Vents Ardents

I absolutely LOVE Vents Ardents! It's my perfect dream of a tropical scent, with no cliches like coconut or "suntan oil" but still giving a vivid picture of lush tropical abundance. It may be intended as a masculine but I adore it and I intend to wear it a lot when the weather is reliably warmer. It's luxuriantly sensual and sexy too, which helps! This is no of the best niche introductions of the year and it goes right to the top of my list of tropical style scents.

208) Vents Ardents (incroyable! une marque anglophone qui ne fait pas de fautes d'orthographe à chaque mot français utilisé) Un fruité-floral très réussi, laiteux complexe avec des accords antagonistes complétement maitrisés sur une base très tabac boisé. A force de sentir les créations de certains nez américains je m'inquiète pour l'avenir du monopole français de la création de parfum. (incroyable! an English speaking brand that does not make spelling mistakes to each French word used!) A fruity-floral very successful, milky and complex with antagonist accords completely mastered on a very woody tobacco base. By dint of smell the creations of some American Noses I worry about the future of the French monopoly on the creation of perfume.

Warning: This Perfume is lethal, in terms of Concentration. A single spray can be more than enough. In fact, if I go near to the bottle also, it makes me think that I have started smelling like it!! However Jokes apart. Coming to the perfume The perfume is too heavy for me to evoke the image of air or sailing ship or tropical islands. It starts with a blast of tropical fruits, very tough to distinguish between them. But it has a coconut vibe to it, may be it is the rum, which remains all along the life-cycle of the perfume! And unfortunately, I donot love coconut smells in perfumes. The Curacao gives it a thick syrupy sweetness, which is too feminine for my taste. It makes me think of the Make-Up Room of any 90s actress or cabaret dancer. Not for me at all. Sillage: Monstrous. I wore it in office once and one of my associate coming through the door of the quadrant which is almost 50 mts away, started commenting: “From where this coconut oil smell is coming?” Longevity on my skin: It just remains and remains. I have lost counts of hours. In fact after having a bath also, you can get traces of it on you. Longevity on fabric: May be eternal, unless you do a laundry Occasion: I truly don’t know where to wear it, as a guy. May be someday I will update this. But, absolutely not in some close area, unless you want choke to kill someone there. P.S Like all En Voyage perfume it has an oily character and is of high quality. Must try before you buy. Rating: 6/10

This. Is. A. Beast. It’s a curaçao and fruit bomb - lots and lots of them. It’s very, very intense. You have to like incredibly heavy, syrupy sweet tropical fragrances to enjoy this one. In fairness, this type of fragrance isn’t normally in my wheelhouse - at all. Unfortunately, this did not convert me. I couldn’t make my way through too much of the journey of this fragrance. I found it borderline assaulting and had to TRY to remove it. I tried to remove the test area with alcohol. Nope. I scrubbed it with soap. Nope. I can still smell it and not faintly. So the longevity is as impressive as it’s sillage. If you love a beast of a fragrance with unreal staying power and are drawn to the top notes listed, give this a go. Definitely not for me.

Thank you Fragrantica and En Voyage for your lovely giveaway. I was one of the lucky winners. :) This is one of those perfumes that completley changes through it's stages of wet, drying, dry! The wet stage I can only describe as..Tropical Smoke. Imagine the smell of sitting by a fire on a beach and drinking malibu. It's so smoky it almost smells like leather if that makes sense. It's like masculine malibu. Not boozy though, it's very dry smelling. The rum/booziness starts to come through when this warms up. This is a pirate scent! The wood is really strong too adding to the dryness of this scent, this could be the wood of a pirate ship! The description of this perfume is very true to it's name. Now, my body chemistry always amps sweet things like Tonka, vanilla and amber so... the drier stages turn so sweeeet, the masculine edge is dissapearing and the sweet elements are coming forward. Oh Tonka how I love thee. The vanilla is showing it's face and the wood is softening and so is the smokiness. It's a very different scent that lingers between two elements 1. masculine pirate leather/smoke 2. the party they left behind. Their empty rum bottles and coconut husks sit by the fire. I like it! :)

If you look for lots of good fun in a scent then ventes ardents is for you. Where should i start? Boozy rhum? Tones of heliotrope in a boyish perfume? Or in the magnificent dry down of smoky wood and polished mahogany furniture in the austere bedroom of the captain. Unique and evocative.