Or Intemporel

Love at first sniff. I must try it again. This is my favourite and the best IMO from the top line of Lalique. It reminds me christmass. Totally unisex, cozy, warm and uplifting, spicy sweet, but not overly sweet. Suitable for cool weather, fall, winter and cool spring days, day and night. This is not a new smell for me. It reminds me various warm spicy scents but nothing in particular. The only scent which is slightly close to it is Dolce&Gabbana Dolce&Gabbana Pour Homme because of the tobacco note but they are NOT similar scents. They develop differently and they smell differently. After some time it feels semi-gourmand but never turns into pure gourmand. Dominant notes are tobacco (omg beautiful), coffee, semi-sweet vanilla, tolu balsam, nutmeg. There is also mild patchouli, mild cardamom and black pepper. Violet (or something like violet, I don't get clear violet note but something floral) is faint and bergamot is very mild at the background. Overall it is very well blended, safe and easy wearable but it does not smell unique. If I couldn't see the bottle I'd say it may be a top offering from Guerlain or Dior house. Quality is obvious. A casual warm spicy scent for cold weather with noce performance. Sillage is moderate. Projection is heavy for the first minutes then it turns moderate but most of its life is soft. Longevity is long lasting. The quality of the bottle and the golden die is very average for its pruce point. It retails here for 435 usd per 100 ml. Edit There is cinnamon, rum, cherry and maybe almonds. EDIT Just to feel the vibe from this Lalique, some scents in the same team. Guerlain L’Homme Ideal Carner Barcelona Tardes Guerlain L’Homme Ideal Eau de Parfum Boucheron Jaipur Homme Bond No 9 New Haarlem The Gate Fragrances Paris Memories Lalique Or Inteporel after 4-5 hours comes close to Guerlain Ideal edt and Carner Tardes. I own the Ideal so the next days I'll do some full wearings with this Lalique to determine if it is redundant to own both of them. Moreover I'll do a test side by side with Tardes which is also very close with Or Intemporel. Update Side by side test with its similar scents Carner Barcelona Tardes Guerlain L’Homme Ideal Eau de Parfum Guerlain L’Homme Ideal And I added Frapin 1270 There's a common vibe in all of them but but they are different enough to own all or some of them. Or Intemporel somehow feels like a flanker of Tardes and Ideal. It's different smell with structural similarities. The big difference is its great longevity and its sparkling spiceness. It's full of colors, vivid, bright and cozy, warm and totally unisex. Update Today I bought it. First impressions of the presentation are very nice at least when you see it from a distance. There's a hard black glossy plastic case (like Kilian) and a hard paper box for the bottle. The quality of the materials especially from the bottle is very average though.. totally unaxceptable for its price range. The scent is neautiful so no complains here. They should improve the presentation and the bottle though..

Cardamom and black pepper make a curious pair; though both are spices, they strike the nose with a metallic chill, as if their warmth had been stripped away and replaced by the glint of steel. Through this cold, austere curtain, tobacco breaks forth, broad-shouldered and confident, softening the angles, warming the air, and lending flesh and colour to a composition already animated by the light, hovering aura of coffee and the discreet oriental shimmer of nutmeg. I perceive, scattered across this bewildering brew, a few sun-dried berries, like forgotten jewels, and even, in a fleeting mirage, a breath of shimmering silver ragwort—impossible apparition, no doubt, yet one the imagination insists upon. This gold is rhodium-plated: it lacks the familiar warmth and opulence of its yellow brother; it is withdrawn, almost distant, aristocratic and wrapped up in itself, contemplating its own reflection. In spite of its generous cargo of spices, “Or Intemporel” steps forward with a fresh, airy bearing, unencumbered by the usual heaviness or cloying embrace by which such notes so often stake their claim. Here, vanilla is held in check and brought to heel by tolu balsam; its sweetness is dressed in a rather stiff tailcoat of resin, with starched batiste at the throat, so that one feels obliged to straighten one’s back, to weigh each gesture, to choose one’s words carefully in its presence. The perfume itself would tolerate no slouching, not even in a single fleeting exhalation. This gold is timeless in truth, for it is neither so simple as to lapse into primitivism, nor so adorned as to tumble into the bourgeois excess that borders on vulgarity. It owes its superiority to nothing but itself: well-polished and consistent, with clear, flowing lines and a perfectly laconic, classical execution that refuses both rhetoric and ornament. Upon the skin, the scent warms with an elegant slowness, yet never loses its singular profile or its curious, slightly paradoxical expression. It is perfectly unisex, at ease in the strict geometry of the office as in the soft confusion of salons and soirées, adjusting itself with equal propriety to business and social encounters. “Or Intemporel” recalls the contradictory ambitions of the Third Republic, raised upon the foundations of the Second Empire: a regime whose statesmen, still largely of aristocratic blood, dreamed of democracy and liberty in words tempered by instinctive conservatism. Their ideals, lofty yet constrained, opened the doors just wide enough to admit the winds of change and, with them, the storms of popular discontent that would, for decades, remake France—patiently, violently, and beyond their control.

Finally managed an elusive visit (not exclusive!) to the pretty and lacquered Boutique in central London. This was surprisingly the only bottle from the exclusive line on display - but maybe not so surprisingly. I had just sampled the much vaunted Bullion by Byredo and absolutely laid into it with all the bitter disappointment that scent gave me in a previous review so was really fearing for my efforts on this one. A 1st nervy spray yielded - goodness! Unlike the awful Bullion, this started off just how I like them; sweet, smooth and slightly spicy. I'm not sure about coffee but it appeared to be a sweet liqueur of slightly syrupy vanilla, a touch of seasonal nutmeg and something between cocoa and treacle. Delightful! The Quality was unprecedented and the blend was pure, yet bold but not choking, or powdery. This alone makes it worth it's £200 pricing for a 100ml. Not to mention how uniquely beautiful the bottle is. 0 marks for that though; the money is in the juice. Later, I am getting hints of wood and what maybe coffee, or just more cocoa. More nice stuff basically. Rich and comforting oriental - one of the the most well-rounded and cosy you'll find out there. The scent is unbelievably safe and wearable. I was overjoyed to find indeed no trace of violets or orange or other boring 'designer-y' notes in here. No animalic oud, over-extortionate booze or other Niches nasties either, not a trace of them. Vanillic amber and definite cocoa follow in the drydown. So, it has impressed for sure, and for some it will sure be bottleworthy. Just falls short due to a lack of something that extra-special maybe. Ethereally wonderful, maybe some special woody-musk drydown to give it that rewarding backbone or base. Plus the lack of the stronger hit of coffee - this was the main real let down for me. I would have given this a straight 10 if it had at least the vibe of the punchy initial coffee note in Montale's Intense Cafe in part but sadly the coffee is a hard-sell here, it's either really good at playing invisible or just not there at all. Disappointing! They should have swapped the places of the cardamom and coffee in the note pyramid. I would have loved to see some of the awe-inspiring blonde tobacco you can find in SDV. Also, the redcurrant note from that Masterpiece is missing here, as are any hints of red fruits. It's also more upfront, even though you are getting more. If you love these after sampling and have the crazy money, get both! For now, it has to be SDV for me sadly. But on it running out, I'll have my eye on this. My rating: 8/10

I had not intended to review this fragrance because until today, I had very little reaction to it. But today, I wore it for the first time in hot, humid weather and Or Intemporel showed me a depth and smoothness I have not experienced in it before. This is a gourmand fragrance, as is detailed in the reviews before this one. But it is also a lovely sweet tobacco fragrance. And a rich spiced coffee fragrance. In the fullness of time, because I am still getting wafts of it more than 18 hours after I sprayed it on, it is an amber/vanilla fragrance. This fragrance is beautifully blended and fairly linear. In warmer temperatures, it is so rich and complex that it unfolds in wave upon wave of rich spices, coffee, tobacco and amber. These notes intertwine seamlessly at times and then at odd moments one of them will step out to show itself clearly against the mixed background of the other notes before dropping smoothly back into the melange. In the cooler weather conditions in which I have worn this scent, it has shown the elements described above, but nothing like the depth and complexity it revealed in today's humid heat. There is a very short, discordant bergamot note in the very early moments after application. It doesn't work well with the rest of the fragrance. It lowers my rating to a like. In its absence, this would have been a love. Even though the tobacco here is a masculine-identified note, this fragrance is unisex. While the projection is moderate, overspraying can choke the wearer. The warmer the environment, the more cloying the scent can get. Apply wisely. A final note about the presentation: it is extremely luxurious. The bottle is gorgeous. The box is a lacquer-like, hard sided affair. The cap is as nice as the bottle. The atomizer is also my the best and the inner box is housed in a richly printed cardboard outer package. Seeing this presentation, one is reminded that Lalique is the maker of some of the finest fragrance bottles ever produced. This fragrance is very expensive at retail, but it turns up heavily discounted from time to time at reputable outlets. Definitely worth testing for folks who enjoy gourmands, tobacco scents or both and well worth considering at discounted prices if you can locate it.

This is a gem. A hidden one. Don't get fooled by the Vanilla=gourmand association, as this is NOT a gourmand. This is an oriental, 100% the classical way, loaded with spices and,for a change, without any oud! (Tbh i am a little fed up with oud everywhere, athough I love the note).. Or Intemporel is a luxury perfume, warm, balsamic, round and cuddly like a cashmere blanket. For winter wear and to apply with a light hand, as it is potent. It screams TOLU! If you love this note, go for it. It reminds me a lot of Tolu by Ormonde Jayne (this one being fresher and more feminine), and Guerlain Tonka Imperiale. A little bit of Hermes Ambre Narguilé. You see what i mean. Besides Tolu, you can feel vanilla and cardamom, tobacco in the background no coffee at all, but incense can be sensed. The packaging is to die for: the lovely bottle is housed in a big, heavy black laquered box lined in velvet. A very luxurious gift if you will.