Santal Supreme

I was apprehensive in getting this fragrance due to the pickle or dill accord people were picking up, but I decided to go out on a limb to try it due to the notes. On first spray, there is a blast of powdery and earthy violets and green violet leaves blended with a clean, leathery, slightly medicinal, and heady vetiver. The sandalwood is creamy, balsamic, and dry on my skin. The sandalwood is also reminiscent of high quality incense and it stays with you during the entire duration of this fragrance. The musk adds a slight sweet and soft quality to the fragrance. Something about this fragrance smells modern, but also timeless and genderless. If I could place it anywhere, it would be worn on a rainy spring night while nestled in a study reading an old book with a candle burning. It evokes the same coziness of Replica’s Whispers in the Library. As good as it smells, it can definitely be headache inducing. The scent lasted on my wrist for five hours and the projection was intimate, but I can imagine with more sprays the projection would be moderate. I could imagine this being worn on cooler spring days, fall, winter, and summer mornings.

I just sprayed this again after designating it a spring/summer scent and let me just tell you this. If you love the smell of spring, the flowers, grass and warm soil smell, this is for you. Violet in this fragrance really does bring a fresh sweetness to the deeper earthy grass smell. This fragrance transports me to days of warm summer nights next to a fire; to a breezy summer day as a kid running through sprinklers and picking wild violets. I still find the warmth of the sandalwood and a musk but truly such a beautiful scent for spring and summer though still good any time of year. Just my favorite in the sunny months for those scent memories for the notes. I 100% recommend investing in some of the Sand+Fog perfume oils to layer with. I have a Santal and Cardamom oil that I pair it with for cooler months, a Violet and Sandalwood oil for days I want to wear something more feminine, and Jasmine and Cedarwood to bring in more aquatic and ozonic notes. I will never let this one out of my collection for it's pure versatility and how much I find I wear it in the warmer months.

I've sampled 14 scents from the Le Monde Gourmand line and this is my top pick from the bunch. There's a stomach-churning sweetness to the UO scent DNA that I like sometimes, but too much of it can be headache-inducing. This one is a very one-note vetiver with no sweetness at all but I find something comforting about it being so basic. If I smelled this on someone I might find myself wondering if that's just the way they smell. It doesn't immediately register as a fragrance, but rather someone who's had their hands in wet earth, or a wool coat after being caught in the rain. Its warmth is vaguely similar to By The Fireplace or Memoires of a Trespasser but without any of the signature notes that make those scents interesting, but I definitely see an opportunity for lots of layering. I could see it being delicious with vanilla, marshmallow or cinnamon scents, tonka or balsamic/benzoin, or even a rosemary/eucalyptus for a more herbal-spa vibe. If you're into woody warm scents and are on a budget I think it's a safe and budget-friendly blind buy.

I get soft floral over a clean, dry, freshly sanded sandalwood. I think it works year-round, but I also live in a fairly dry climate and it might become oppressive in humid weather. To my nose, this dupe from LGM and the roll-on oil dupe from Musk & Hustle are exactly the same, just different modes of application. I also have a sample of Santal 33, where I always get the pickle note, however I'm not usually in the mood to "deal with" that tangy aspect in an otherwise comforting fragrance. Santal Supreme is more synthetic and has less depth that the original, but it faithfully delivers the sandalwood heart of the original, and that's all I really wanted anyway. Overall I prefer this and my other dupe over the OG, and that's without mentioning the price difference. Found the jumbo size at my local Marshalls for $20.

Back to sing my yearly praise for this fragrance. I have two bottles now, one at work that I have had for about two years now and a bottle at home that I picked up around this time last year. Both are still lovely though the older bottle definitely is somewhat stronger than the newer bottle. This fragrance is such a fresh but still complex scent to me making it a perfect choice for the hot summers and still deep enough for the spring, fall and winter. I don't get any of the pickle note that some users have reported just a sweet and somewhat spicy sandalwood. If you see this at your local TJ Maxx/Burlington I definitely recommend giving it a sniff because for the price this is a lovely addition to any collection as long as you don't get the pickle note.