Fete

Fête EDT is the chypre you never knew you needed in life if you're a diehard chypre lover. If Mitsouko makes your heart skip a beat, if Femme puts a tiger in your tank, if Cabochard puts a bee in your bonnet, Fete will be like butter to your nose. Plum butter that is, or perhaps a smoky prune and peach compote, lifted with a scintillating bergamot (still fresh as ever in this bottle), a sparkling verdancy. This is soon drawn in and shaded with a sensuous, aromatic caraway and Cellier- and Chant-esque leather as the top notes transition into its heart. As Barbara Herman points out in her Scent and Subversion, this is noteworthy for its time in that it is both fruity and animalic. This is something we wouldn't see explored to such an extent until the likes of L'Artisan Al Oudh and Parfum d'Empire Aziyade, and perhaps hinted at through the highly-coveted and powerful Loewe Gala and later-formulation Femme itself. This juxtaposition yields a stimulating umami quality to Fête, almost making my mouth water. It warms further into a bitter mossy + vanillic ambery ecstasy. This one will be filed under "thrill ride" fragrances.

Hippie's blend. A straightforward oakmoss, plum, and civet. A blend of a beauty animalic! perfection in a bottle indeed. It has that plummy oakmoss that made it smell like a tangy bitter yet sweet leather. It gives a tiny fizzy effect that makes it smell saffronic (saffron) somehow with bits of cognac cocktail fizz. It's a brilliant beauty that describes the 60s hippie era. Beautiful.

This is the first parfum extrait I've ever bought. Amazing! Mitsouko fan here, and this smells the way I like my aromas to smell. Now I know what civet is... or was. Women use it all day. Men wear it at night...

Parfum version. Caraway, plum, civet and oakmoss are the prominent notes here. At first this is quite nice but as I'm not a fan of heavy civet and it is in this, the dry down is not as much to my taste. Still a like, as it's interesting.

Getting a ton of smoke, like in lit cigarette smoke in this. Some notes similar with Rochas Femme, but where Femme goes warm, cozy and inviting, this goes cold, harsh and arrogant.