposed to be ambery, but I keep thinking of almonds since “mandel” in Swedish means “almond”, and that makes me envision it as a lighter gourmand than the rich, resinous L’Ombre Fauve.
7. Judith | April 25th, 2007 at 7:51 am
Well, I clearly need to try l’Ombre Fauve again, because, although I wasn’t crazy about it when I first sniffed it, I do love Le Labo Labdanum. And I remember being very struck by Lust when I tried it. I think I have samples of that and the PG around somewhere. . . so I will search for them. Your reviews make them all sound wonderful!
8. Elle | April 25th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Great reviews! I absolutely have to go resniff all of these and compare them. I really didn’t give Labdanum 18 enough of a chance, but I absolutely live and die for rhubarb and if that note will come out on my skin, my fate is sealed and I know I will need to have it.
9. Solander | April 25th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Judith – perhaps I’d better sell my soul to the evil world of copywriting… oh, wait, I already do that.
Too bad I don’t get to write about anything remotely as interesting as perfume… Or maybe it’s better that way so all my perfume writing remains “unbiased”…
Elle – another rhubarb fan, I hear? The truth is, I got no rhubarb whatsoever from Labdanum the first time around. But when I picked out my sample vial from my “perfume cabinet” I noticed a distinct rhubarb scent about it. I thought maybe Ciel mon jardin!, which is in the same department in the cabinet (L), had leaked on it.. But no, the juice itself smelled vaguely rhubarby. A very nice surprise!
Speaking of rhubarb, I always thought CdG 3 and CdG Rhubarb were scent siblings, but today when I smelled 3 I even thought it had Rhubarb’s rhubarb note! Perhaps I’m just going mad? Rhubarbomania?
10. chayaruchama | April 25th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Well, my friend-
If you lust for a sample, email me [Ina has my info !], and I’ll send you some, to compare.
The name Coromandel, is purely after the Oriental screens Chanel adored.
Funny- to the Viennese, ‘liebes Mandel’ is a sweet name for one’s husband- at least, that’s the way it’s used in one of Mozart’s comic quartets.
[In the '70's, I lived in Skane with a girlfriend named Inga-Britt Swenson...
now, THERE"S Swedish for you ! ]
11. Marina | April 25th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Great comparisons! I sort of see the similarity between Lust (a comfort scent for me too) and L’Ombre, but not between L’Ombre and Labdanum 18. I’l have to try them side by side.
12. Solander | April 25th, 2007 at 8:23 am
chayaruchama – You’re too kind!
“Den svenska synden” personified?
And you beat me – Inga-Britt Swenson (Are you sure it was not Svensson? Swenson is the Americanized spelling so unless she was Swedish-American it ough to have been Svensson.) is more Swedish than I’ll ever get! I bet she was barefoot and had long blond hair too?
Marina – perhaps you’re right, perhaps Lust and L’Ombre are more similar than L’Ombre and Labdanum. At least I thought so the first time I tried L’Ombre, when I found it evocative of dark crypts and musty cellars like Lust. How about Tabu?
13. tmp00 | April 25th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Very interesting comparisons. I find Lust to be quite comfy and not at all like its title: I don’t find it as tomb-like as you but even if I did I’m strange enough to be comforted by that. L’Ombre Fauve just didn’t work for me and Labdanum was vexing: it kept changing and going all powdery and old-lady at any given moment and without warning. I’ve always wanted to try Tabu, there’s something sooo seventies about it. But there’s never a tester. Oh well.
Kelley- for me Querelle is like the result of a torrid fling between Chergui and Sel de Vetiver, starting over cocktails and ending over, well you do the math.
14. Solander | April 25th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Tom – Lust has a strange title indeed. Makes me wonder what kind of fetish or kink the perfumer has? I’ve heard there are bad batches of L’Ombre Fauve, or perhaps it needs aging or something? “All powdery and old-lady” is good!
If you don’t like it you should probably stay away from Tabu since that one is a gazillion times more “powdery and old-lady” than Labdanum.
15. tabac | April 25th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
First-timer here. I got myself Ombre Fauve after trying a sample and thinking it smelled a lot like Fumerie Turque (but for a lot less money). But it’s not got FT’s complexity; now I’m thinking the resemblance is to Costume National’s Scent Intense. I still like it but wonder what was going on with me when I first sampled it. Querelle is another I’ve got to try again. Ombre lasts quite a while on me – wish it had more personality.
16. Ina | April 25th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Tove, excellent comparison! Believe it or not, just a couple of days ago I dug out my sample of Tabu and smelled it for the first time. Wow! For a scent created in 1932, that’s quite something! I really do think it’s timeless.
17. Solander | April 26th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Hello tabac, welcome! Fumerie Turque you say? Now I have to try them side by side too… I know I thought FT smelled like sitting in the shade of a cool stone house with the hot desert outside so perhaps they have a similar cool/warm, sunny/shadowy thing going on… But CN Scent Intense? I remember finding that one very sweet and bland and swapping it away… I do think L’Ombre has a bit more personality than that…
Ina – Thank you. Yes, Tabu surprised me too. I bought some different vintage minis and Tabu was definitely the one that had aged most gracefully. When smelling it side by side with the contemporary scents above I did get more of the vintage-styled chypre elements, but when I first smelled it on its own I thought it was rich, ambery and musky in a way that felt very up-to-date.
18. Amarie | April 29th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Lovely review, thank-you. I have lurked here a while, but you lured me out with Tabu. My mum has worn it all her life and more recently I found some vintage bottles for her- she has often complained how much it has changed since she started wearing it 4 decades ago. In saying that, I confess that I can’t wear anything that remotely smells like it- too close an association I guess. it even happened the other day in the middle notes of Or des Indes- a sudden vision of my mother. I love her but I do not want to smell like her,LOL.
19. Solander | April 29th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Amarie – Thank you, I’m glad to hear I lured you out from your lurking! I don’t have your problem – my mother is sensitive to strong scents (even natural ones, like flowers) and never wears perfume. She has an ancient bottle of Charlie which me and my sister used to play with.
20. Kathey | February 18th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I have been trying to locate a perfume that smells like my favorite scent. It was sold before the 90′s by Neiman Marcus and was called Fauve. Do you know if this is the same fragrance you reviewed? Unfortunately after Neimans quit selling it I inquired if they would give me the manufacturer and they said it was made by them and was not longer being made. It was packaged in a bottle that was trianguler and was the only fragrance I could find that did not make me sneeze. When you said in your review that it had a powdery smell I thought it might be the same. This Fauve reminded me of sachet . Do you know how to get in touch with the manufacturer so that I might get a sample? Any help would be appreciated because I’ve been looking for it for 20 years, that is how much I love it. I even bought a tiny sample bottle of the Neimans Fauve on ebay so if you know a perfume maker I could supply a sample.