Absent Presence

An amazing fragrance let down by really poor performance. Absent Presence is another one of those fragrances I like so much my brain kind of turns off and doesn't try to dissect it too much, so I won't describe it too in depth. To my nose, Absent Presence is a powdery woody scent with light citrus and floral touches, being overall a sweet scent that's in a similar vein to Creed's Original Santal, but not that they resemble each other necessarily. After a few hours the skin scent seems to turn into an Amber Xtreme-like smell, but unlike many other such cases, this doesn't reek like Amber Xtreme's harsh caramelized-like facet, just like the ambery side as well as the soft powderiness from the opening. This is definitely up there as one of BeauFort's "safest" fragrances but I think this may be more instantly likeable than the others, for example, the dampness from Fathom V as well as its cumin note that comes up on the dry down or Lignum Vitae having an unusual food inspiration for a gourmand in a lemon cookie. One of BeauFort's best and I thoroughly recommend trying it. Performance is a big disappointment. Projection is weak, sillage is on the light side and this doesn't project for too long before becoming a skin scent, maybe an hour to an hour and a half or so. Longevity, surprisingly, is quite good as this can last around 8 hours on skin but it's a pretty faint skin scent at that point.

I hate to say it, but I am not exactly impressed by this offering from Beaufort as I have been with others (though I hope that will change and it'll grow on me). Initial opening is strangely reminiscent of Jungle Formula mosquito spray! I know that isn't what they were intending (or at least I hope it wasn't), but it's now stuck in my head. Shortly afterwards the violet comes to the fore, followed later by a faint smoky leather; then despite the concentration seems to vanish to a skin scent quite rapidly (within two hours on me). Would I buy another bottle when this runs out? Unfortunately not...

The "safe" Beaufort. And after you're done reading all the cognoscentist reviews saying how boring it is in comparison to the other genre-pushing frags here, I'd like to direct you to two questions. 1) Does it smell good? & 2)When would you wear this? If the answers are 1)Hell yes & 2)All the time, then that's a win for both the fragrance maker and the wearer. Personally, I'd rather wear a crowd pleaser that was made by someone who created an oddity like Vi Et Armis, than someone who thought to use passion fruit with oud, and call it groundbreaking. But that's a whole other conversation.

I'm in love with this one -- it's not boring at all, like other people suggest. To me it has a similar vibe to Amouage Memoir Man: green, woody, slightly smoky. It's melancholic and it whispers of understated masculinity. The top is very green and acidic, followed by ozonic florals, followed by smoky leather and sandalwood. After sampling Absent Presence I have purchased a full bottle.

It is gorgeous, smooth and unique. It reminds me of the amazing Costume National Homme Parfum. The dry down is fantastic and warm.

There's bound to be a few people out there who are total Beaufort loyalists and who only wear fragrances from this brand. Some of those people are bound to have office jobs or at the very least end up in situations where it's not appropriate to smell like Bloth from The Pirates of Dark Water, so I think that's who this is for. If you stick to this brand, you need one dumb reach every now and then. And thats okay. Not really my thing because I'm not a Beaufort-only kind of person, but I understand why this exists in the lineup, and I think it’s successful at what it sets out to do.

I went and got the Revenants Discovery set because I was curious about this Perfume brand. I like this one. It is clean, bit spicy and woody I would say. But quite subdued which I actually like a lot because you definitely could wear it as an every day scent. I haven't tried it on skin yet but I am curious to test how long it will hold if I wear it.

fall day or spring night is a great way to utilize this. notes are pretty straightforward. mostly spicy woody citrus sweetened a bit by the florals. beautiful and totally unisex

It's a good fragrance, maybe great even, but I'll have to agree with the only other comment here so far : I expected more, something very different. I hate that I don't love it as much as I would have liked to. The bergamot at first is really strong to my nose, and kind of surprised me. But after 2 minutes, I get a calmer, almost sweeter scent. To me, this scent exudes a sense of resigned melancholy. The violet is really pleasant along with the vetiver, and the leather is surprisingly faint, nearly nonexistent to be honest. Overall, it's a quiet fragrance, with a decent longevity on my skin, and nothing really surprising to my nose. I like it, but it's absolutely not something I was expecting from Beaufort. Someone mentioned the smoky notes representative of the house being in there, and I personally cannot smell it. When I first looked at the notes, I was curious to see how they would achieve a challenging and interesting fragrance with these relatively tame notes. To me, they didn't really, and while it's nice, I found it underwhelming considered the high expectations they set for themselves, even with less smoky frags like Fathom V (my personal favourite) or Acrasia and its overpowering wine note, that were still quite challenging and interesting.

Bought the Revenant sample set and this was included. I have a feeling this is Beaufort's attempt to correct Terror and Magnificence and make alligning it with the name. It smells exactly how I would imagine the former one would smell if done properly. Opening is chemical and very similar to Terror and Magnificence but that quickly dies down in a few minutes and turns into a smoky animalic oud version of Iron Duke with hints of plastic, tar and mineral oil which is very nice. Think Fatomas by Nasomatto but formulated with more care and consideration yet with weaker ingredients. However, it does not last much and loses strength minute by minute, fading into a barely noticeable skin scent in less than 2 hours. It's a shame because otherwise if longevity was not an issue this would have been a great night fragrance. Might be a good option for those who are into very discreet scents that do not leave a heavy trail.

Subtle, classy and beautiful. It has real performance issues though, barely lasts an hour for me. Plus I'm sure it would be possible to get something very similar for a lot cheaper.

For a brand determined to make perfumes that standout, the only presence absent in Absent Presence is that of a personality. The bitter green citrus of bergamot and a sweetened-snap pea galbanum top do well to accent the gaseous fuel accord of the violet leaf, and the trifecta does lend to this impression of an ethereal presence in the air. It works very well, and it is quite striking yet pleasant to smell. But that is only briefly. It is a very short time before it moves on to a sweet and heady gardenia-like note that is highly restrained. The faintest whiffs of leather, vanillic sandalwood, iso e super, and musk come up from underneath for a very quiet whisper of a skin scent. The whole experience is all too brief... like an encounter with a vague spirit presence, I suppose. Absent Presence smells pleasant, but in a derivative and not particularly convincing way. BeauFort’s and Dunkley’s love of synthetics don’t help out much with this perfume since the minimalist approach to their use results in a perfume that comes across as empty; too many “slots” in the synthetic materials are left open, begging for some other material to fill them in. I can’t help but think that, if a natural material was used for at least one or more parts, the perfume would have more body and personality without detracting from the creative brief. How the performance manages to be so poor with only the use of synthetics is a mystery. It is completely forgettable and mundane, which is not what an encounter with “other side” should be like.

After the pleasing Tonnere, CDN, Vi Et Armis I will always try anything by Julie Dunkley. Fathom V and Rake & Ruin are also interesting but regrettably the others are a miss for me (I realise not all by Julie D). Sidetracked by incense and leather. This one is just too close to a cheap commercial - sorry. I think it is the musk/sandalwood base with jasmine above. However if Beaufort just need to make a bit of money with a motr mass appeal scent so they can then get back to doing something interesting (dry smoky lavender without vanilla or a unisex green hawthorn with a hint of cows please) then good luck to them.

Beaufort, my favorite perfume house... I’ve bought AP in day one and waited so much to arrive.. result: meh, generic fragrance. The only notes that I can sniff are the same fixatives of acrasia, synthetic and boring. I'm so sorry that this perfume house, which became famous thanks to masterpieces, came out with such a fragrance. Poor sillage, poor longevity.. totally an Absent Presence.🥲 I’ll continue with the other past ones... those reflect the real Beaufort soul.

Huge letdown. A generic fresh amber leather smoky vetiver and patchouli. That’s not Beaufort.

I tried it today and ... Is that really Beaufort ? It's completely 180 degrees to CDN , acrasia , tonnere , vi et armis , lignum vitae ! I found it boring for guys like me that are looking for different scents in perfumes. It's just like I've smelled this scent over and over in other perfumes even cheap ones.

I’m going against the tide here, but I believe AP embodies the Beaufort style perfectly—if you know how to dissect it and move beyond the usual warlike, murky, and violent tropes. The fragrance is supremely elegant: dusty, hazy, somber, spectral. For me—and as the guys at Profumo Inchiostro also pointed out—it succeeds precisely because it so faithfully evokes the idea of a ghost. If its siblings are detonations, AP is the silence between the notes: the Beaufort pause where a background scent lingers, unsettling and familiar to many of the London house’s base accords. There’s an accord reminiscent of Iron Duke, nods to Acrasia, the faintest hints of gunpowder from Rake & Ruin and Tonnerre, decaying and powdery florals that recall Fathom, and a narcotic undertone that echoes Vi et Armis. After the first hour, there is even a trace of Coeur de Noir’s signature boozy vanilla. Like a spectre, AP doesn’t reveal itself to everyone—hence the supposed absence, which many read as a lack of presence and found disappointing. And yet, it’s by listening to silence that something emerges. AP is Beaufort at rest in an abandoned manor, where the ticking of old stories occasionally resurfaces.

Absent Presence opens with a blast of bergamot and wood (mainly sandalwood) notes empowered by a touch of pepper that envelopes and spices everything. For me, there is a touch of amber and musk that makes the scent sweet and pleasing and works well in contrast to the strong woody base. The Vetiver here feels green and the leather is old enough to keep the fragrance interesting while adding sharpness and more contrast to the faint sweet notes. It kind of reminds me of the reformulated YSL Kouros, but Absent Presence is chiller to the senses and much more timid and way less cocky. I got a full bottle because it was a blind buy, and I think it smells really good, but I like my scents to be more polarizing and not necessarily crowd-pleasers. I'll use it on the rare occasions that I just simply want to smell good.

Very very impressive and actually adorable. I do not understand how this can be disliked. At the core this is an ambery musk with delicate powdery floral heart. Opens really bright, spice is not overbearing. Obviously not a polarizing scent, but violet leaf here is second to none. Relatively long lived for how volatile it is. I don’t think I want a full bottle of this but will be missing the scent :)

Perfect if you want to smell like an intimidating but oddly alluring priest or a sexy nun. It's smells deep and bracing, like a gust of wind that carries the smell of some vaguely liturgical incense. I do wish it lasted longer, though. An hour and a half in and I barely smelled anything.