Eau de Cashmere

This is such a beautiful subtle iris, its not crazy powdery and neither too sweet with the vanilla given the addition of the citrus. The name is very fitting, it does seem like I am being hugged by a cloud of fluffy cashmere. However it is SO FAINT, it is gone in less than 5 minutes and I need to touch my nose to the spot I sprayed it so I can smell it. It is such a shame because it is a beautiful elegant fragrance.

Surprised by this!!! It is very similar (albeit a touch soapier) to the base/powdery drydown of Tom Ford Noir Extreme! 😳 Smells fantastic!

The opening is quite subdued. The lavender notes present in the previous fragrance, Eau de Cashmere (2014), have been significantly toned down, with a soft hint of musk coming to the fore right from the start. The top notes are almost ethereal, lacking any distinct definition. There is a faint sense of freshness, but the projection is restrained and the scent dissipates quickly into the air. It feels as though that slightly classical, well-structured opening has receded considerably. The heart is musky and powdery. The soft, fine-textured quality reminiscent of cashmere is certainly present. However, the overall tone is subdued, and there is no real peak in the scent. Neither the sweetness nor the spice asserts itself; it simply continues in a uniform manner. There are no major changes right through to the drydown, leaving a dry, faint citrus-musk. If you are familiar with the previous version, you might be left feeling slightly underwhelmed.

White musk. Cozy. Nondescript. Aside from that, I can’t pick out... any scents or notes. I feel like I’m going a bit crazy and it makes me doubtful of the sample I got. This almost smells like... nothing. I’d have to basically rate this a 0 as a result, which is such a shame. This is my first ever and only 0/5, and I have tried MANY perfumes. If this develops later on or I notice anything more, I’ll update this post. This is so underwhelming. I am actually refusing to vote on any of the facets of this (season and gender) because I literally don’t have enough scent information and it feels unfair to designate it labels of spring or fall or male or female when I can’t pick out anything. It feels like nothingness. So underwhelming. As for the value, I don’t even understand what you’re paying for here. It’s like dousing yourself in watery musk. I hate leaving negative reviews but I can’t understand this fragrance. I do get a stronger sense of the perfume straight from the bottle, but when sprayed on me this dissipates almost entirely.

Eau de Cashmere opens with that musky, aromatic citrus thing that feels immediately human to me and freshly inhabited. Imagine pulling on a sweater just out of the wash and stepping outside while the air still smells faintly of herbs bruised underfoot. Clean, but with body heat already gathering beneath it. You walk a little. The knit holds warmth. You grow just the slightest bit sweaty in the snugness, and dab powder back onto your face. That is the mood here. Groomed but also lived in. There is a very visible powdery nuance from early on, but it is not old-fashioned. More like iris and musk offering this dry softness. A pale blur. The petitgrain gives it a slightly sterile cologne-adjacent edge, though thankfully it never becomes harsh. In fact, the perfume’s nicest quality may be that even its sharper facets are inoffensive. Everything is softened, slightly buffered, really as though you are smelling it through wool. You eventually arrive at a bookstore, one with wooden shelves and slightly tired lighting, and somewhere in the corner an old vanilla reed diffuser. The dying diffuser offers just a faint sweet exhalation in the background, a little melancholic. The scent hovers between a typical woody-vanillic-heliotrope-ish softness and something deeper, sleepier, more intimate. It does call to mind the old Eau de Lit albeit a darker version with warm residue. Which is both its charm and its limitation. Because I do think it is decently pleasant and tasteful. But it does not reinvent the wheel, and more importantly, insists on barely being smelled. The sillage is so soft it is practically self-effacing, and longevity we shall not mention. After a while it becomes one of those scents only detectable if you nuzzle your nose directly into the spray site. I also just wish the opening stayed longer. That musky aromatic citrus, with its tactile clean-warmth and faint herbaceous lift, is the most distinctive part. Once those facets recede, the fragrance teeters between familiarity and near-disappearance. And when I compare it to Eau de Lit as fellow commenter Distantspring has, I do think Eau de Lit edges it out by a little. The scent is still tender but like a warm-noise filter set to the lowest opacity over your portraits. A great composition with a little bit of wasted potential here.