Café Chantant Exceptional Edition

#864 in my "Tour de Fragrance" Got this decant from FragrancesLine. For me, this is an improvement over the EDP. I haven't been a big fan of any cherry scent...until now. Here it is really nice. More cherry pie than cherries off the tree. The iris and anise are more prominent, always a plus for me, and overall this is a warmer scent with better sillage, at least initially, though neither scent is long lasting. You'd definitely respray midday. If you car pool, wait till you get there to put this on. It's not offensive, but at first it definitely fills the room. However, for me, this scent is all party and no business. Very playful and fun. I don't know that it will draw a lot of comment. I think anyone around you will just think you smell huggable and won't attribute it to the fragrance. To me, that's a successful scent. Strikes me as dead center unisex. I can certainly wear it confidently, but I'd love to smell this on a woman as well. Even though the performance is not what I usually demand in a fragrance, this will probably be another Nobile 1942 bottle buy for me.

Very powdery with beautiful sillage. I can detect each of the notes listed above, but they all come together to create a sumptuous scent. A very successful blind buy! Longevity is great...I'm still smelling this from arm's length 6 hours after applying and it's quite strong.

Being a fan of Café Chantant, I decided I should splash out and buy the Exceptional Edition. I was hoping it would be a deeper, longer lasting version. Deeper, yes. The baked cherry effect is more prevalent. But it isn't longer lasting at all. In fact, quite the contrary. It doesn't last anywhere near as long as the original Café Chantant. So I find myself having to use more of it just to get it to last a bit. And it doesn't have all the wonderful nuances of the original, either. How disappointing! Now don't get me wrong, it's certainly not something to throw out. It is still lovely. But at twice the price, I had expected much, much more. Perhaps it will have a better effect in cold weather, and if so, I shall come back and edit my review. But for now (August, during a heat wave), it's just not what I had expected. UPDATE: Now a few months later, I can confirm that the Exceptional Edition seems to be more suited to cold weather. But I would honestly recommend the regular, less expensive Café Chantant for anyone interested in this wonderful fragrance. As I said above, the Exceptional Edition is still wonderful, but I just don't think it delivers as it should for the price.

I own the Café Chantant edp and the Exceptional Edition as well. Basically I prefer the edp but the Exceptional Edition is also very nice. The differences between the two: The Exceptional is in general more aromatic and earthy. The (baked) cherry note and the laurels is stronger, the anise as is just a bit more stronger here and it's less sweet. The iris is obvious here and gives an additional earthy feeling to the composition. The lasting power and sillage is the same. I think the og edp is a bit more playful. I agree that the Exceptional Edition is great for cold weather, late autumn - winter time. The og edp is (to me) for Autumn - Winter - Spring. I think this one is more a unisex fragrance than the og edp.