La Piscine

Let me take you to the place where La Piscine brings a smiling face... 😊 Sometimes you don’t necessarily need a photograph to take you to a nostalgic place in time but a particular note that will bring it all back! La Piscine by Miguel Matos takes me back to the Summer of 1983 where once a week I would spend a day at the pool in the hotel where my father worked. I would be there as early as 6.30am and the first to roll out a towel on a sunbed. Residents weren’t allowed to enter into the pool until 8.00am and I would just sit there eating a sandwich and listening to some music. I vividly remember how the air outside would be filled with the smell of chlorine that was thrown in the pool from the previous night coming out of the pool and I just loved the smell of it! I have many fond memories of that Summer, meeting new people and making new friends with residents and in La Piscine I found my teleportation nostalgia escape to my youth, the place that fills my mind with the best 80’s soundtrack imaginable by Soft Cell, The Human League, Tears for Fears and Wham to name just a few 🎶 It’s the fragrance that reminds me of making friends in an instant with other kids and endlessly having fun in the pool until our skin would just smell of chlorine and suncream. But La Piscine isn’t just a memory fragrance nor is it just a chlorine fragrance. If you spray this in the air you will instantly get that smell you smell in the entrance of an indoor pool. But on skin La Piscine smells of wet grass with the moss note, I also smell a hint of sweetness that comes from the coconut note, but I must strongly emphasise that this is not a coconut scent, it’s just there to give a touch of sweetness. The chlorine note is strong for the first few minutes but it magically mixes with the aldehydes, jasmine, violet leaf and aquatic notes. La Piscine is a very different aquatic fragrance and it just smells absolutely stunning. Whilst many picture aquatics as something fresh and bright, this takes a different route and instead reminds us how relaxed we should take life. It’s the joy of laying in the sun after a dip in the pool with the chlorine pool water sticking on our body and the towel we just used to dry our skin. It’s the smell of the green surroundings of the pool and the sun warming your body whilst throwing a whiff of sweetness from the sun cream you just applied on your skin. La Piscine is a sensual fragrance but completely innocent at the same time. This is a fragrance unlike anything you have ever smelt and I really cannot emphasise enough how truly original and wonderful it is. Although I did blind buy this I do strongly recommend you sample it before. A very adventurous experience that’s bold and on another level. Whilst It’s not as fierce as Unutamam I still consider La Piscine to be a beast mode fragrance. I wouldn’t overspray this and 3 sprays is more than you need for a whole 12hours! I gave La Piscine a full wearing and it lasted on my skin a full day until I showered and yet i could still faintly smell it on my skin. There were moments were I thought it faded but as my body warmed up in the sun it ignited again. Outstanding longevity. The fragrance doesn’t follow IFRA rules and recommends you to test it before using. For a 50ml bottle that in my opinion has the strength of an Extrait the price at Euro95 is immensely generous. Thank you Miguel Matos for being so adventurous and for creating nostalgic moments that will be etched forever in our minds with this bold fragrance. Top Notes: Aldehydes, Aquatic Notes, Chlorine Middle Notes: Tuberose, Coconut, Geosmin, Jasmine, Violet Leaf Base Notes: Marine Notes, Cashmeran, Moss, Costus, Ambroxan

Liquid excitement. Masterpiece. Love, love, love. Challenging in the best way. The chlorine blast in the opening that some of you mentioned probably depends on skin chemistry. I do smell chlorinated water a bit later, but it's never overwhelming to the point of being unpleasant. This is actually one of the very few fragrances that has me adore sniffing its drops drying on my skin. I get mossy water, petrichor and something sunshine-bright. Delightfully fresh. I believe it's mostly the geosmin, the coconut and maybe the cashmeran keeping the whole composition positive and joyful, no matter how the other notes develop (I think I couldn't discribe that better than buzz72 and sables19). Even when I'm not in a mood to be cheered up or excited, I find this creation peaceful and gently encouraging. "This is not a parfume. It's a piece of Olfactory Art." I hear you now, Master Matos. La Piscine is incredibly sexy and so powerfully evocative! It took me on a wonderful trip down memory lane. Let me share the abridged version SFW. Hot summer day, a flooded quarry, a group of teens jumping off the highest cliff. Your crush is there, and you can tell they like you back just by the way they look at you and touch you at every opportunity. You can't quite decide what gives you a better thrill: brushing your hand against theirs, or the delicious, fleeting moment of free fall. Early morning swim. You reach a distance from the coast where you can't see the seabed anymore, and the vastness of the unknown underneath is terrifying. You take a deep breath and accept the necessity of blind trust. You swim on, and your eyes water in your goggles. Pushing through the fear somehow feels so good it makes you cry. Kayaking on a crystal clear river in the Austrian Alps. It's cold, it's raining, and you can't feel your toes, but there's finally the whitewater you've been waiting for. You'd better read her right. After the first rough spot, you can hear your own puls, you're panting like a dog and smiling like a fool. The addictive rush of windsurf planing. The perfect, perfect feeling when you aren't gliding at high speed anymore; you're flying. One wrong move and the fall would be uncontrollable. But who needs control now, when you're flying? Long story short, La Piscine smells like the adrenaline junkie that I am. New signature. (Judging by the effect it's had on me and those around me, I'd guess that one's enjoyment of the scent depends on their relationship with water. I might be wrong, though. In any case, if any of the scenarios above sound familiar and/or appealing, La Piscine may just blow you away as it did me.)

On skin creamed with sun lotion, drops of chlorinated pool water dry in the midday heat, while a hint of sweat rises from armpits and pubic hair. This fragrance smells so frighteningly erotic that it should definitely come with a warning label: Caution, not for prudish minds! Great art!

Really good, photorealistic chlorine note, with a peculiar sweetness. It’s watery, slightly aldehydic - overall smells like an old 2000s elementary school pool, or like those weird, eerie images of backroom’s pools. Super unique, not sure how wearable this is, or where you’d wear it, but it’s a nice scent to experience for the artistry of it

Finally got ahold of this thing. I must say I'm somewhat disappointed. I'm not really getting the 'Wow chlorine!' people seem to be getting. Rather, to me it just smells like a mix of cucumber, something spicy chemical, earthy damp moss and maybe mold. Like tripping face first in the forest, heading into the back of some run down pool changing room, or finding that still damp forgotten towel in your gym bag after a week. Who knows, maybe it's my skin. Maybe it's the batch. Maybe the pools are different over at yours. I'm still glad to have gotten ahold of it. But alas, my quest for the perfect pool smell continues. Oh and to let people know who wants to buy this: No it objectively doesn't smell nice. I can't see you wearing this out unless you want to commit some chemical warfare. But I also don't think that's the point of this perfume. It's simply an art piece. Edit: After showering and letting it simmer for a couple of hours it smells better, actually good but very subtle.