À Bout de Souffle

I’m not sure why I purchased this. A brain *toot* perhaps... It’s not that this fragrance is necessarily horrific, though I thought that when I first smelled this. But, what was I expecting? It’s right there in the title. And yet..... Anyway, ABdS is mostly a whole lot of cloves, cloves, cloves and some light notes that sort of also exist...sort of. I found it to be mostly linear - after a while the intensity of the cloves does die down, but never really leaves. At that point you can at least smell the amber. The opening is cloves, with a mix of citrus - an off-putting combination, with a light lavender scent. This cloves dominated mixture does last for a good amount of time and is fairly strong. Eventually, as I noted, it does settle. I’m just not sure where this type of fragrance would be appropriate. At a holiday dinner with family? Well, there’s already plenty of food cooking there. Basically, I can’t really imagine anyone wanting to smell this on me. And though it did grow on me a bit, I do have to say I wouldn’t purchase this again, nor would I wear it again if someone did gift it to me. On the upside it is composed well. The notes all seem very natural, it did last long and the projection is good. The sprayer is also a really nice for what that’s worth. An indifferent sideways thumb, held perfectly parallel to the ground for rating (use your imagination).

It starts out smelling like tea, like I've just made tea and it's wafting in my face. I think it's the cloves and honey, but that tea impression is very authentic. While this opens, let me just say Jolie La. Each little bottle has a bitty rollerball! There's a succinct and helpful paper insert that labeled A Bout de Souffle as "seductive" as well as "clean and spicy." After 10 minutes though it's mostly honey though, which doesn't trigger seductive, clean, or spicy for me. I find that if you're going to spend a little more on something at the grocery store, honey and butter are two where you can really taste the difference. This particular one is not a mouth-watering, fragrant, floral or herby honey. It's from a squeeze bottle... that you might put in your tea. This is all botanical ingredients so wasn't expecting much longevity, but that's really it. The cloves were gone within a half hour, but the honey fades away more slowly. After an hour I have to put nose to skin to smell it.