La Fin Du Monde

This one of my favorites - if not favorite fragrance of all time so be warned, this is bias. The end of the world it was, when I first smelled this fragrance and realized - this was it, the best of perfumery to my nose. My journey was over, I’ve come home and that home is the epitome of warmth. This is a powdery resinous iris masterpiece. The gunpowder is a beautiful juxtaposition of authority and intensity - without it, the end of the world is delicate and restful - which doesn’t mirror the horrors of life. I think the story behind this is beautiful and fitting. The popcorn doesn’t read realistic or gourmand but rather adds to a creamy, bready accord; reminiscent of freshly toasted bread spread with butter. It’s juvenile yet refined, messy yet clean, complex yet familiar. I went through 2 bottles in a year and haven’t repurchased because I know it’s all I’m going to use, my other fragrances will macerate and rot before this gets clawed out of my hands. If this ever gets discontinued I will be wailing in the streets. I can’t describe this fragrance without fawning over it but my best attempt to be objective is this - it’s buttery iris, that could have some similarities to 90’s bullet lipstick. The resins add a warmth but they aren’t heavy and don’t translate as incense - this isn’t a spicy fragrance either, the cumin is weak and the sesame adds to the warmth from the resins. It’s not a floral but the iris is very detectable, it’s not a sweet gourmand either but you can argue that it is buttery and bready. The most detectable notes are the popcorn (really more butter than real popcorn), iris, black pepper, carrot seed and sesame combination, and the gunpowder. The gunpowder lingers throughout the wear as a metallic smokiness; it’s not a bonfire smoke and the metalliciness doesn’t smell like a hospital, it literally smells like gunpowder. It does have a pencil shavings quality - like You by Glossier. The gunpowder is punchy at first but fades rather quickly which leaves a smoky base lingering in the background. Her only flaw - she’s weak and doesn’t last. Objectively, La Fin Du Monde is smokey iris skin scent but she’s perfection to me. There’s nothing that really smells like this but I’d say it’s a pioneer of the peppery iris musk revolution started by Glossier You. It’s like a distant sexy great aunt of You, Sonic Flower, and Another 13 - the gunpowder does make it truly unique. If you like those, you’ll like likely this, or at least find it inoffensive.

The Enigma of Amigara Fault, a horror short-story by artist and writer Junji Ito, takes place after an earthquake shears off a mountainside revealing hundreds of human-shaped recesses in the cliff. A TV broadcast of the area draws a large crowd, and the protagonist meets a fellow traveller investigating the fault who reveals they saw the fault on TV. Specifically, they saw hole in the cliff which was theirs. Belonged to them, made for them. Someone begins to climb the cliff side. He looks back at the crowd in horror, tells the crowd to send goodbyes to his mother, and enters the perfectly fitted opening. He sinks, heavy, into the dark. Though the remainder of this story (which will remain unspoiled) plays on claustrophobia and body-horror, these topics fall short to me when compared to the terror of cosmic compulsion. Seeing something foreign, yet painfully, perfectly bespoke. The eldritch flattery of knowing you belong to a siren so completely, you are powerless to resist its song of the void. La Fin du Monde might as well have been made for me, or I might as well have made it myself. On my skin, the opening smells a bit like kettle corn at the fair but sweeter and just starting to burn. There is a strange dirty-yet-powdery earthiness from the gunpowder accord. A subtle, gourmand smokiness like honeyed lapsang tea lingers through the mid. The popcorn is short-lived. On my skin, the sweetness and earthiness fade into creamy and very powdery iris. In fact, after an hour it's barely sweet at all! And the earthiness is getting...clean? And the iris is not creamy anymore, it's photorealistic? It's starting to smell SOAPY underneath!? IT'S PERFECT. An incredible transition and one that I think actually accurately captures the end of the world ELDO wanted to emulate. La Fin du Monde is just the end of *our* world. After the fireworks and popcorn, the dust will eventually settle. It will sit, dormant, for ages and ages but even if it takes an eternity a flower will eventually bloom once more. It's a favorite of mine, but it may not be for you. Test it first. All in all, I think it's an intensely wearable frag. Completely unisex on my skin. In cooler weather, I think it could work in pretty much any environment even the office if you go a little light. Would def be cloying in hot and humid weather. Longevity is great.

I've been meaning to review this fragrance for a year now - it is true magic to me, my signature fragrance. Gorgeous blend, evolving scent, unique as all hell. I honestly can't wholeheartedly agree with most other reviews (esp critical reviews): I don't find this to be candy sweet/gourmand OR too musky OR too powdery... or maybe, it's all of those things to a "too much" degree. That's not to say this perfume is beast mode, it has good performance but not a monster by any means - it's just a LOT going on, in the best way. I enjoy spicy, ambery, incensey, and unique/savory gourmand themes, and this fragrance makes my senses light up. It smells like excitement, like both the anticipation and the afterglow of doing something exciting, intense, or stressful. One comment I've seen repeatedly that I do agree with is that there's a fairground feeling, but I don't get it from the popcorn (which is mild on my skin) - rather, the gunpowder smells like fireworks being set off, and that singed, sparkly note signals thrill. The sweetness, for me at least, comes mostly from the carrot seed, which is quite prominent on my skin; but it lingers on the edges, you're never able to get a STRONG sniff of it so it keeps you going back for more. This fragrance is definitely a sniffer for me, I can't keep my nose from my wrist when I'm wearing it (even after a year of wearing it regularly) because it's just so fascinating and DIFFERENT from any other fragrances I've tried. The notes list is insane, the accords are insane, and it just makes the most gorgeous chaos. One thing I also want to really emphasize is that this perfume is *V E R S A T I L E* - any season, any time of day, just about any occasion (I wouldn't wear it for extremely formal, but that's hardly every day). For reference, I'm a very androgynous (consistently mistaken for male) and very confident woman, and this fragrance just feels badass in an unobtrusive way - like it just embodies confidence but doesn't override everyone and everything else in the room. I'm in love with everything about it, and now that it's macerated for a year it has even more depth and moderately improved performance.

my favorite fragrance at the moment, dare I say an all-time favorite, though it's a damn shame it lasts next to nothing the popcorn and gunpowder accord combo is super unique and cozy, but it's a "rough" kind of cozy, it perfectly captures that dystopian vibe of something sweet and metallic after the initial popcorn opening, the carrot seed and sesame really stand out to me: they blend so well with the iris note, and I’ve read they actually used iris absolute instead of just orris, which makes perfect sense cause it reminds me of that super unique iris profile in L'Attesa by Masque Milano, which also utilizes both orris and the actual iris flower -- anyway, it does pairs so nicely with the freesia (I assume that's the subtle floral component) and whatever is supposed to be the gunpowder accord, which I suspect is actually the cumin seed along with the powdery iris absolute, yes? sitting at the base alongside ambrette, and it's the classic ELDO ambrette, lovely and sharp though distilled into the most subtle version possible everything I’ve just described lasts merely two hours on the skin, or four if we're being generous and counting the time you'd spent burying your nose into your own arm (which I do, because as you can tell, I’m obsessed with this fragrance) I know ELDO will likely never release an Extrait or Absolu version line, the way Byredo did their best sellers, to give us their classics with more longevity, but I would absolutely love it if they did !! truly, this could easily be my signature and the only fragrance I’d ever wear, however -- the price tag and the lack of longevity sort of negate that for me lol then again, the scent itself is a masterpiece, an absolute masterpiece

I wish there was no freesia top note in this, everything else going on here is really interesting, but for the first half an hour or so I smell overwhelmingly like cheap 90's freesia perfume. This is going to be a difficult wear for a lot of unisex/masc folk, I'm struggling a bit with it myself right now. Once it dries down and the freesia fades a bit, it's much more unisex. The sandalwood is milky and amps up the buttery popcorn accord. The gunpowder, pepper and cumin are more subtle, but noticably spicy and savoury. The iris is well blended and hard to pick out, but every now and then I catch that soft, smooth texture amidst the chaos. There's still that sharp floral freesia floating around in the mid dry down (and a lot still in the scent trail), but it's much less intense off the skin now. If it were replaced with a sparkly Cola accord (or something similarly bright and warm, and maybe aniseedy?), this would be so much more enjoyable/wearable for me. The freesia is mostly gone after about an hour and a half. Dry down gets smokier and milkier as it goes on. Carrot seed is more noticable at this point, it calms what's left of that gross freesia and sits nicely alongside the popcorn. I'm actually really enjoying this fragrance now! Four to five hours longevity. By hour 5 though it's a very subtle and smoky, buttery carrot skin scent. Two sprays for intimate sillage, four for moderate. Ironically, what with global warming being one of the driving factors of our world ending, I can't see La Fin Du Monde being pleasant in hot weather. It's a little much to wear even sitting by the radiator tbh.

This one is so strange and different to me...I expected a abandoned city after a nuclear war..First spray was a girl perfume..Straight up CH Good Girl..Okay interesting...The girly floral opening doesnt last long and starts drying down into something that feels perfectly unisex like Blamage..It was close to skin very fast and it dissapeared quickly after drying down to a popcorny sweetness..Then next day,i do a few more sprays and in the opening it reminded me of how your clothes smell after hugging a girl..Like a combination of all my ex girlfriends perfumes together..But not exactly on clothes,more like a memory of them..I wear it in summer heat and i think it has 2 sides...Feminine floral and Butter popcorn...For me it always opens with a different side,sometimes its really sweet and smells like a bottom of empty popcorn can...I dont really get gunpowder,maybe a slight ashy vibe..Maybe it changes through time,i got a 100ml tester for 70€ and im enjoying it..It could work as a layering fragrance...Lasts around 5 hours for now and it was a good blind buy...This one is a experience,not something to smell off a strip and forget..You need to test it multiple wear just like Hermann And Rien in my case...Yes first sniff is weird and maybe off putting,yes thats what niche perfumes love to do..Thats why you test them more so they grow on you ..You either like them and wear them or you dont..People WAY overhype the fallout post nuclear war cinema vibe...Its slightly there if you really imagine it hard enough..Buy it and enjoy it for what it is..Discovering Eldo feels nice

Full disclaimer - this is my absolute favourite perfume. Highly biased review therefore lies ahead. La Fin du Monde is absolutely an iris scent at its core. I smell the iris throughout, unlike some other reviewers. The gentle floral of iris is what holds this fragrance together, what makes it feel like a perfume to me. It opens with a blast of smokiness, the popcorn and gunpowder notes very much at the fore. Whenever I wear this perfume (which is frequently, it's a signature for me) I feel butterflies of excitement in my stomach. The gunpowder note makes me think of Bonfire Night - driving in the dark to see fireworks exploding in the sky. It's this very visceral note that makes this perfume my absolute favourite ever (at least so far). Before I tried this perfume, I saw someone say that if you like By The Fireplace (MMM) you'll like this one. I think there's a truth to that, as they both bring a smoky/sweet mix that is very enticing, and I do like BTF. Whereas BTF is woodsmoke with sweet vanilla, this is gunpowder smoke with a sweet popcorn edge, enveloping a powdery iris floral. To me this is an infinitely more interesting scent, but they are definitely both riffs on a similar concept. It is just about gentle enough on the drydown to wear all year round, but I recently wore it at 30 degrees and noticed it was the first time I thought it was maybe just a hair too heavy for really hot weather. This is definitely an autumn/winter cosy scent as opposed to spring summer, if forced to categorise.

Immediate love for me wow, this fragrance is beatuiful and complex and wonderful. The opening was sweet and salty, my skin does pick up on that buttery popcorn and cumin/carrotseed note. It's also smokey and metallic from the gunpowder. And then it's powdery floral and fragrant from the iris. These three combinations make for one of the most interesting fragrances i've smelled in a long time. I can usually bring up what a fragrance smells like to me with a memory but i've never smelled this before. It's unique to me. I feel that anyone could wear this, male or female it's just objectively pretty to my nose. After about an hour this mellowed out for me and smelled a bit like roasting marshmallows, but not in a gourmand cloying sweet sugary way, more of a situational way like you're actually there smelling everything. I smell sandalwood, and creamy vetiver, and the iris is still strong and powdery as well. I have always loved iris scents they mix well with my chemistry. I could not stop sniffing myself, this fragrance is addicting, I was getting lightheaded from the constant deep sniffing, literally could not get enough. I'm considering buying a full size of it but I do wish it lasted longer on me (this stayed with me for around 5 hours), I adore this so much.

A brave blind buy on my part. Yall's reviews did a good job of describing it because it smells just like how I thought it would, very powdery and buttery and slightly sweet. I get lots of the iris, sesame, and carrot seed notes. The popcorn and gunpowder are there but not super pronounced. Gunpowder only presents itself as a slight metallic smell and I think the popcorn is what gives it some sweetness/saltiness. It's very nice, well-blended and easy to wear, not as weird as the name and listed notes would make you think. I do really like it and will keep it in rotation. Maybe it will be my go-to for days where I want to wear something light and fun. Update: This smells just like O Unknown by Imaginary Authors. The longevity still aint the best but its not as bad as I initially thought. I sprayed some on this morning and could still smell it later in the day at work, although still very close to the skin. I also now am getting some soapy floral-ness in the dry down? Maybe that's the freesia Update 2: Ok now I can't shut up about this fragrance. The more I wear it the more I like it, the way it develops on my skin is so interesting to me and I can't get enough of it. It's become my new dumb-reach, the one I wear when I'm not feeling my usual heavy-hitters.

La fin du mond is beautiful and fascinating. In the same direction as dior homme and valentino, but this is lighter and higher quality. It is a cozy crowdpleaser. A bit sweet, but not cloying. The most fascinating is its texture. Its almost like air. Its like its hollow in a strange way. Its like you smell parfume, but dont have parfume on. Another reviewer said its overly feminin, but I think its very unisex. According to etat libre d orange, this is suppose to smell like the end of the world. I get the image of me being a little child and visiting a tivoli with my mom. I hold her hand and can smell her leather purse with make up. Lots of coloured light is blinking, people having fun in the carrousels. Laughter. All happening in slow motion. My mom and I is in the line waiting to buy popcorn and cotton candy from a funky stall. Suddenly something happens. The sky is turning darker and darker. People first wonder whats going on. The carrousels stops. The laughters stops. The lights goes off. The sound of panic. With a boom all existence is over. The last experience is an olfactive «poff» of popcorn, cotton candy and a leatherpurse with make up and the comforting feeling of holding my mom’s hand. 9/10

Upon the initial spray, I am greeted with a heavy, powdery oris. The oris is accompanied by the smell of popcorn, but not rich and buttery popcorn from the movie theater. To my nose, I get the smell of store-bought bagged, mildly sweet popcorn. The popcorn smell only lasts for about 3 minutes before the show's true star comes through, which is the gunpowder. Anyone who has ever filled their own ammo and has worked with gunpowder will find this aroma very familiar. The gunpowder and the iris are the prominent notes for the next 10 minutes, followed by a dusty aroma that reminds me of entering my house in Mexico after being gone for a couple of months. The projection of this aroma dies down quickly and only lasts about an hour. After the first hour, the scent becomes a skin scent that keeps the powder aroma but adds sandalwood and a soapy floral aroma from the freesia. The dry down is tame and smells like most 'office-safe fragrances, ' a term used to describe subtle and inoffensive scents, making them suitable for professional environments. The dry down continues on the skin and lasts just over five hours, requiring me to reapply the fragrance around lunch.

This was a semi-blind buy. I smelled it first in bloom perfumery in London, intrigued by ELDO for a long time and wanting to experience their scents for myself but not being able to find anywhere stocking them. My initial impression was largely guarded by a bold entrance of carrot seeds and some kind of soily, organic scent, which later evolved into a more grounded, but not subdued, stench of gunpowder, smoke and salty popcorn. I knew I was hooked straight away. I ordered a full bottle online and my experience is similar being able to smell this fragrance outside of the olfactory clutter of a specialist perfume shop. The scent over time subdues itself further into a smokey, soft, powdery finish onto the skin. At this point, even some soft, playful florals enter the picture. The sillage and longevity is intense; even after showering, I feel like the scent of gunpowder is 'stuck' in my nostrils. In my opinion this is a true gender neutral fragrance. All of the ELDO scents I tested indeed bore an experimental nature. This is the one that really stood out for me though. Definitely smells like nuclear apocalypse, decaying earth, biohazard. I love that theme.

My new signature scent, it is seriously amazing on my skin. Purchased a full bottle after sampling it from the sample box off ELDO’s website. For me, the popcorn note is SLIGHTLY present on my skin if I spray alot on. Otherwise, the popcorn note is weak (on me) and presents a short-lived sweet note to it. For me, the Iris, Gunpowder, and Sesame are the main notes I smell and its absolutely fantastic. It dries down musky with an extremely unisex floral touch from the iris. The sesame and gunpowder combine well to give the fragrance a cold, smoky, sharp, and slightly earthy lingering finish. My chemistry with this fragrance is something I haven’t smelled in a while as I garner many compliments when I’m hugged or approached. Its more of a skin scent on me, but it has lasted through for around 6-7 hours on my skin; stays forever on my clothes! Works well in all situations, times, and environments (besides the hottest of the hot days or coldest of the cold days). Will continue to buy bottles of this for LIFE as its THAT good. A unique and appealing fragrance, definitely check it out!!!

I've had my bottle for 3 months now and while I still really dislike the freesia top note, I've found that over spraying (like 10 to the chest and a good few on each wrist, which I dabbed to the back of my hands and behind my ears) really kicks up the other notes, without somehow increasing the intensity or sillage too much, which stayed moderate for most of the night. Over spraying also really improved the longevity, from what was 4 to 5 hours, 3 of which were mostly freesia with a bit of nice skin scent at the end, to at least 8 or 9 hours last night, and I could still smell it faintly when I woke up. And the scent trail is no longer just that yucky freesia this way either, I get a lot more popcorn and gunpowder now. Still leans a bit fem on me due to the floral, but the 'cinema' vibe from the rest of the notes kinda lets me pull it off. (I did start off with only 3 sprays last night but that freesia was really pissing me off, so I took a chance over spraying and was fully prepared to shower it off had it just amped up that awful flower.)

The razzle dazzle of the end of humanity is explored in La Fin Du Monde. Masters of their craft, the house of ELDO comes up with yet another snazzy story-led scent. Imagine watching the world burn; fire, smoke, carnage, panic, chaos and death, whilst comfortably sat in your favourite armchair in your blown apart house, eating buttered popcorn. That is what comes across in this scent. It explores the depravity of humans, as we are a species that is constantly trying to kill ourselves. It then turns the grim idea of the end of everything into entertainment, by the inclusion of popcorn, and tries to beautify it by including precious floral notes. It's sweet, but also bitter. Dark, but also light. It is a metaphor for the human condition, and spells out our shared mortality plainly, through the language of scent. It can be worn at any time of year, and at any time of day. It's versatility is a contrast to it's bleak, one-track story. 8/10. It is not as exciting as other ELDO perfumes.

Upon coming back to this as we’ve had a slight respite from the 38 and 40C typical Summer days here Downunder. I took the blind buy because someone said it had gunpowder in it like Amour Nocturne, one of my Desert Island frags. But no, it’s actually a beautiful, very feminine, and super high quality modern perfume, nothing like the edginess of AN, and I’ve just adored wearing it ALL DAY while cleaning out a shed. I did a run on modern chemistry overdose perfumes such as this, last Autumn, seeking to force my nose into the ghost chemicals. And amazingly it worked! I can now smell them all, don’t ask me how, I’m supposedly decades into elderly anosmia. This to me, is a sweet, ginger iris powder with a lilting floral chord. Amazingly, it has a kind of tender, forlorn, nostalgic shade, like it really is the end of our divine world. I just wish it had a more nuclear, 1980s sillage but I love it anyway, and be careful what you wish for eh....

I was surprised by this one - a new perfume buddy sent me a sample and I was expecting not to like it because of the smokiness, but actually it's not smoky on my skin. It's more like sweet and powdery gunpowder... It's surprising. The drydown was mostly sweet and I didn't fully enjoy it - I will need to wear again to decide if I like it or not. Edit after wearing more: It's very odd. Thinking about this perfume, I assume that I will smell it or spray it on and be put off, but I put it on and I spend the whole day sniffing my wrist and wondering how it is that I am enjoying it :D The smokiness of it baffles me because it is very soft, it's not intrusive, it's somehow enveloping. It makes me understand the "sexy" or "attractive" advertising for cigarettes from the 50s-70s. There is also a sweetness to it, and everything is super well blended. The more I wear it, the more I think that maybe it will turn into a full bottle.

The name fits very well, but not in a apocalyptic way, but in a fictional one, as the end of the world refering a theme in the movies or videogames. It smells like an old cinema, those with chandeliers and velvet seats. Dusty and glamourous in a very decadent way. It is a quietly end of the word, abandoned pretty places, in silence, left forever and being buried in dust. Smells nostalgic, a little powdery. The word that describes it better is liminal. It emboiders the 90s cinemas, a lost age, a lost world that won't come back and whose glimpses remains in a few decadent places that are slowing dissapearing. This perfume smells like a place freezed in time, abandoned, still beautiful, condemned. Something atemporal that we know that have no more a place in this world. An old cinema, a blockbuster store, a quiet friday night in a small city.

This is amazing in multiple levels. It’s classy, it’s clean, it has depth, it has layers, it develops, it has it all! By far one of the safer blind buy options from ELDO, This is a modernized, classy take on the ‘as gender neutral as possible’ fragrance. It opens with a beautiful, strong heady note that I suppose is supposed to be gunpowder but I’ve never smelt gunpowder, but that definitely isn’t it. I would describe it more as a powdery, soft floral note that dries down into a more powdery, almost shaving powder smell. This manages to smell like a classy lipstick, expensive hair product, and fresh shave from the barber all at the same time and it’s magnificent. It’s gender neutral while still having both masculine and feminine traits. The closest I can compare this in gender neutrality is CK One, but this does it a lot better.

An explosive opening: this intense "gunpowder" immediately emerges on the nose, which invades the nostrils, almost as if hit by an explosion, then, slowly, everything goes out and a wonderful Iris air remains, light, clean, which has a calming effect on me. Let's imagine this scene: it's the end of the world, fights are raging and the situation is explosive: who would you like to be with right now? Isn't it maybe being with the dearest person you have that the whole world around you would seem to stop, calm down? It reminds me a lot of the frozen moment in the photo "Kiss in Times Square" by Alfred Eisenstaedt, where there are only two people who love each other and the whole world, which seems to go in slow motion, out. The only defect I find in this fragrance is the short duration, but I found it really pleasant.