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.

If you love the experience of a aeromatic forest woody experience with spicy resins and sugarplums.... It doesnt get much more holiday than this. Its excellent.

A lovely approximation of Holly, CIDER, and mulled spices. This fragrance starts out green, spicy and fruity and opens quickly to the 'sugarplum' note, which is a mix of plum, sugar, and red berries with the piney greens and bay still humming in the background. Moderately sweet. Indeed it's Christmassy, and with excellent staying power, one of Christi's best that I've experienced in terms of longevity. I definitely smell wafts of this on myself all during the day and it seems like a great autumnal fragrance too. I don't get any incense though. It must be deep in the blend somewhere. Somewhat similar: Fruit Defendu by Terry de Gunzberg.

It opens with a resplendent rose-caramelized fir resin, sweet orange boozy, plum, oak, Christmas spices and that typical sweet incense à la Fille en auguilles. It evolves with a fresh, dusty, spicy green texture between mastic, laurel, cypress, fern. I also feel hints of earthy violets, oud, and oak moss that easily transport me deep into this moist and spiritual soil. Dark resinous but also caramelized with red fruits and berries, with a good dose of spicy sweetness but without ever being cloying. Well done, cozy, with a lot of forest, smoke and Christmas inside. I n my mind it's more of a ... Sacred Red.

This isn't as woody as I expected! The tricky thing with fir is that it looks and plays like woods and base, but it's a mostly top-to-middle note, and it has a lot of green and sparkly citrusesque nuances to it. I love it, don't get me wrong, but it's not a sawdust style wood -- in fact, without focusing specifically on the note, who could be forgiven for NOT noticing it's a wood. And that's what's happened here. There is also a sweet fruity element to this which also works, but the woods aren't as woodsy as one might have hoped. I still like this scent, but I don't feel it's as forest as I was hoping...

I wanted to love this one, reading all the reviews and notes- but alas, it did not resonate with me :( as it wafts around me today rather than a beautiful pine, I am getting a camphor scent with no other notes to round it out, the fresh spicy/aromatic seems to dominate the other sweeter notes, with the incense peeking through only adding to its medicinal nature. The slight smoke in the dry down is the most pleasant note, but not worth the dear price. I was hoping to be charmed - but! glad so many are!

Some I've spoken to describe this as Christmas in a bottle, although it's only semi-accurate. Natural Perfumery is at another level, and may not be for everyone. Sacre Noir wasn't for me, although it's very real world beautiful. I am now interested in H.O.M. summer fragrances, as this was just to try out to see if I was really interested in this house. I think my next H.O.M frag will be a sample of Bonsai, although not really sure. Thanks for reading.

Wore it for Christmas and yeah ppl thought I was a glorious Christmas tree they loved it lol midway through the night I applied lune feline over it and mixed them and the combination was amazing. I am late to lune feline and I adore it but when u mix this balsam and plum to it WOW. Great to have for moments like these

The opening of this scent is like snapping a pine tree twig off the bough...brilliantly evergreen and with a touch of sweetness from the sap. The dry down reminds me exactly of a Midnight Mass...the smoky, woody, incense captures Christmas perfectly...this scent was like extracting my memories into a bottle.

Superb, very soft, wearable conifer sap with mulling spices, and a sugerplum middle note. A warm, forested-earth comforting scent of a candlelit holiday affair.

I get no Christmas or sweetness from this. Just a dry, medicinal pine bathroom freshener.