Chinchilla

just received a travel-size of chinchilla from a friend. this perfume evokes my memory of linda nochlin’s apartment on the upper west side—or any glamorous older woman, for that matter. it’s autumnal; it smells like october twilight and walking past a pile of maple leaves a couple hours after rain, with sweet, spicy, funky flourishes. musky and sweet from the tonka and honey, and the pepper & cinnamon notes leave a little lingering spice in my nose. the animalic notes are just intoxicating—strong for my nose, straddling the line between clean and dirty or maybe shifting between the two depending on the angle i approach it. the florals are mostly lost on me, but maybe my palate isn’t refined enough to catch it. stinks so good! excited to see how it performs on my skin over time—if any notes are amplified or muted. edit: i finally figured out what it smells like! chinchilla is the smell of sticking your nose in a mink coat that your fabulous great-aunt sprayed her perfume on when she last wore it. antique store floral musk!

Chinchilla starts with a golden, thick and dripping honey. The aroma is so strong that I feel hungry and head toward the kitchen. Halfway out, I smell my arm again and stop in my tracks. How did that happen? From the initial gourmand flavor, the scent had metamorphosed into a little minx. Yes, it is animalic! I decided not to eat because now all I want, is to find a man that I want to purr and snuggle with under a cashmere blanket. I had a late start with this potion but hyrax, ambrette, castoreum, civet along with musk, now woke me up with a different kind of desire. After a while Chinchilla is becoming a cozy and warm scent completing the perfection with notes of bergamot, vetiver, oakmoss, carnation, rose de mai, playing beautifully together. A little of bit of cinnamon and white pepper adds spiciness, whereas beeswax, gardenia, nard himalayan (jatamansi), and my beloved tonka bean round up this cozy Sunday afternoon. Longevity and Sillage are delicate and very intimate.

Dawn Spenser Hurwitz is able to convey texture in a way I have never experienced in perfume. When I smell Chinchilla I FEEL soft fur and leather. It is an amazing trick. And when I wear this it makes me feel like a glamorous woman in the 1940s waiting to attend a show or an expensive dinner in New York. When I am really moved by a perfume it is difficult for me to pick out the notes. I would say animalic accords with honey and resins like labdanum.

IMHO, this is the best synthetic civet you can get. I love the honey-civet center of this perfume so much - enajyerdua describes it flawlessly as "very pretty piss". It's amazing in and of itself, but also does a great job to bump up the skank when put next to things that have lost their civet over the years, like (to my nose anyways) Jicky. Chinchilla is sold in a ton of different sizes and formats, so it is really easy to try.

Oh, this is a bit of heaven. It has the warm, pissy, animalic honey note that I have been hooked on since I fell in love with Tabac Tabou. It's a very intimate scent but it blooms beautifully as it warms on the skin. I'm in love.

Love this! An old-school animalic that strongly recalls Rabanne's discontinued classic, La Nuit.

this starts off very animalic with honey and soapy notes. it's kind of odd at the very beginning but gets better. after a few minutes i get hints of florals which i think is rose. it also gets earthier, as i think i sense oakmoss and vetiver, while still remaining fairly animalic. it ends up being a soft animalic honey-rose. it's very pretty and does smell classic as others have mentioned.

Far, far too animalic for my taste.

To me, this perfume is the liquid version of the softest, warmest white mink coat; the kind a bride would wear to her Gatsby themed wedding. I love skanky vintage animalics, and this fragrance has a very special place in my collection. It's by far, the most feminine, the warmest and coziest; the sexiest and most elegant all at the same time. I had this on one hand and Musc Tonkin on another and they are like cousins, but Chinchilla is the sexy artsy entrepreneur who wears a 40's pinstripe skirt suit, while Musc Tonkin is the beautiful and brainy scientist in the office appropriate kitten heels and white lab coat. Both are wonderful, but one is more "artsy" and warm, while the other is colder and office appropriate.

Chinchilla is a beautifully complex animalic chypre with a light to moderate touch. You do not have to wait for the drydown to smell the animalic notes in this fragrance. Civet, castoreum, hyrax and musk are fused together by equally animalic notes of honey and beeswax. Floral notes are present in the topnotes and persist into the early part of the drydown. This perfume is yet another example of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz's brilliance as a perfumer.

It's mostly oakmoss, honey, and dusty vetiver on a bed of styrax. It has that vintage style animalic which is mostly the dusti animalic (not stinky) with twists of sweet honey. As it calms down it goes quite dry animalic & i believe it's the hyrax, and not the civit with doses of musk. It is the safe choice for animalic old school vintage lovers.

#oddnote* for this: CHOCOLATE. ------------------ (*#oddnote refers to INTERESTING DETAILS: notes unlisted, elements that intrigue, overall impressions, unusual accords, or simply unexpected combinations OTHER REVIEWERS, PERHAPS, HAVEN'T MENTIONED. For more #oddnote & #didyouknow bits, find me on Insta @a_nose_knows)

Good lord, this smells like a very mature peed in diaper. Like my toddler's when she wakes up in the morning. Or a nursing home hallway. Good lord. Animalic?? Yes. You'll smell like someone marked their territory all over you...

I've not noticed my cat being interested in other animalic, musky scents. But she is into this one! It is very pretty piss.

This is gorgeous. I just wish it was a little louder. Still. I see an ounce of this perfume in my future.