Civet Cat Chypre

Love it ! I'm very much a manly man but this has me thinking of Michael Palin singing the Lumberjack song. Blended to perfection. Beautiful, ever so slightly powdery with balanced, sweet, rich, dense, temperate and sub-tropical florals....perfect ratios/blending without any single note being overly concentrated or in totality of notes. The civet is there but veiled, not pissy or overbearing in any way. A chypre, yes, but there is a certain richness, density that takes you from the aldehydic feeling of green California hills and cool air of a blue skied Spring day to a warmer, slightly humid scene of a sub-tropical landscape with blue skies dotted with white clouds where butterflies and hummingbirds are sipping nectar from large, colorful, waxy leafed/petaled flowers.

When civet features so prominently in the name, you assume you're going to get hit with an animalic bomb. But that is far from being the case here. This is just a superbly blended work of art. An infinitely wearable work of art. The civet is there, but always in moderation against a gorgeous melange of florals and woods. Very slightly powdery touch from the orris, but not overly powdery, thankfully. Performance is outstanding with excellent projection, sillage, and longevity. Can't recommend highly enough. I own two creations from this house, The Canadian Gentleman being the other. Both are straight up stunners. I can't wait to sample more of what Matthew Meleg has dreamed up. Civet Cat Chypre Five Scale Rating: ⨷⨷⨷⨷

The opening of this may turn people off. I get a heavy dose of civet and bergamot and comes across as fecal/pissy for the first 15 seconds. When I say that, I don't mean in a negative disgusting way if that makes sense. Similar to a Jicky/Shalimar. The top note doesn't last long and after about 15 seconds you get a touch of indolic notes possibly of the jasmine. After 20 minutes you're smelling a blend of florals that mix with the civet and sandalwood that linger on for a good long while until finally settling with oakmoss in the background. It is a sensual warm, humid body smell that is very elegant. I feel like this entire fragrance is only one accord in both Matthew's Oakmoss & Forest Florals and Madeline Peach.

I am writing the same general review for my favorite Meleg perfumes - Civet Cat Chypre, Birch Tar and Russian Leather, Honey and Deer Musk, Madeline Peach, Oakmoss Forest Florals, and Mushin. I am very particular about perfume, and it is not often that I find something I really love. I expected to really like 1 out of the 10 samples of the sample set I received from Etsy, but there were 6! They are very special - unique, smooth, well blended, interesting, wearable, beautiful, and addictive! Nothing weird or harsh standing out, and nothing like I’ve smelled before out of the over 1000 perfumes I’ve encountered just in the last few years.

Meleg is a genius! Civet Cat Chypre is well blended, very modern but with classic ingredients. The oakmoss is not harsh and the civet is not "pissy." The main complaint I've read about Kouros or other musk heavy fragrances is the infamous "urinal cake" scent. But the musk feels pretty in Civet Cat Chypre. A work of art! The only weakness could be its high price. But given the small batches, the quality, and the artisan nature, it has to be expensive. You get what you pay for! You will never understand it by reading reviews. May be a safe blind buy if you love chypres. I recommend you buy Meleg's samples first. Support his work!

I get a brief unpleasant barbershop hit during the open (there’s definitely some aldehyde action working there too; which I don’t enjoy) but it’s over in less than a minute. Then the top notes melt into a kind of basic animalic musk with a strong, but lovely slightly pissy civet. Lovely but nothing I don’t already have~ However, after about 30 minutes the floral elements warm up and the magic begins~ It’s soft, luxurious and mildly sweet. If MKK and Fate had a baby this would be smelling it’s precious little head <3

Ok so the opening is VERY animalic and is the tiniest bit fecal. But a couple minutes in- this fragrance becomes straight up INTOXICATING. It’s so wild and exciting and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough if you like civet as a note. Do NOT blind buy. This is absolutely a divisive fragrance but it’s a huge favorite of mine. Sprayed on my arms- it fades after about 5-6 hours. On my chest where it isn’t exposed to the elements? It lasts until I wash it off. Obsessed with this one.

Powerful opening of civet and musk. The mid and dry down are a thing are a pure joy. Lasts all day, and projection is fine, but becomes a skin scent after a couple of hours. This is about elegance and class; it's not a screamer. Short of time travel this is as close as your going to get to the Golden Age of perfumery.

Honestly as much as I try to ignore it the dry down of this reminds me of Bergamask. There's definitely some sort of scratchy, synthetic musk in here alongside whatever lauded naturals may be there. It's not bad but I wasn't expecting it to resemble one of the most synthetic, screechy perfumes I've ever smelled.

Crisp, regal, opulent. This is the scent that Indian Kings would wear. Divine and fresh, this will turn heads. Lasts alright and is close to me, so that's a plus. If you wear this, you also gotta wear gold and silk!

Fresh effervescence opening with loads of addictive civet. Lovely drydown that lasts all day on skin. This scent is sexy and addictive - I love it!

Civet Cat Chypre is very much what it says on the bottle - a beautifully classical floral Chypre scent with a good dose of civet. Whilst utilising very traditional ideas and classical connotations, I feel this fragrance is actually rather modern in its execution. The bright, citric elements of bergamot with aromatics of lavender and sage are far more prominent than I was expecting. From here a buttery heart of ylang and orris has its creamy, powdery facets elevated by touches of oakmoss, sandalwood and carrot seed. Whilst the perfumer claims real civet paste is used here, it certainly doesn’t smell like it unfortunately. That’s not to say it’s not present, but it’s not as animalic as I would have liked it to be. Overall the sweet musky aspect of this fragrance is actually very tame and easy to wear. That’s why I consider this a modern perfume, it takes all the classical elements of Chypre and reimagines it into something easily wearable in the 21st century. It’s a lovely scent, but not full bottle worthy for me.

Interesting, and not what I was expecting. It's sweet, floral, and as fresh as talc on a late-spring breeze, but also warm like the belly of a purring cat. I also get a subtlety vegetal/mineral undertone—not an animal dirtiness, but an earthy pang of garden detritus beneath the almost formal elegance of its clean, opulent florals. Civet Cat's cool, powdery freshness derives mainly from the topnotes, while the basenotes bring an animalic warmth that's like soft, vanillic leather. However, the sun-warmed spiciness of carrot seed, and the cool, earthy minerality of orris and oakmoss keep the composition's cool and warm elements inextricably mingled. It's a potent and engaging composition that defies classification and keeps me coming back for another sniff. It has the lively complexity of a well-catered backyard picnic: crosstalk, clinking utensils, the burble of a nearby fountain, the occasional scrape of a chair.

A green and slighlty floral fragrance with a bit of an animalic tone at first, doesn't get "pissy" exactly but it is animalic towards that feel in the opening. The lavender starts to comes in more and more and is very nicely blended. It gives me a bit of a scent memory towards Guerlain Jicky, but this is richer than the modern versions of that. Drydown goes a powdery creamy lavender. Chypre in the name but it has a chypre-fougere mix feel I'd say. Unisex imho. Tempted on a bottle of this one but I do have a few that are similar style already (such as Jicky and Esquel).

I bought the sample set and wore Civet Cat Chypre today. The quality is outstanding. I could smell the musk in the dry down all day long. It's important to note Mr Meleg uses natural animal products in his perfumes. He assured me the civet musk does not result from the death of the animal. In other perfumes he uses musk harvested from beavers killed for their pelts. He's very forthcoming and happy to answer questions.

This is probably the only one that I don't like! The orris butter is pulling so much weight in here to support everything else in this blend. The civet is very animalic, straight up fecal. I do get a bit of the chypre influence but then boom that civet just comes in and then orris butter is trying to catch it or something. The sillage does have the civet note but when you smell your wrist, you sorta get the rest of the base but then civet comes back. I was trying to get the labdanum but it's not prominent to me , it might be taken by another note. If you can handle the animalic notes from this, power to you!

I get a lot of lavender out of this fragrance off the bat. I'll be honest, this one is a bit too animalic for my tastes. Civet, oakmoss and lavender just really do not mesh well for me. There is an initial floral sweetness that gets washed out by the sour animalic scent rather quickly. I will say this seems quite unisex though, nothing that pushes it too feminine or masculine to my nose. I'm just not a fan of the composition in general. Smells like a litterbox after the topnotes fade out and the heart notes begin to lose power.

I tried this multiple times to see if anything would change, but the result was always the same: cat piss that lingers far too long to be enjoy any of the other notes. It was all there in the name, so I don't know what else I should have expected.

A possum scampers through the office ceiling crawl-space, a panel-tile gets knocked askance, this startles the critter & it urinates. You take a paper towel & some pink alcohol-based hand-sanitizer & clean it off the floor. This has happened more than once at my workplace & this is the opening spray of CCC. Am I scaring any of the youngins' here? 'Cause kids, this is how some PROPER frags behave! With the absence of warmth; that fresh piss would naturally have, the 1st spry on the back of my hand felt COLD, WET & RUNNY. It smelt absolutely PISSY.....but then....in a about 20 seconds; the magic began. This opens up 3 dimensionally, the yellow florals & dry woods kick in & the initial pissy civet burst morphs this cocktail into a plush, velvety, velour. You don't 'apply' this fragrance....you WEAR it. You put it on like a piece of clothing. You will "somehow" remember "someone" "somewhere" at "sometime" smelling similar to this.....but you'll never pin down the details? This is a powerful memory jolter, lots & lots of subliminal triggers are pulled, but they're vague. You won't & shouldn't have to understand or remember them exactly. It's all about the vibes. And this juice is VIBE CENTRAL ! There's a ramped up intimacy here, the presence of another, but I don't get an erotic vibe. Some might, but I'd need leather, heavier wood, amber & smokiness added to the mix & maybe some sharper florals. Plenty of other frags do that for me well, but this is the comfort of a trusted friend. There's the absolute presence of warm human skin, but it's strictly platonic. It's dinner parties where on this occasion, you've happily spent heaps on the wine. It's wearing a favorite jumper, or leather jacket, with taupe trousers & dark brown RM Williams Boots. I gets lots of beige & autumnal colors. I get campfires & outdoorsiness as much as being indoors & listening to LPs on a turntable. There's no LED bulbs in this lounge; strictly incandescents & they're all on dimmers. None of the blokes here are wearing rubber-soled"dress shoes". ...its all leather. There's smokers in the company & they're not banished outside. There's Vok Liqueurs in the older large bottles, vaguely shaped like upside-down maps of Texas with a picture of the essence on the front. It's full fat, salt & sugar; carbs galore. I can't expand on the notes any better than others herein do so masterfully; other than to reiterate on the skilful blending & balance Meleg employs. But this is how a perfume can perform, it's sequential, nuanced & chronological. This is not modern. It's not politcially correct. It's not dated, but timeless (yeah I know that sounds cliched but there's no other way of saying it) Ardent frag-heads will maniacally giggle like Lemonbuns says below (as did this frag head too) New comers will find it the compulsory learning curve on which they must swing.

After all these positive comments and almost hype, I broke down and ordered a sample. Meleg wasn't quite on my radar, but I had to do what I had to do. CCC opens with the smell of Diaghilev's drydown, oakmoss, herbs, civet etc. Very nostalgic and pleasant. I don't see a reason to really go into notes, as symphony is what matters here. This phase unfortunately doesn't last long and within 15 mins or so goes into drydown where main player is ambrette. Yes, it is similar to MKK and Musc Tonkin and Kiehl's original musk, but its touch is lighter. At about 45 min mark there is lavender and some creamy sweetness raise their heads, but they disappear within 15 mins, leaving ambrette chypre on one's skin. It is unisex, nice and smooth, without weird notes or edges. Nothing pissy about it, and it'll last good amount of time. Overall nice, not overly unique, but a very safe choice of a classic style frag that won't be weird to wear nowadays

This is a plush and opulent Chypre. Think fur coats, silk stockings and a crowded thirties era club. It’s incredibly smooth and well blended, almost like the civet is encasing all the other notes in a velvety bubble. It’s so cohesive it might work well layered under something that needs something smooth and rich to anchor it. Beautiful work. I’ve got the sample set from this house and so far I have been blown away by both the quality of the materials and the exquisite blending. The fragrances are very wearable and beautiful and the generous use of rare animalics, precious woods and IFRA banned muscs make this line a “must try” among indie perfumeries but also a monument to all that has been lost in modern perfumery.

I am taken back to the scent of the time I was a wee tween and my boyfee and I found a brick of white substance in an abandoned house that we thought was colala and snorted like the cool ganstas in the movies we watched. Jump ahead a decade later and I figured out it was not in fact colala but probably some homeless mans bag of crushed mothball concoction when I recognised the scent when needing to buy mothballs as an adult. This smells exactly like that and the cat piss soaked abandoned house and mattress. I remember not being able to get the smell out of my nose for a week, amazing I am alive really. Explains the brain fog that I have now that I think about it.

It appears that this scent was reworked by Meleg. I own a sample I bought from scentsplit two years ago and it’s very different from the new one I had with the discovery kit recently. The new one’s definitely chypre all the way through and smells overall more skillfully blended. You can tell Meleg has improved his skill between these two formulas. However, my love for this scent isn’t the chypre aspect, but rather the animalic/floral base which almost leans oriental. This unfortunately is not in the newer formula. I don’t see anyone mentioned that, so I was wondering if there are people out there like me. They’re almost two different scents in many aspects.

Matthew is a true artist in our time. His creations give a nod to the classics and reflect his own creativity. This fragrance is like nothing I’ve smelled to date and will not smell like anything that’s being produced today. Forget about the individual notes. The quality of the ingredients is unreal, and the roundness and smoothness is beautiful. Matthew proves that there is no substitute for the real thing. Don’t believe those who say that this is not a blind buy. If you like classic Chypres, buy it! You’ll love it!

It is true that there is an "old" feel to the initial spraying of this but for me this adds to the story of this one. For me it is like being able to travel through time, with one fragrance, from early days of perfume to a modern unisex world where your choices of scent supposedly tells the world who you are. So, according to this then one can say I am a bit pissy but give me a chance and I am a beautiful creation waiting to be explored and appreciated.

I’m not really into chypres but I bought a sample of it anyway because it had real civet and I’m a musk/animalics junky. I was not wrong, it opens not my cup of tea, but the very final drydown is a dream. Musky, animalic, with a hint of sweet, floral goodness that I can’t get enough of. I wish Meleg would make a scent made of only that base alone. It would work as a perfect layering medium with oriental scents.

I blind bought this a couple years ago. I was expecting something like an animalic chypre, but I get something very similar to Chanel no5. I’m not a fan of Chanel no5 on me, though I like it on others. This is a bit better in my opinion, but still not my taste. When will I ever learn the lesson...do not blind buy??? Lol