Ballets Rouges

Ballet Rouge is a beautiful rosy chypre in the classic style. Thank you to Ellen Covey for providing a sample! The fragrance it most recalls for me is one that I love but found I actually couldn't wear: Ungaro Diva. Thankfully, the two are not identical and whatever was "too much" about Diva is not a concern for Ballet Rouge. Ballet Rouge is smooth, sensual curves ensheathed in a little red dress, walking on stiletto heels. Yes, it's sexy. Yes, it's a grown-up fragrance for adults, but so far away from "old lady." You must love roses to enjoy this fragrance, but I would argue you must also love potent musks equally to fully appreciate it. There is no sweetness here, but the beautiful interplay of rose, musk and moss goes on and on for hours. This is exactly the kind of mature, complex fragrance I love and find so few good examples of anymore. I'm so excited, too, that it's a new artisan fragrance and not some pricey vintage I'll have to chase on ebay. Bravo, Ellen and Olympic Orchids, for giving us a stellar example of a chypre that will delight both appreciators of classics and modern niche perfumes!

I am an avid fan of rose fragrances but I have to admit the feminine classification and the aldehydes in the note pyramid gave me a wrong impression and I would have missed out on Ballets Rouges completely if my friend had not thrown in a free sample of this along with my order of Golden Cattleya, Dev 4 and Cafe V. Boy am I lucky!! This is a Rose chypre for the ages. Aldehydic Rose, citrus notes from the bergamot and mandarin and green notes from the oakmoss and patchouli balanced in perfect harmony with some musk in the base.Slightly on the feminine side of unisex but any Man who likes rose notes should check it out and can totally pull it off. I get the Ballroom comment that Teenlove mentions below, this would be Catherine Zeta Jones in the ballroom in Zorro totally, that scene with the red rose in her hair,something gorgeous and timeless about it. Ellen Covey keeps knocking them out of the park one after the other. I am enjoying the heck out of Ballets Rouges.

Ballet rouges is an amazing cchypre and aldehidic floral perfume. The main note for me is the rose with the Moss, making a Green floral scent which brights with the aldehides geting a bit his typical soapy vibe. It is a bit spicy for me as Well, with something plastic in the base. The musk gives to the fragance a very good longevity. The sillage is good also on my skin. It projects quité good and i can feel It on myself most of the time. I think the perfume is unisex because It goes on the línea more or less of perfumes like eau du soir by sisley, superstitious by Frederic Malle or noir de noir by Tom Ford. I dont know if i would wear this smell confortable because this is not really mu cup of tea, but i must say that the quality and the performance is very good, as in the other olympic orchids perfumes i have tried. Inthink is perfect for daytime use un summer ir spring. Scent: 7 Longevity: 8 Sillage: 8.5 Quality/price: 7 Versatility: 8 Originality: 9 Global: 8

Ballets Rouges opens with a lovely, full-bodied, liquored red rose with a touch of dry green bergamot and a subtle mossy backdrop. Minute by minute, the rose only gets bigger and deeper, while still retaining that slightly sharp green ambiance. This is a classic “mossy rose chypre”, a genre that became popular in the late 1970s through 80s. Ruby-red, jammy roses full of damascones, set against earthy oakmoss, combine to produce a femme fatale sensibility. Ballets Rouges is a perfectly canonical mossy rose chypre, exactly as it should be: mostly red rose with a hint of thorn. In fact it’s somehow “more canonical” than any of its vintage inspirations which always seem a little off-center to me – Coriandre is more green herbs than rose, Knowing has more complex floral stuff going on, etc. Ballets Rouges is a winner. Dramatic, glowing, satisfying.

I'm working my way through the Olympic Orchids catalog and this one is a huge surprise to me. It was an afterthought--I needed to pick a tenth sample for my sample pack, and thought, eh, what the heck. This is such a gorgeous perfume. It's a rich, sweet, yummy rose with enough earthy notes to ground it so it doesn't smell like a confection. I'll concede that the longevity is not great, especially compared to some of Ellen Covey's other perfumes. I get a strong Tom Ford Noir de Noir vibe from this, which is high praise coming from me--NdN is one of my top 5 all time favorite perfumes. Seattle Chocolate & Sakura are also both absolutely stunning.

Wow! A powerful, earthy, rose set in a chypre structure. It honestly reminds me of Serge Lutens Rose de Nuit...so much, in fact, that I'm surprised that it's not in the "smells like" recommendations on this page. Thick, jammy, roses with a petal-like nuance dominate. There is definitely brown, earthy patchouli, and it's set against a lovely sticky backdrop of labdanum, moss, and musk. Old world sensibility for sure, and just beautiful.

This is a gorgeous example of an ideal rose-chypre. Very well balanced. Neither the rose not the oakmoss overwhelm the other. The thyme plays down the florals just enough but it's not overly herbal at all. The citrus is just right. Sillage is excellent and longevity is outstanding. Definitely full bottle worthy. A must-have for anyone looking for an excellent rose-chypre.

The rose in this is beautiful and real but the other notes I can detect only add up to a kind of alcohol tincture smell (natural medicine your neighbor makes in dark glass bottles) that does not change on me. I like it, and somehow keep liking it, even though it feels more accidental in the way it wears on me.

177) Parfaitement nommé Sur ma peau c'est plus un chypré qu'une rose. L'ouverture est fusante, très verte, très citronnée (très N°5) et avec exclusivement de l'Ylang-Ylang. Le passage vers le coeur se fait élégamment comme un pas de dance, les notes citronnées se transforment en mousse et l'Ylang en Rose, un changement aussi naturelle et fascinant qu'un caméléon se déplacant dans un bouquet de fleur. Etrangement le ballet rouge se termine en fond sur une note blanche (rose pâle) de labdanum ciste et de musc. C'est au final un chypré rose digne des grands classiques français. Mon commentaire est surtout technique parce que je ne suis pas amateur du genre, mais ce parfum est une tuerie. Il coute la moitié du prix de Rose Chypré de Tauer et (désolé pour lui mais) est plus réussi. Unisexe et tenue moyenne. On my skin it's more a chypré than a rose . The opening is fusing, very green, very lemony (very No.5) and exclusively Ylang-Ylang. Elegantly the passage to the heart is like a step dance, the citrus notes are transformed into oakmoss and Ylang in rose, a change as natural and fascinating as a chameleon moving in a bouquet of flowers. Strangely this red ballet ends in background with a white (pale pink) note of cistus labdanum and musk. This is ultimately a chypré/rose which is worthy of great French classics. My comment is mostly technical because I'm not a fan of the genre, but this perfume is a killer. It costs half the price of Tauer Rose Chypre and (sorry for him but) it is more successful. Unisex and average longevity.

@coffeefifofum, below: "The first whiff reminds you that you didn't get this at the mall; this is scent done differently. It's an experience in a way that it makes you sound like a bit of a pretentious douche to discuss, but tbh I reach for my Olympic Orichids samples on days when I just can't stand anymore Iso E, ambroxan, or candy." YES. Exactly how I feel about this house. Onto the scent. This is tradition with the perfumer's twist. This scent would probably be considered one of the most wearable of the line. Ballets Rouges is a scent that feels like it is in black and white. The rose here is neither effusive nor flat, nuanced without being pushy. I am not terribly interested in it because this is not the kind of profile I like to wear but it is clearly executed well.

The first whiff reminds you that you didn't get this at the mall; this is scent done differently. It's an experience in a way that it makes you sound like a bit of a pretentious douche to discuss, but tbh I reach for my Olympic Orichids samples on days when I just can't stand anymore Iso E, ambroxan, or candy. Bursts of photorealistic old fashioned rose and soft expensive soap tempered by oakmoss and thyme. (The soap works though - think of all the fade to powder scents but this is fade to soap.) Musk and patchouli might be there as fixatives but they aren't prominent. Soft focus historic, meaning someone might have hand compounded this and sold it at the village market at any point in the past, not at all old fashioned as is used on Fragrantica's boards.

Reminiscing of leaning my nose into the rose garden. Deep, realistic rose. Oak moss makes the rose greener like a whole flower, more than just petals. The aldehydes are prominent, and their soapiness cleans up the musk and patchouli nicely. The thyme is mild. Moderate sillage and above average longevity for me. Ballets Rouges would fit in on a cool summer day and stand out on a warm winter night. It's romantic yet down to earth.

i echo the other reviews saying this definitely has a vintage feel. i get an aldehydic rose with oakmoss and citrus. if i smell it too closely, it's a little too much, but wafting from my arm, it is very pretty, a gorgeous rose. overall though, my skin just amps the citrus and aldehydes to 11 and it's making it a bit sour on my skin unfortunately. after several hours it dries down to a lovely musky rose.

Reminds me of POAL with the rose and spicy patch. Has a really funky patch in the drydown which may be offputting to some. I really like this but I wouldn't wear this out because it would definitely attract attention, not all of it favorable. A true niche fragrance: it will not appeal to everybody, but it smells good and is undoubtedly 'perfumey'.

A really elegant airy (on account of the aldehydes) clean floral and slightly orange citrus scent. If you told me this was made by MFK I wouldn't have argued. Also reminds me a bit of the style in Al Kimya from Royal Crown. A bit too feminine for me to move from sample to bottle but I appreciate the quality here, it's very well made.

A ripe, smokey floral. Becomes mossy after a beat. Reminds me a bouquet of old-fashioned roses and herbaceous greens that've been sitting in the same water for few days. I do get why one might call this medicinal, there's some hard white alcohol there. One of the more wearable scents from this house.

This is very light on me, but it is a nice musky rose fragrance. Sophisticated and sexy. I've been looking for a new rose scent and this is very nice, but it's kind of unremarkable. I think I'll keep looking.

This is not a typical floral chypre, don't be mislead by the title. It is some kind of floral oil extract cocktail, powerful but strange, I had to spray something over to soften the smell. Not for me.

Photo-realistic (Aroma-realistic?) rose petals and a natural oil. Obviously rose here is at the forefront. Because Olympic Orchids use more natural ingredients you can really smell the oils and a bit of the plant-matter that were extracted from the rose. What strikes is me how the ylang-ylang, oak moss and aldehydes somehow manage to create that airy fiber-like "white" scent you tend to find in petals of any flower. Together these give the same sensation of what it's like to pick off rose petals in person and smell them. There is a feint spicy kick from the thyme, a "body odor" musk and some soapiness. This dries down into some plain boring hair product. I enjoy how this captures the experience of what it's like to smell a rose flower but I don't think anyone should wear this and I hate saying that. This smells way too old!! The first time I smelled this I IMMEDIATELY thought of my grandmother. You really do feel like an old person when you wear this and the scent itself doesn't compare with what's available today on the market. Pass.

I'm going through the current Spring 2015 sample set, which contains: Sakura Tropic of Capricorn Spring Fling Osafume PLP Love a smaller sample of the original Tropic of Capricorn, and this, Ballets Rouges. Ballets Rouges is rose rose soapy rose on me, and I don't like rose at all. The initial 15 minutes or so were a real struggle, I wanted to scrub it off, but I waited. I'm sorry to say that while it does get less sickening (for those of us whom rose sickens), it doesn't improve enough for me. For the record, I didn't like Osafume either, but I adore the others, esp. the two ToC scents. My dislike for Ballets Rouges and Osafume is not because they're bad scents, they're just bad for ME. I'm certain that others will like both. I sprayed Donna Karan's Essence of Labdanum over it after a half hour or so to tone down that intense rose. It helped. On to the Devil collection - I saved what I think will be best (for me) for last.