Histoire D'Amour

Histoire d'Amour... Oui, mais quel sorte d'amour est-il? It's strange, but this is one of the most ambiguous perfumes I have ever smelled. At first it looks and smells like it comes right out of the pages of a Victorian horror novel. This is how a theatre dressing room would smell back then. But whoever would be waiting for the young thespian outside, could be nothing less than Jack the Ripper. So the poor beatiful thing would meet her doom-laden fate, but smelling divinely nevertheless. On the other hand it smells of something a firebrand would wear. Tough and hard-boiled, but straight and honest to the extreme. I don't know, how can be something romantic and cynical at the same time? Oakmoss battling narcissus and osmanthus quarrelling with basil? I love to watch such fights taking place! Their outcome is usually a mess, except some messes are unique and stunning. And concerning its "gender", this one's feminine and (I'm Francisco "Paco" Rabaneda Cuervo and I've made) 1 Million (in a month) is masculine? Right... O tempora o mores! Now, I can already hear the Old Lady Alert screaming, and see youngsters pointing at its "outmoded" bottle in sheer horror. So, do we have an old lady here? Of course we do! The youngsters are right, but also so wrong. She is an old lady indeed. Only this one packs a pair of knucledusters inside her old lady bag. And after flooring any arrogant and pompous brat, she'll kickstart her old lady motorcycle and vanish into the sunset. The very kind of an old lady who can use this gorgeous bottle to spray a mesmerising shroud around her, but can also bludgeon every hater to submission, before (s)he'll be able to say: "Hey, it smells like old la..." Bang! You're down! Now, be smart enough to stay down and kowtow before her prodigious awesomeness! It's so much fun being an old lady sometimes! Especially when embarassing clueless newbies is the name of your game. I can't stress enough how much I miss smelling perfumes of this magnitude and quality in public nowadays. So, ladies, please, wear this and go somewhere. In a club, to a ball, it doesn't matter; somewhere. If there's any gallant and fine gentleman there, rest asured he'll come directly to you, like drawn by a magnet, tossing every fruity-candy-sweety girl aside in his wake. And pehaps your Histoire D'Amour will be born...

Honeyed floral summer chypre which is a cross between a kinder gentler Aromatics Elixir and a softer Cabochard. Found it for about $14 on one of the grey market sites. The notes intrigued me — basil, osmanthus, citrus, narcissus, honey, and oakmoss? And many reviews compared it to Aromatics Elixir, which I absolutely love. Frankly, for $14, I probably added it to my online basket merely to reach some free shipping threshold. It’s... surprisingly good. The bottle is pretty enough but the lid is cheap and ill-fitting. Still: the scent is lovely. The apricot-like osmanthus and green basil give it a sweet herbal-citrus opening that is not overwhelming and the florals smell aromatic and natural, which you absolutely don’t expect at this price point. And then there’s honey. Honey notes make me super nervous. I’ve tried to blend them as an amateur perfumer in the past and have found most honey aromachemicals so horrifyingly potent I had to double-bag them and relocate them to another room lest they crawl out and try to smother me in my sleep. I’ve never found a honey note I liked at all. Until this one. This one is lightly sweet and addictive, just the tiniest wisp amplified by osmanthus and tempered by oakmoss and patchouli. I can do this honey. This is a light scent in both strength and feeling which is perfect for summer. That’s what $14 gets you: the freedom to spray, enjoy, and have it fade away quickly, though it lasts a lot longer than you think. It’s a well-balanced perfume: the sweet osmanthus blends into the honeyed florals while still retaining an aromatic freshness and warmth. The oakmoss grounds it and keeps the whole thing intriguing. It’s woody but fresh, sweet but aromatic. It’s possible that this is a dupe for some other more famous chypre but it’s really easy to enjoy. Batch code 10081.

This has killer strength! If you spray too heavily, then you will never know how lovely this is. It's clean, it's soap, it's snowy whiteness in a bottle. If you want skanky, it ain't here. This is from the 80's eh? Smells more like 1800's to me. It's got personality. It's like a Victorian home that has been through many families. There is birth, love, dreams, death, a flurry of memories...happy, sad, painful. This perfume is the breath you draw in. Old lady? I am sure that is what everyone will say when I wear this. I see/smell life in the past. It's a black and white movie in my head, with color accents. I'm closed minded. I don't give much of a chance to anything I don't love immediately, including people. There's an inner-sense one has, some stronger than others. Mine is strong. I thought when I first sprayed it, GRAMMA! And she wasn't a lovely, kind, gentle grandmother. She was bitter, cold, and joyless, from a hard life. I now can appreciate her, and this scent. You can't know miserable unless you've experienced a very bad flu with activity north and south at the same time. You can't know the feeling or even be empathetic. This perfume is the feeling, empathy, memory of all a person can hold dear...or not. It's joy and fear, it's just so special to me. The bottle is lovely. If there is a way you can give this a chance, please do try. Close your eyes and let your mind experience and imagine another world. You might be glad you did! This is a library of hand cranked music in a scary world of heavy metal. Go back...enjoy!

This is utterly beautiful! It was a blind buy for pennies (£7.99 for 100ml edp from a UK online chemist) so I couldn't resist, and I'm so glad I didn't. It's of its time-pre 1980s powerhouse perfumes, pre-sweety fruit gourmands, so it is almost retro, but absolutely not dated. Cons first-the bottle isn't the prettiest, the cap is a fairly flamboyant and tacky large plastic flower thing. The opening is fairly full-on, but it soon calms down. Pros-everything else! It reminds me of Jersey (Exclusifs de Chanel) in its softness and warmth, and beautifully smooth powderiness, although the notes are very different. On me, I don't really get any citrus, I get a gentle smokiness, herbal wood. Oakmoss I recognise, and there is definitely patchouli in the dry down but its muted and well behaved (which is good because I generally don't like too much patch). Staying power is magnificent-about 10 hours on me but it becomes a skin scent within 2 hours. Every time I've worn it I've been asked what it was and complimented on it, which hardly ever happens with me. If you like Chanel no 5, Bal a Versaille or L'Heure Bleue you will like this one-its in that same category of feminine classics. I think it tends towards the feminine, but given the robust wood I think it could be unisex. Well worth looking out for.

Perfect for Autumn, Winter and Early Cool Springtime -Vintage Style This perfume is shockingly super strong, filling a room for about one and a half hours before settling into the dry down. The dry down lasts well over 10 hours on my skin, projecting consistently 12 inches. One or two sprays is all you need. This beauty begins with an extremely sweet bouquet of very thick heavy flowers, ylang, rose, and orange blossom, with sharp jasmine, sandalwood, basil and narcissus adding a hint of crispiness to the powdery feeling of dense osmanthus. A touch of sharp patchouli blends with oakmoss to give this scent a definite vintage flair. Rich deep honey and amber in the base combine to add lasting power and a bit of smoothness to the blend. Citrus here is mild and uplifting, adding an airy feel. Historie D'Amour belongs in the same genre as Ysatis , Cacharel Anais , Arpege, Madame Rochas, and Amarige. All of them have heady thick old fashioned flower bouquets blended with sharp, airy woods, citrus and spices. All have a very retro, vintage feel. For me, these kinds of perfumes work best on rainy days when the air is moist and breezes are cool. That's when these heady bouquets smell the most rich and beautiful.