Ambre Gris

Love it. Ambre Gris is a little shape shifting wonder: It goes from spicy, turns to floral (remaining miles away from mainstream florals), flirts with salty while being balsamic-powdery, and all the time it is also woody. The opening is spicy. I mostly sense the myrth and benzoin, and at first they suggest that there is something thick and strong to be developed from this opening - but no. A twist, the first one: balsamic-flowery. Immortelle. Ambre Gris relaxes in about 10 minutes, showing its floral face: slightly spicy and quite balmy benzoin stays, but immortelle takes a leading role, and tuberose definitely features suporting role (i don't sense it every time). Immortelle is present right from when spices relax, and almost to the end. To those who wrote that they could not smell any flowers at all: I had bushes of immortelle in front of the house where I lived before: it has bitter-sharpish-sweet, slightly citrusy, more aromatic than flowery smell. Immortelle's scent changes a lot while flowers go from blooming-fresh to oily-dry. This in Ambre Gris is semi-dry, saturated immortelle, almost like the one used in oils, more spicy-aromatic than flowery, and I think that's why so many reviewers didn't recognize it as flower. Immortelle in Ambre Gris is this kinda citrusy-spicy, vibrant and fresh thing that peeks out right after initial spicy opening relaxes. Immortelle is what keeps the woody, spicey and balsamic side of fragrance up and light and fresh almost all the way. This kind of flower treatment, when combined with woods or balsams is more likely to be found in niches: though the scents are not the same - in SL's Ambre Sultan similar mediteranian spicy herbs (oregano, bay leaf) keeps amber and woods fresh and light, in Casbah the contrast to the heavy and dark notes is Angelica, in ETRO's Greene Street there is distinct basil to contrast powdery ambergris... So, if you tried any of those, I hope you'll get the point. Then again - next twist: Ambergris. Salty, velvety, musky. While immortelle borrows freshness from the background, ambergris takes a central stage. It is just a bit salty and powdery, and soon to be joined with musk and woods. Now, if you're familiar with the base notes of CK's Reveal: Balmain's ambregris-woods-musk combination is fuller, better, more refined and mature kind of the similar scent: a little salty, a little powdery, a little musky - feels like skin. Warm, naturaly salty skin. Tender salty warmth, to the point erotic. In this phase, I can't help but wonder if CK has taken just this little salty-musky-woody-powdery fragment of this multilayerd Balmain's beauty, replaced not so common immortelle with more familiar iris, and streched that into a whole perfume. Then - a twist, again. The last: Woods and musk. In the very end, musk and woods take over, turning the fluffy balsamic-musky scent into more serious, trully unisex bracing, velvety woody. This Balmain is great. Tender, round, but with the spine that the men could appreciate and the woman could enjoy on themselves. Not too demanding, somehow unpretentious, but stil very serious shapeshifting wonder from Balmain. This is great fragrance for suprisingly little money. If it was bottled under a different name and house, as some niche, for egzample, Ambre Gris could easily go for about 100 $. Or higher. Highly recommended for all cross-genre lovers and all woody-oriental-spicy lovers. * Strong like (2nd bottle, but won't buy third) * silage: moderate (arms lenght, but persistent) * longevity: long lasting (8+ hours) * weather/time: moderate to cold. I wear it from mid-autumn until early spring. Day. Night. Casual to semi-formal.

I bought a 75ml Ambre Gris bottle online, and it was a blind buy. I just bought it because I saw the perfume's notes in here and thought it seemed absurdly intriguing and interesting and I had to buy it. I love benzoin and to see it in both opening and bottom notes was a surprise. Well, what can I say? I definitely DO NO REGRET IT. What a masterpiece! This is a beautiful spicy animalic balsamic dream. It smells oriental and mysterious to me, in a very good way. I am wearing it on my wrist right now and I can say the opening notes are VERY SPICY, they ended up tickling my nose and I enjoyed it very much - I love aldehydic and spicy notes exactly for stimulating more than one sense! The first 20 seconds after you spray it on your skin are DOMINATED by pink pepper and cinnamon - they weaken a little as time goes by, but they linger until the end, you can smell them even among the bottom notes, which is quite impressive - this perfume stays basically intact after hours, changing only very slightly. Seeing tuberose in the middle notes made me worried before I bought it because usually tuberose is in very boring florals , the contemporary fragrances you see nowadays. This is NOT the case. The tuberose here is smoky, adult, mysterious. It gives a sensual (not innocent or girly) vibe to the fragrance. Immortelle is not overwhelming but it is an ESSENTIAL component in this perfume - it helps give the fragrance its beautiful, mesmerizing smoky quality. But the king of the fragrance, in my opinion, IS DEFINITELY BENZOIN. I bought it because of benzoin - I love the benzoin in Givenchy's Pi (but it is masculine) and I was looking for a feminine benzoin for myself. WOW! BEST CHOICE EVER. This is basically the female Pi, since benzoin dominates the fragrance just like it does in Pi. The deep sweet and mysterious fragrance of benzoin, together with myrrh, make this perfume smell absolutely oriental, sexy, intriguing. I cannot forget the importance of musk and ambre gris in here - musk makes the fragrance balanced and ambre gris makes it even sexier and more animalic. It smells like a vintage niche and very expensive perfume. Yes, this is a relatively cheap perfume but I could swear, if blindfolded, that it was niche, something by Serge Lutens or Kilian. The only con is that the silage is not that great - well, I love perfumes that fill a room. Longevity is fine and it lasts at least 6 hours on my skin. Ambre Gris is an underrated gem. It is NOTHING like anything I have ever smelled before. I can only compare it with Pi, but to me, Pi is Ambre Gris's masculine equivalent. It has the same touch of smokey chocolate and incense that Pi has - the same sexy and mysterious aura, but now destined to be worn by tasteful, strong women. Also, it is very, VERY BALMAIN and it perfectly captures the essence of the brand and the image of the BALMAIN woman - a powerful, feline goddess who has many secrets and treasures.

I love this; liked it instantly, though that was to a great extent because it seemed so familiar. I thought I'd managed to narrow the possibilities down to Samsara and/or Basi Femme, but now I think it might be the eponymous Boucheron. You work with what you've got. The thing I love the most about it is that despite the for me cosy, sweet, somewhat posh feel of this, the final evocation is for me that of a remote south [next stop, Antarctica] coast, somewhere in the rocky, bepooled littoral zone, tide far out, with that tough, grapey brown seaweed extending as far as the eye can see. On a strangely still, sunny day to dry the driftwood. Solitude, space, wild ocean. One day I'll go back and try it again without Flowerbomb's fruitier [as Theorema is fruity, like dried cloved oranges] contrast further up the same arm. It doesn't seem very complicated. Woody, salty, not too soft. Just great. I am yearning for that dream southern ocean coast in a bottle. Got chills reading a review further down that explains all the imagery that was evoked, right down to sun-dried driftwood. Must get, and also try those that others say are similar but 'bigger'. Next day; I have just read on another site someone's perception that Laguna is a variant of Ambre Gris. That means that in this reviewer's perception the converse must apply. Anyway for me it's a case of Bingo! or Eureka! or some other triumphantly joyful term. Because Laguna is my fave of all time. I can't see the similarity apart from the ocean evocations which I don't think is particular enough to have been that reviewer's perceived common ground. But it may well be there, because I fell for Ambre Gris very fast, and I think it will be a lasting thing.

Back in the ye olde 90's, my mother developed an obsession...with the classic formulation of obsession for men. It's a potent perfume, and she sprayed herself up and down with it. She sprayed the vents in the car. She sprayed it everywhere. I was traumatized. If there is any one thing I seek in perfuming myself, it's to avoid all things remotely obsession, which in theory should be easy. Not that long ago, I bought creed's sublime vanille. I enjoyed it, but at some point I noticed a very distant whisper of obsession just like that stupid Kate Moss commercial. Fast forward to now, I received ambre gris today. I can't believe it, but here I am with another slice of the olfactive pie that comes together to create the vintage obsession I am trying to avoid. I looked up the formulation to make sure it wasn't just irrational residual shell shock. Ambre Gris shares many of the most dominant notes in obsession: amber and cinnamon. It makes this perfume unwearable for me. That said, the supporting cast of Ambre Gris makes it far more palatable than obsession. It's sweeter and more feminine with an oceanic note. Potent amber. Whomever vibes with would wear it fantastically. It's very well blended, balanced, and chic. The spice & amber makes it tend toward cooler months. The picture it paints in my imagination: looking out at the ocean on a cool overcast beach in Maine with a lot of driftwood, wearing a cashmere sweater. It's grown up, but not too old or young. It has strength, but it's not overbearing. I may come back to it someday. Edit: "Someday" is sooner rather than later. I had my BF smell it when he got home from work. LOVED IT. ̄_(ツ)_/ ̄ Help, I'm stuck in the obsession vortex!

There is something subtly seductive about Balmain Ambre Gris. I think it must be the ambergris (or rather its synthetic reconstruction), which is one of the few individual odorants that I don't own, so I can't be sure I am picking it out correctly. Well, if fine authentic ambergris smells like this but better, then I finally understand what all the talk is about. It is a fairly subtle skin scent, with the following associations to me, in order of prominence: cool amber, salt, skin, sandalwood, sex, earth, sweet. Surely some of the fascination with ambergris stems from the preposterous fact that it is sperm whale bile secretions used to coat giant squid beaks and passed in their feces (probably not in vomit, as is often stated) that has floated in the ocean for 20 years and looks like a rock, but it would appear that some of the fascination is indeed the scent. To my nose Balmain Ambre Gris is completely unisex; in fact I increasingly wonder how many male-appropriate scents lurk in the vast and confusing arena of women's perfumes. Since the women's perfume market is so much larger than the men's, I suspect that a lot of perfumes are labeled feminine without much thought (payback for the bad old days when cars were marketed only to men, vanity mirrors on the passenger side only please!). All I can rule out for now (for my preferences, mind you) are those that are mostly rose or overwhelmingly bright floral. I often like my scents bigger than this, but Ambre Gris has captivated me - I am ready to do your bidding mistress. Tell me where to lie.