Paname

This fragrance makes me feel very calm and a bit melancholic. To me it more of a feminine than a truly unisex scent, as it is a bit sweet and gourmand, but it's not a girly scent oder a very seductive and sexy perfume. Maybe feminine with a slight tomboyish edge. To my nose it has a soft anise/licorice note, but also a bittersweet note that reminds me of dark chocolate. Maybe that's the mix of vanilla, spices and wood notes. Paname is something you can wear to work, as it does not have a great silage, and I think it's most suitable for fall. It feels a bit dark but also gentle and soothing.

Douce Amere twin with one major difference. This lovely baby fades away in a blink of an eye.

The opening of Keiko Mecheri PANAME seemed a bit sugary and suggested that this might be a vanilla oriental woody perfume intended for women. However, within about a minute the absinthe appears most prominently to aromaticize the composition, turning this into a somewhat less but still fairly feminine scent. I'd say that this closer to Bvlgari JASMIN NOIR than ABSOLUMENT ABSINTHE, probably because of the tonka/vanilla which makes the wormwood smell more like black licorice than the woody absinthe of the more masculine absinthe perfumes I've tried. PANAME smells delightful, but unfortunately the longevity is not that good, so for now I'll continue to reach for JASMIN NOIR for my black licorice fix. Oriental lovers with a sweetish licorice bent would surely like this creation, which is not nearly so sweet as LOLITA LEMPICKA but definitely sweeter than I've come to expect from fragrances marketed as unisex.

"Paname" is a marvelous perfume, it opens with a rich, dark yet refreshing note of wormwood and some aromatic/green notes. It was an instant love affair for me as I love everything "absinthe" related and "Paname" has the herbal, boozy quality of absinthe. It dries down to a very aromatic/sweet vanilla. This review is based on 2 hour wear as after 2 hours there is nothing left to smell. Such a pity.

KM has a perfume asthetic that doesn't corrospond with mine. Her fumes are far too sweet, too musky and too girly-polite to me. It's like the faiding memory of a fairy dream. I thought an "Aromatic Spicy" might be edgy enaugh to fit my bill, esp. with the accord description of "aromatic, bitter, woody, green, vanilla", but unfortunately even Paname is much much much too sweet, unedgy and uninteresting, with an absolute overdose of musk and tonka, which I cannot stand. The licorice does remind me of Lolita Lempicka, too, but I have to say, that LL is the better perfume. You'd get more spices and a better longevity for less money. My problem sometimes is, that I find the noses so very sympathetic, that it hurts me, that I cannot stand their creations; I have the same thing with Andy Tauer.

Pale yellow musk why praise a perfume by making people believe that they will have a marvel of absinthe when it will only be the top notes quickly decapitated. Same as all the others from this brand, the name of the perfume is what you will smell the first 30min (and it's good), then it's a collapse in insipid foggy musk with tiny yellow vanilla. So let be honest, it's just an insipide light vanilla musk. PS: there is some trolls who always put votes for the category enormous in sillage and eternal in longevity for all the Keiko Mecheri perfumes . Really not helpfull...it's the opposit of her well know style.

Looking at the notes, this sounded bold and brooding, but I forgot to factor in KM's heavy censorship of sillage, which instead makes this composition rather mysterious at best. The green top notes are detectable only for the split second when you first open the bottle (or maybe I imagined them!). On my skin, the dark and oh-so-smooth "absinthe" note immediately dominates - which, in this case, translates into a bittersweet combination of anise and licorice, unlike the hoard of absinthe-wannabes out there that smell like herbal tea. (Yes, I'm thinking of you too, Absolument Absinthe!) After that seductive but restrained burst of darkness, which demands only the best whiskey and a cigar, but not necessarily a man to enjoy them, I cannot help but feel let down by what follows. For one, there is barely anything left to smell after an hour or so. And what remains stabs the dark opening in the back and sweetens considerably, with the woods, which you'd expect to provide the backbone of this fragrance, crumbling into nothingness. The precise composition of what's left is hard to untangle - a combination of the scent's short leash but also (let's give credit to KM!) of it being well-blended - but the overall impression is of high quality spiced brown sugar. Not enough for my cup of tea, but that won't stop me from enjoying the hour of darkness in the few drops I have left.

On me the opening of Paname is powerful, intense, bittersweet and almost sharp, but with an air of easy luxury, that Keiko Mecheri's creations seem to often possess. It softens virtually immediately into effortless, kindly, earthy sweetness, watery vanilla (could it be? :-)), woody/green, a tiny bit aromatic notes and almost soapy cleanliness... I have applied this sample before reading the notes and reviews and trying to figure out what is this scent made of, I could not pick any particular note, but something in this potion almost touched my heart :-), a distant memory perhaps...but I still can't point out what it is... Something in this makes me feel nostalgic and child-like happy... The sweetness in Paname is raw, rooty, almost organic and gentle and reminds me quite a bit of Sugarwood by Costamor. On me it is truly feminine and yet - there is this deliciously sweet masculine hint, I can't quite explain it, as I don't generally find "masculine notes" sweet in other fragrances, but this is how I feel with this one. Wearing this on a pleasant sunny morning, I was thinking that this must be very weather-versatile :-). Sort of mood brightening on any occasion I would say. Lovely fragrance, but doesn't last on me!

This jewel was quite a surprise. Got a big sample from a friend, and after looking at the notes listed I was not sure if I even wanted to try it out. Well I did. And what a nice surprise! I was expecting something harsh maybe, but boy was I wrong. It opened with no green notes at all to me. It went right through to the tonakbeans, vanilla, woodsy notes and spices. My first thought was chocolate, but since chocolate not is listed as a note, I guess it is the vanilla-tonkabean I detect as chocolate. The drydown on me is soapy warm with a hint of liquorice as well a a very soft musc. A luxurious sweet scent. Not much unisex. I think this is a very feminine scent, but I like feminine scents on my man - so why not:) Sillage is moderate and longevity is less than moderate on my skin. Would like to get a decant of this, don't think I will reach for it so often that I would need a whole bottle. Or I might.

Wow! This is a great example of a successful softening of harsh notes, especially the absinthe. I've got a bunch of licorice, anise, and absinthe scents but this is the smoothest. To me, this is what niche should be focused on, rather than the stupid iso e super overload nightmares they toss out there, calling it Bois de whatever. Don't tell me it's going to conjure up images of a specific desert landscape or a Victorian drawing room, just be creative and don't make it smell like a chemical factory! And the longevity is excellent on this one, though it's not super strong, projection-wise. Now if you already have a powerful anise/licorice/absinthe scent that you enjoy and don't want something weaker, then sure, don't blind buy this one. Otherwise, I'd rank it very highly on my list of niche scents I've at least sampled.