Patchouli

Discovered this cologne during the 1990’s, and is the only perfume bottle I ever finished. It’s the most perfect patchouli on my skin. For me, it was a year round fragrance, varying in its impact pending on the climate and temperature. Looking for a respectable alternative to this: a patchouli that is linear yet cozy, and doesn’t freak others out when they’re near you. I’ve kept the bottle, and can still smell its aroma on the spray nozzle.

I had a bottle of the lotion in the 90's. It was the perfect patchouli --- warm, subtle, subdued, pleasantly medicinal. I miss this.

Totally, and I mean TOTALLY love this patchouli. It is a very sophisticated fragrance that is dominant in patchouli, but not the cheap sharp crassy smelling patchouli of the hippy flower child era and is so plentifully available in the marketplace. Crabtree & Evelyn has continued with their Sandalwood fragrance line for men, but has long ago dropped their Pachouli line. Crabtree & Evelyn, starting out as a traditional type fragrance house to those of discriminating tastes has lowered their standards to common strip mall scents, evidenced by their preference for their cheap copy-cat Senna fragrance selection to that of dropping Patchouli, a much more complex, quality and agreeable scent. C&E Patchouli was simply a unique and very agreeable patchouli based fragrance that was warm, not to heady, very smooth (which typical patchouli offering lack), a complexity that moved through the top, middle into the base notes, all the while being very agreeable and much liked by both men and women. The sillage was very present but not overwhelming or offensive, something not typical of patchouli itself. Why Crabtree & Evelyn dropped this fragrance is beyond me and I'm sure, beyond their competitors, who they were outselling their patchouli offerings by quite a margin. While Crabtree & Evelyn has reintroduced their West Indies Lime fragrance line, they're really missing the boat by not reintroducing their original Patchouli fragrance line, especially since it was always a perfect compliment to their Sandalwood fragrance line, which I find to be one of the most sophisticated and complex sandalwood fragrances available. Bottom line, Crabtree & Evelyn Patchouli was a winner by all accounts, and if reintroduced, as the original formula without changes, would still be a winner. Are you folks at Crabtree & Evelyn even listening?

I am absolutely crazy about this cologne!! I recently discovered and snapped up an almost full bottle of it in the house of a relative who had recently passed. Long story short, my mother used to wear it in the 70's, and I fell in love with it then and began wearing it, but at some point began wearing straight patchouli oil as opposed to the C&E cologne. Rediscovering the cologne, I was blown away by the difference between the two!!! And of course brought back to that original smell that was so intoxicating to us and to many who smelled it on us!!

I have a bottle of this from the 80s. From the Dark Ages. I tend not to use this as a skin fragrance, but as a bath water fragrance. Ten squirts into the bathwater is lovely. And not overwhelming. I chose this one today because I'm going to do gardening, and I don't want to be a bee magnet. this is a powerhouse - a half a squirt Wonder, applied with a Q-tip. It is wonderful layered with patchouli in the in the bath water, and rosewater on skin. Going to seek both on eBay, discontinued.