Sacre Noir

I wish this wasn't so seasonal because I love it enough that I'd like to wear it year round. But it really is "Christmas in a bottle". Similar, but better than the legendary 'Fille en Anguilles' (sp?) by Serge Lutens, and Pineward's 'Christmas wine', it's a forest, spice, and dried fruit affair. Most people have never smelled anything quite like it, which I suppose is true for most HoM fragrances, but most people like it a lot. The only thing I can complain about is that the evergreen note varies differently by batch (since it's natural), and sometimes it's heavenly, other times it's great but doesn't reach the same highs. I've had 3 bottles and probably only received two somewhat distinct batches. I'll continue to buy it for the rest of my life. Sign up for their emails and wait for a sale. Full price is fair but at a discounted price this is actually a good deal compared to many other brands.

IMO, there are 2 houses that do green very well, Tom Ford and HOM. HOM is by far the best for creating natural green fragrances that smell like your face is planted directly on a leaf or pine in the most fragrant forest you've ever smelled. Bonsai is an excellent example of that. Sacre Noir successfully follows suit by taken that same green goodness and adding a fruity sexy element to it. Combine the plum, orange, oud, incense and green notes and I imagine sex night (beyond date night) Private Bungalow in a forest, windows open and filled with quality burning incense. I'm eating fruit off a naked woman after giving her a full body massage with an oud lotion. It hits different. I suspect a new nose would say it's too much for them, but continue to smell the test strip over and over again as they sat it.

This smells amazing. Christmas in a bottle, green, coniferous, spicy, sweet, simply magical. But longevity is very very poor. After about 2h, what remains is faint incence smell, a mare shadow of what was when you applied it, that nobody will be able to detect. This is the perfect Winter Solstice/Yule/Christmas (or whatever festivities are dear to your heart) fragrance in terms of smell but for the price tag, I would have liked for it to persist more. This is what I wished Pineward Christmas Wine to be but funny enough that one lasts quite a bit. Life is unfair. I understand that natural perfumery is more expensive but it is the duty of the perfumer to find a formulation that will be perceptible for at least 4-5 hours. I'll give it a 5/5 but just for the opening/mid smell.

Sacre Noir is one of my new favorite fragrances. I've been wearing it now for about the last three or four months and had to pull the trigger because it is so beautiful. Fir resin is my favorite note in the world. It is here mingled with the sugar plum and the orange. Christmas spices and cypress, as well as juniper, frankincense, laurel and a myriad of other notes that produces one of the most enjoyable fragrances I've worn to date. I hope to always have a bottle of Sacre Noir in my collection. Thank you Christine and House of Matriarch for producing such a beautiful product.

This is a very beautiful forest-type scent, with a touch of sweetness for balance. I get minimal longevity and projection, but I'd say it's more of a scent you wear for yourself than for anyone else. A real treat to wear in the winter months, but don't expect people around you to notice it.