Nisean

Parfums De Marly Nisean EDP opens with a moderate to a strong projection of sweet, balsamic, spicy, and green notes. The opening is delectable, mature, elegant, dense, and special. The saffron, olibanum, labdanum, woods, and patchouli the prominent opening notes. The saffron is a bittersweet, earthy, and spice note, closely followed by the olibanum which creates a noticeable sweet, honey-like, fresh, incense, resinous, woody, and spicy accord. The precious woods note in this fragrance is a generic, deep, refined, dry, woody note. The labdanum adds an ambery, resinous, and dense accord, it presents itself as sweet, fruity, and slightly musky. The patchouli is the last of the opening's most prominent notes, an earthy, musky, herbaceous, green, and mossy note. One step behind are the pink pepper, flowers, cedar, and amber, they add a mildly spicy, floral, woody, and sweet dry resinous touch. The fragrance has a noticeable opening to dry down change, the opening is intense, the labdanum comes across a very sweet, the lime and grapefruit have a brief, sharp and intense participation, however, and towards the dry down, the previous woods and amber further develop creating a resinous accord that cuts down that initial intensity, they climb and position themselves as the featured notes. The initial projection takes a small step down to moderate. Once Parfums De Marly Nisean EDP has reached its full dry down, it can be summarized as a moderate projection, sweet resinous, amber, olibanum, labdanum, dark wood, spicy, saffron, and patchouli fragrance with light floral, and citrus accords. The fragrance feels ambery, casual, complex, delectable, dense, dry, earthy, elegant, exotic, expensive, gentle, green, high-quality, inviting, masculine, mature, mysterious, nicely-blended, resinous, rare, rich, special, sweet, unique, warm, woody, and very pleasant. BATCH REVIEWED: 2020. WOW RATING: 9/10. A delectable, sweet, ambery, dark woody, and spicy fragrance. DISLIKE RATING: 1/10. The fragrance is sweet balsamic and woody, but inoffensive. UNIQUENESS: 10/10. The combination of notes creates a unique scent. MASS APPEAL: 7/10. A pleasantly sweet, balsamic, and woody fragrance with a mature touch. PROJECTION: 4/10. Moderate, about 4 feet around the wearer. SILLAGE: 3/10. Moderate, about 4 feet behind the wearer. APPLICATION: 4 atomizations. LONGEVITY: 5/10. Good, about 5 hours, it projects well for over 3 hours. SEASONS: Winter, spring, fall, colder days, daytime, nighttime, and climate-controlled environments. OCCASIONS: Formal events, outdoor gatherings, office, business, casual, holidays, vacations, romantic, dating, clubbing. This is an office-friendly fragrance. VERSATILITY: 7/10. A great sweet balsamic and woody fragrance ideal for mild or cold weather. GENDER: Advertised as unisex, the strong woody note creates a slight tilt to the masculine side. AGES: 30 and above. RECOMMENDATION: Parfums De Marly Nisean EDP can be found for about $160. It is a unique fragrance with a mature and delectable touch ideal for those that enjoy sweet, balsamic, and woody fragrances. This is a great buy. BLIND-BUY: No, sample it first. SIMILAR: These are examples of fragrances in the same genre. • Acqua Di Parma Colonia Quercia is a great, sweet, cardamom, cedar, and spicy fragrance. • AllSaints Leather Skies EDP is a good, mild, sweet, resinous, cistus, sandalwood, leather, incense, and smoky olibanum fragrance. • Amouage Reflection Man EDP is a very good, powdery, sweet, white floral, ylang-ylang, sandalwood, and woody fragrance. • Animale “Animale” EDT Men is a very good, very sweet, fruity, floral, green, tobacco fragrance. • Azzaro Wanted by Night EDP is a fantastic, very sweet, cinnamon, fruity/citrusy, leathery, tobacco, and incense fragrance. • Calvin Klein CK One Shock EDT is a good, mild, dark tobacco, sweet ambery, spicy, cardamom, patchouli, and dark woods fragrance. • John Varvatos EDT Men is OK, a faint, sweet, vanilla, caramel, fruity tamarind, dates, and ambery fragrance. • Lalique Encre Noire a L’Extreme EDP is a very good, woody, cypress, green vetiver, smoky, incense, and resinous fragrance. • Pasha de Cartier Men Parfum is a very sweet ambery, liquorish, slightly animalic, woody, and spicy fragrance. • Terre D’Hermes EDT is a great, classy, citrus orange, green vetiver, spicy pepper, and cedar fragrance • Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb Extreme EDP Men is a very good, unique, strong, vanilla, tobacco, pepper, and caraway fragrance. • Zaharoff Signature Pour Homme is a great sweet resinous, incense, woody, spicy, and green fragrance. • Parfums De Marly Nisean is a very good, sweet resinous, amber, olibanum, labdanum, dark wood, spicy, saffron, and patchouli fragrance. SUMMARY: A moderate projection, sweet resinous, amber, olibanum, labdanum, dark wood, spicy, saffron, and patchouli fragrance with light floral, and citrus accords. The fragrance feels ambery, casual, complex, delectable, dense, dry, earthy, elegant, exotic, expensive, gentle, green, high-quality, inviting, masculine, mature, mysterious, nicely-blended, resinous, rare, rich, special, sweet, unique, warm, woody, and very pleasant.

#1595 in my "Tour de Fragrance" A snowy day here in Cackalacky, so a perfect day to sit in my office and try out a fragrance. Nisean is one of the few Parfums de Marley scents I've yet to try out. Got this as a decant probably two years ago, and just getting to it. Any sane person would try before buying a $350 scent. I note there are a couple of sites I've never heard of offering "Nisean" at the laughable price of $128 for 4.2 ounces. They are certainly counterfeits. You can't check the packaging from a webpage so be warned. On to this scent. Absolutely fabulous! So, of course, they discontinued it. Similar incensy vibe as Amouage "Jubilation Man XXV." This is the 18th PDM scent I've tried and all but three were fabulous, and those three were okay scents, just mediocre performers. No one should spend $350 and get mediocre performance. The perfumers working for PDM are certainly masters of the craft, and Nathalie Gracia-Cetto is a warrior princess among them. JPG "Le Male Le Parfum" and "Scandal Pour Homme", Rochas "Moustache EDP", you could spend a page listing her triumphs. A couple of years anon I girded my loins and bought six PDM scents for myself, a few for women who matter to me, but sadly Maison Alhambra came out two years later with a line of freakishly exact clones at a tenth the price. Se la guerre. As far as I'm aware they haven't done a clone of this one yet, but they should. This scent opens confidently with good projection of olibanum and saffron leading the way. I get a hint of woodiness, a hint of geranium and citrus, and some rose, but not enough rose to remind me of my grandma, which is just how I like it. Long lasting, strong projecting. Carpool, elevator and small office safe. Appropriate business or date wear. Signature scent worthy. BUT, I don't think this is a better scent than Amouage "Jubilation Man XXV", which goes for $100 less, and not different enough to justify the expense of owning both, even if you could find Nisean at original price and not tripled by some eBay scalper. Even if you found the Amouage on sale for under $200, I would tell you to buy Paris Corner's "Killer Oud Jubilant", an amazing clone of "Jubilation Man" that will only run you about $35. But if Maison Alhambra comes out with a clone of Nisean, I'm in line. Good Luck and Good Hunting!

I haven't encountered too many fragrances like Nisean. It's undoubtedly masculine; dry, woody, clean and in no ways childish or trendy. There's nothing remotely sweet about it. At the same time it's not a throwback to a bygone era of masculine powerhouses and it doesn't smell like aftershave either. It's not aggressive or sharp, but it's not soft either. It's not cozy or gentle, but it's not unfriendly. In fact there's something very warm and human about it. It's kind of fatherly. The dry patchouli which maintains Nisean's aromatic quality is a very clean patchouli, with a subtle spice. It's classy, and doesn't come anywhere near "hippie patchouli." It's a very different breed. The woody backbone is firm, and not completely identifiable as any one type, though it smells like some kind of classic wooden furniture, well-maintained and passed down for a few generations. It reminds me of oak. And there's a light, pleasant leather aroma that mixes with the woods and patchouli; it's nothing fancy or in your face, it's subtle. Overall, Nisean is pretty simple. I really like this about it! Maybe it reminds me of a dialed-down Derby. It's not trying to do too much and as a result it does just what it should. I imagine Nisean worn with a clean flannel shirt and jeans, though it would also work with a suit and tie. Performance is good with great longevity and appropriate projection. Thumbs up. This one surprised me. At first I shrugged it off but the longer I wore it, the more I liked it. I'd give Nisean a very solid 8/10.

I feel like Nisean passed me by amidst what's been a flurry of recent releases from Parfums de Marly in the last few years, and it tends to be overshadowed by Layton (and Exclusif) and Carlisle as the standout releases in the time since Nisean dropped in 2016. Nisean is, however, very rich, in my opinion, a sort of patchouli/incense dark wintery blend that's spicy, smoky, and a wee bit resinous without being sweet. It feels inherently masculine to me based on the scent profile, which does describe too many specific notes except for saffron and patchouli. And it does have vaguely woody feel to it throughout its life but especially in the dry down, during which the spicy aspects diminish a bit and the whole blend becomes a bit more understated. It's a great performer and is modestly priced ($320 for 125ml retail, comparable to others, but only $135 on FragranceNet, and $116 for a tester, even) via the secondary market, where other fragrances in the line tend to be priced a bit higher. Overall Nisean strikes me as both underrated and underdiscussed in light of its quality, agreeability, performance, and current grey market price, all of which are a formula for what could almost serve as a men's winter nighttime signature fragrance, especially for formal occasions. 8 out of 10

This was the most random discovery 2 years ago. I was searching for Oajan which was heavily sold out at the time and I stumbled upon Nisean. I saw the notes and said, "you know what? F*** it." BEST BLIND BUY EVER. This became my favorite PDM (I even got a backup bottle 💀😂) Initial spray is polarizing with a sharp peppery note and then it leans into this oriental, spicy, soil-like smell. Very masculine 💪🏿and sophisticated. Perfect for icy or cold days. Definitely prefer this dressed up 🤵🏿 but I wear it around the house often. This will definitely last all day ESPECIALLY on your clothes. I bought the 125ml on sale for $209 after tax. It's not worth retail when other brands have a similar DNA available for less. However, this is in my Top 5 autumn🍁/winter ❄️fragrances. Scent: 10/10 Performance: 9/10 Value: 6/10 Overall: 25/30