Nohiba

I'm wearing Nohiba today for the first time in years, maybe 10 years, and I'm wondering why it got pushed back into the far reaches of my perfume closet. It's even better than I remembered it. So let me establish the bottle of Nohiba I have is the one with the paper label with the black pen & ink late Victorian design with the small red roses. I probably bought this bottle around 2001, before E. Coudray made what looks like a major design change to its bottles. And if they also brought out a new formulation in 2016, what I'm reviewing today is not that juice. Find the old stuff and hope it's as good as my bottle. Lots of cloves in this rose/carnation, and I love a perfumer who puts coriander in a fragrance as a top note and admits it. The patchouli and cedar go on and on and it lasts 6+ hours on my skin. Nohiba was always an elusive scent, and never a top seller. I don't ever remember seeing it in stores, but someone must have sold it before the internet. But it's exactly the sort of scent women who love spicy scents are looking for if they don't want to drench themselves in oud. Or want a short break from drenching themselves in oud.

This is my go-to sexy but subtle fragrance. I've been wearing it for years, long before the re-introduction. This is actually an old scent from the 1920s, originally called "Black Tulip" I believe, and it has that old world real perfume smell. A little goes a long way and it has great lasting power. The dry down is amazing -- it gets deeper and richer as time passes. On me it's a true Oriental, a little woody, spicy, smokey, incense-y with notes of carnation, rose, and sandalwood. I've never met a man who didn't love this scent. I wear the bath oil as my perfume. layered over the shower gel and body cream. This is definitely more of a colder weather fragrance. My review is based on my carefully preserved stash of the original formula. Unfortunately it's nearly impossible to find these days, so if anyone knows a reliable source please post it here.

This is a version of Opium that I love. Soft, spicy, carnation. If you like the old Opium you'll also like this - it doesn't whack you over the head though, it's quite refined and very good quality stuff, less aldehydic, which is no bad thing. Men like it (they tell me). I wouldn't be without this! 10/10.

...the most sensual perfume in my collection and most sexy one of all scents out there A 100% Women smells like this I am addicted to You Nohiba You work perfectly with my body chemistry ,every time kind of different ,depends of how warm my body is...So Lucky Me...

Not a huge fan of florals but that one has pleasantly surprised me. Rose accent here is minimal, which allows carnation to mark it's distinguished presence. The woody notes are subtle and not overpowering which makes the ideal evening fragrance. It is strong, vibrant and a little bit smoky, almost masculine. If you get Tuscany per Donna by Aramis and Karan's Black Cashmere, you will love this.

Wonderful!! I will be wearing this in the Autumn and Winter months. This EDT reminds me of Opium, it's lovely. Sorry I am no expert to talk about the notes, would suggest if you like a oriental fragrance to give it a try.

Uncompromising classic. Nohiba transports you back a fair few decades with her fiercely aldehylic & mock-moss opening but wait, there is a plump & pillowy “perfumery” perfume lurking below the radar. She is dated yet mutable and as contemporaneous as nature herself. She is meaty & voluminous yet light enough to shimmer with a golden heat-haze. You will either love her or loathe her, but take a while to understand her (as you would a painting) & you will be rewarded with an interesting, unfurling romantic scent journey. When your nostrils have become accustomed to the dry, stripping bergamot you are aware of a fine, ivory soap with a hint of triple milled powder. It is herbal & clean not in today’s modern sense (all ozionics & solars) but in that of the past, almost as nature herself. Not sweet, almost savoury, definitely dry – a sage green with a touch of terracotta. When the arid rawness of the start subsides, the warm, spicy desert-heat of Nohiba arrives. Light, sour Roses – not fresh, but pot-pourri petals left out in the sun. If there’s any lemon in there, it is the bitter pith & peel. Coriander & old store-cupboard savoury herbs add a dash of dust, but the true stars are sun-baked carnations & ylang-ylang. Big! Bold! Ablaze! As the heat-haze wears on, Nohiba softens to a sun-warmed, spicey-sweet, woody-oriental harking back to a bygone era. Her last gasps are of smoky woods, old pine cones & salty skin. Nohiba is very distinctive but there are moments where she swings towards scents you recognise. This grande dame wanders through the garden of perfumes-past, picking at the petals of once famed fragrances: a snippet of Sisley, a dash of Aromatics Elixir, a handful each of Cinnebar, Opium, O de Lancome, Guerlain’s Terracotta Voile d’ete ......on & on she travels...a scent ship in full sail. Nohiba truly is a bosomy, well upholstered fragrance. She is as tough as a corseted matron but remains voluptuous & womanly beneath. She is a William Morris woman - a mix in time of austerity & romantic fantasy. To sum up: the holographic love-child of old-school Opium & the original O de Lancome.

when I got this perfume there was an amusing thing going on. as it was considered a Niche-perfume, normally the Niche- perfumery Skins.nL had installed it within the licensed Boot of theirs in 'de Bijenkorf' (Beehive) Rotterdam, thè chain of [Ultra] Luxe Warehouses in the Netherlands. yet bc of precisely this perfume it was 'Verboten' (banned), to exactly introduce this perfume within the Coudray Collection because of its likenness with YSL Opium. now I see above people find it very comparable with Opium. but at the time (1990s) I found it a bizarre argument. if Youth Dew, KL Karl Lagerfeld, Coco, Nohiba, Obsession and the like are on 'one floor', so what? this has never before been a hindrance. and what the reviewster before me says, that it possibly is a re-Issue of an older Coudray perfume (a Venerated Perfumery from either 1822 or 1835), then Opium is late to the party. it happens to be a very elaborated and balanced perfume in the Floriental tradition, or Spicy, Woody and Flowery perfume with an exquise softness and dreamlike swathing of the circumsurround athmosphere. it has a Timeless Appeal. it is as if all the ingredients are necessary to build up this refined and Haute Voltige Ladylike perfume. it is classy and it is comparable with Opium, but one could with equal rights say it totally veers off from there. its determining feature however is its instantaneous Classic and Careful nature, with a hidden Pomp & Circumstance, as demure as it is lovely present.

Coudray NOHIBA is a strong, ylang-heavy woody oriental perfume to my nose. It smells like some of the orientals from last century and has fantastically fabulous sillage and longevity like those ones, too! I wore this twice today and discovered that it has a masculine woody facet. In fact, I vacillated between thinking that this was an old school oriental and a new school masculine woody. What never changed was the potency, whether it's the ylang and the carnation or the woods which are dominating at a given moment, this potion is very potent! I have smelled a number of perfumes which combine ylang and carnation, and I must say that it yields a distinctive scent which is probably going to polarize people into "yes" and "no" camps. For me this is a serious wintertime creation, and I wonder whether I need it, given that I have Guerlain Aqua Allegoria YLANG & VANILLE, which is super ylangy and also very strong. Well, in any case, NOHIBA is certainly worth a try by lovers of bold oriental perfumes!

When I first bought this in the early 90s I heard that it was a reissue of a 1920s Coudray formula, (Black Tulip?) created for Josephine Baker. I can imagine it would have suited her to the ground. It's one of my favourite scents. I don't recall ever smelling this on anyone else. It's older than Opium and other orientals such as my lovely Cinnabar (before reformulation) that it's compared to but I find this deeper, smoother and somehow less strident. I wear the perfumed body oil version a little of which goes a very long way. The foaming bath and shower creme smells even better if that's possible and leaves skin like silk. Gorgeous.

My husband says it is very sexy. It is oriental,strong,some says it reminds them of Opium but beter,more natural. Not that new-an old formula renewed. There is something vintage in it. Veroniq loves the dry down, I LOVE the opening but the dry down is a bit to masculin and smoky on me. I like it better layered with with the Jacinth Et rose .

Nohiba is a very sultry, spicy lady who knows what she wants and usually gets it. I wear this as my "go to " winter scent of choice. It is so warming and alluring, especially when it is icy cold outside. I do get the Opium connection but much prefer Nohiba's less obvious charms. I can't stop sniffing my own wrist when wearing this beauty!

On my skin, this is somewhat similar to Cinnabar, but Nohiba is lighter, fresher, and greener in the opening. I find the carnation to be dominant. As it dries down, it becomes warmer and the sandalwood takes center stage, but the carnation remains. It feels like a spicy-woody fragrance.

Woody and spicy , I can't get the rose note or the bergamot. It's a unisex fragrance I am fairly sure.

I love this one. The notes don't list vetiver, but I smell some in there.

Reminded me Panthere de Cartier - too much sandal for my taste.