Vétiver Nocturne Absolu

Magical. A slightly bit of oudy skank and confusion in the short-lived opening. Then, an abstract and juicy fruity-floral note shines and slowly fades out, leading to the main floral accord. Blooming powdery champaca and orange blossom, beautifully light jasmine, and maybe tuberose floating over a base of bright, green, citrusy yet grounded vetiver and a soft, mossy, woody muskiness. Remarkably smooth. Of all the vetiver-focused fragrances I've smelled, Vetiver Nocturne is my favourite so far. Simply exquisite!

A smooth silky fragrance. The opening is strong, reminds me of marker scent plus a sweet, green banana peel. It softens up quickly allowing the white florals to shine-on in a full bloom sweet way. The Champaca is the star! The gorgeous Vetiver is always present, it feels earthy, cool and wet! Wearable IMO, close to moderate sillage.

Make no mistake. This is heavy on a lovely dense and distinct minty vetiver. A lot of flowers on top of that with champacha the star. Will not replace Sultan Vetiver for me but a good alternative if you want a lot of flowers instead of anise...

It took two days to wrap my nose around this . It’s neroli and jasmine done in a masculine way and when that starts drying down it is very good quality natural ambergris with oak moss sandalwood etc

Fantastic! The champaca shines and is excellently blended. I love it!

Vetiver Nocturne remains one of the most popular of Dmitry Bortnikoff’s creations. I have reviewed it before. A powdery Floriental where a delicate vetiver is wrapped in florals and Oriental woods. This new version is a more rounded and natural smelling version of the original scent. The perfumer replaces the vetiver with a beautiful Indian Ruh Khus distillation. The end result is quite striking. The perfume is more vetiver forward showcasing the beautiful green rooty vetiver in its full glory. Overall it is a refreshing and essential change to a popular scent. If you have one of the previous versions it is a coin toss. For people considering buying this for the first time, this is the version to go with. Enjoy!

This is what the original should've been to began with—It was too "yellow" and creamy (too much sandalwood) to be named Vétiver Nocturne... This is a refocused version but maybe stripped too bare (feels like it's missing something); let's hope he creates another one that gets the best of both worlds with a little bit of Symphonie de Néroli mixed in 😋

The opening of this (maybe due to its potency) reminds me of a strong vinyl paint smell, which I do not like, possibly from the jasmine or the Trat oud. It settles down after about half an hour and there is a lovely neroli and the smoky vetiver starts to come through. Projection is close to the skin throughout, I think the jasmine and champaca dominate the other notes and it is not a typical vetiver fragrance, I get more oakmoss and jasmine than vetiver. I much prefer the latter stages of this fragrance. Longevity is 6 hours max.

Scrubber! I could not get past the opening. I had a sense of very raw Granny Smith apples and a harsh chemically smell, plus a certain bandaid smell that is in Tropic of Capricorn by Olympic Orchids also. I barely smelled any vetiver and I am sorry I just didn't feel patient to wait out the drydown.

Refined high-quality flowery-fougere. This is NOT a vetiver-centered fragrance, beware upfront, but a carnal flower one. Opening brings a burst of moist, almost medicinal/herbal green with a opulent, strongly dominant carnal flowery twist from the champaca as a star player; add to it a obvious oud note and some people may incline to a urine or other offensive olfactive reference, although here counter-balanced with a low-volume scented soapiness tone from Jasmine/Neroli combo which reinforces pleasant aromatic references. I get some ambergris as a salty/creamy high-quality niche facet backdropping the whole scent, not as a star note. Vetiver is the earthy kind (not the smoky/dry at my nose) and it also plays a small role at backdrop, as the aroma is sensibly moist all the way through (blame the strong champaca for this). The drydown comes slowly transitioning from the fading top with a woody tone where sandal and vetiver become slightly pronounced only due to top notes fading though. Performance is overall very good, with a slight touch of a splash decant in my wrist generating a scent bubble around me for a solid 1h, making me sure that 2 sprinkles from a bottle would more than suffice. BTW, this fragrance reminds me a LOT of FM Carnal Flower.

My recent acquisitions of Bortnikoff have not been on better side. I bought most of these blind. Absolutely love oud monarch & enjoy most of my previous buys like musk khabib/musk cologne/coup de foudre older one/oud maximus/mysterious oud. Bought oud sinharaja, Sayat Nova attar, & this. This to me is nothing but ruh khus attar(diluted) available in almost every attar shops in India at a very low cost than this with packaging of Bortnikoff. Disappointed but atleast wearable. Sayat Nova attar is just NO. EDIT - After an year or so, Ambergris did the magic...the vetiver now is so fizzy & feels vibrant..its a like...still not a love

the opening is HORRID; but it's gone within a few moments. acrid, fecund vetiver and i imagine oud, which settles and then the champaca, sandalwood and resins mix to create a pleasant accord. there's a bit of leather-animalics in the background, too, but by and large it's a floral-woods mix that is pretty nice... it levels out to a mild aromachemically scent, which isn't bad, but not quite what i was hoping would happen. there's a gentle mid 90s basketball card smell about it, adding to the floral element, which is pleasant. all in all, not really my thing, but great and interesting to smell...

This is probably going to be one of the weirdest reviews I write. Please sample this first! Do not blind buy a bottle. This opens up sharp and I can see the resemblance to the vinyl paint mentioned by Oudaddict and I get hardly get any florals. It's very faint on the floral side. Then it dries dusty and the smell is very reminiscent of ginkgo nuts (I grew up deshelling them). It's definitely my skin chemistry. I was hoping I would get champaca from this, but the wood scent just dominates.

Oh my goodness gracious. That champaca is STUNNING! The vetiver is smooth, cooling wet rooty and obviously green.