Poivre Electrique

The perfect peppery layering scent!!! This is exactly what I was hoping it would be! Very peppery, but as a whole, this scent reminds me of natural patchouli oil. To me, this does not smell like pepper straight from the pepper mill, while I have smelled other scents that do. The pepper in Club De Nuit Man (not Intense), YSL L'Homme, or especially Ferragamo F Black, for instance, smells more like true black pepper oil than this. I even brought out my pepper mill to compare, and to me, there's a strong difference. This is more green and herbaceous. More vibrant! More alive! And less abrasive. Hachew! :) This is clean, spicy, and manly, without being overbearing or loaded with citrus or woods. The bitter orange and cedar do however work together to keep this scent from being too one dimensional. If I had to list a fault, it would have to be the longevity. It has moderate projection for only about 2 hours and total longevity of 4-6 depending on how much I'm sweating. Also, I guess I'd say it's rather linear, but it does become a slightly more leathery pepper in the dry down. All said, I like this most because it layers so well! Layers well with: Lalique Encre Noir, Gucci Guilty Absolute, and Dior Sauvage EDP. Also layers well with citrus scents and fruit-chouli scents. Give this a try if you have a chance and find it for an appropriate price!

Well, out of my large sample collection from Atelier, I'm starting to increase the number of hits over misses. I had inadvertently catalogued this in my Atelier Floral category (for organizing the exhaustive sampling), and blindly tried (so as not to agonize over WHICH SOTD). Whoa. Really like! I'm not a floral person, and prefer incense, resins, spice, so while I thought I was up for a floral, I was delighted when this hit. It's a sheer, more spicy, very dry and acrid type of incense. There might be some Super Ie in this, but it rarely bothers me. While the first ten minutes are awesome for those of us who like this genre, it gentles quickly, and the drydown is lovely and a bit more sweet (the pimento and sandalwood come to the fore). Unfortunately the silage sits close, so you may need to layer as well as spritz on clothing and hair. This is unisex, perhaps skewing a bit masculine (I think this would be soooo sexy on a man), but I like it for myself and women who eschew "the berries and fruit basket" should try this. Sexy on a man, exotique and mysterious on a woman, a little something different.

Black Pepper, dusty cedar and resins (strong olibanum and noticeable myrrh), with a support of a bay leaf-ish turkish rose. It's quite linear, but well blended. Leans towards the masculine side imo. Despite it's marketed as a blackpepper centered scent, this could also have been marketed as a soft spicy incense fragrance, and indeed vaguley reminds me of Armani Bois d'Encens. Not groundbreaking, but very true to smell of freshly grinded peppercorns. Slightly denser than Penhaligon's Opus 1870, but Penhaligon's performance is slightly better. Performance is average. Recommended? A strong YES is my answer, but not at full retail price, and only if you don't already own other blackpepper fragrances, as it may be redundant: in spite of being well blended, it's not unique. Spring/Fall days, 25+

Having a lot of experience with pepper-forward fragrances, I consider myself well-informed in that area. My favorites are Blackpepper by Comme des Garcons, Poivre Electrique, and Re-charge Black Pepper by Molton Brown; likewise, in that order, those go from linear to more complex/sophisticated. Poivre Electrique has very good longevity and sillage. The black and pink pepper mix very well and give off a strong, lasting pepper-forward scent for hours. Galloway by Parfums de Marly is another to consider.

As I'm sitting here with poivre electrique a thought came to mind: Did atelier Cologne change management? A few Google clicks later I saw that yes, yes it did. It was bought by loreal in 2016. Atelier was previously a preferred house of mine. But as I'm reflecting on this scent I keep getting images of French wine served in Dixie cups. What happened here? This is really falling flat for me.