Eau Sans Pareil

First time trying it today as a blind buy, absolutely love it, usually don’t care for Penhaligons fragrances but this is great

This is a great scent for women as well! Spicy!

Olfactory artist, Beverley Bayne’s ( not Bertrand Duchaufour) 2011 creation of Eau Sans Pareil for Penhallagon’s is sparkling if fleeting cocktail for the end of summer in a haunted garden. A watery right bright effusion of Aldehydes open the composition with a basket filled with fruits. Bitter Neroli meets up with the sweetly tart Kumquats; Mandarin oranges do their thing with the help of a whispering pineapple. More whispers of the sun on a southern slid toward autumn is found with a little cypress, pink pepper and a very light honey sweet Tagete flower. All of this is just a momentary introduction to a great big boisterous raspberry. The opening is promising for those who are looking for a light fruity Eau de Toilette that acts more like cologne, a beautiful melancholy ghost to follow you from summer into fall. In the heart the fragrance it moves from the fruit garden to the flower garden and in this transition it drops very close to the skin. Maybe too close to the skin for some. Light lily of the valley, a delicate Ylang-ylang bring soft caresses to a sleepy Jasmine. There is a touch of spice from clove and tangy thick liquorice that gild a lovely late rose of summer. Under this rose there is a grounding earthy orris root to remind you that all things must return to the earth. It swirls around nicely and then evaporates like a ghostly ectoplasm to the dry down. Here there is the haunting in the dying garden. The spirits of Patchouli waft over a dry, dry vetiver. Tendrils of vanilla tease a shy spectral Amber as together they float over a parched Cedarwood. Labdanum and Oakmoss are shrouded in a ghostly musk. The sprit of the fragrance crosses over to the next world at about the forth hour. As an Aromatic Fougere is it very soft and pleasing. I find it to be too wispy for my taste but still lovely in what it does. It is sold as a masculine fragrance but pushing that nonsense aside this fragrance would work well on a woman who is looking for a fruity floral that is not in the least bombastic but rather hauntingly beautiful. Eau Sans Pareil by Penhalagon's 3 gold stars *** (Why only three gold stars? Beautiful as it is, like summer Eau Sans Pariel fades much too quickly. ) For the ghostly tale that goes along with my review check out my blog Scents Memory.

Eau Sans Pareil on my skin, is primarily a raspberry fragrance. The opening few minutes remind me of black currant, probably a combined effect of the raspberry note and pine/cypress. These two main accords soon separate from each other and make an enticing contrast. I usually don't enjoy jammy raspberry accord in perfumery. But in Eau Sans Pareil, while the raspberry is unapologetically sweet, it's rendered rather dry with a matte finish thanks to the woody and camphor aspects of pine and cypress. A pinch of aldehyde adds a bit of metallic twang and sparkles. While it's not as sparkling as the raspberry champagne in Louis Vuitton Mille Feux, the cool feeling imparted by aldehyde and conifers provides a very nice balance to the sweet raspberry. Sadly, 2 hours in, the alliance of raspberry and conifers soon fall apart. An abstract spicy note and a more robust smoky woody note fight for the place of the conifers. As a result, the raspberry is warmed up and becomes much more sugary. While it's not as cynically cloying as certain commercial fruitchoulis, the fragrance feels kind of a cacophony on my skin, as the artificial raspberry here doesn't seem to incorporate these potentially interesting accords in an organic way. Eau Sans Pareil remains an almost saccharine raspberry fragrance with a vague woody spicy base from then on. The sillage is moderate for the most part, and the longevity is around 9 hours. As someone who usually doesn't cope well with raspberry note in perfumes, I find the dynamic between cool conifer and aldehyde, and sweet youthful raspberry in Eau Sans Pareil a delightful surprise. Unfortunately, the dry down didn't escape the sugary trap, thus didn't sway me on the whole. Nevertheless, if you happen to love raspberry accords in perfumery, Eau Sans Pareil providing an interesting woody variation with refreshing, metallic, camphor nuances, might worth a try.

Cypress, sharp and clean, rounded out with some tart raspberry. I don't get any rose, and I'm surprised salt isn't listed. Other notes are there adding complexity but nothing else jumps out the way the cypress and berry do. To me this isn't a sweet fragrance, but aromatic, woody and fruity with a touch of citrus. Others have described it as 'shimmering' and 'sparkling' and I agree it does have those qualities! To me this is a very masculine smell, even more so than unisex, but I don't mind that on my skin. It's somehow very Christmassy! I imagine a festive centrepiece with cypress boughs on a table, a bowl of dry but fruity mulled wine and some salted pecans to snack on. I think Duchaufour has incredible range as a perfumer, I've been collecting many of his creations for their distinctive and quirky feel. This was one of the first I owned, and coming back to it after a year (as mentioned, it's a Christmas perfume for me!) I like it even better now that I know some of his other work. UPDATE: I was intrigued by @LANIER comment below so searched the Penhaligon's website archives and found this: 'Eau Sans Pareil was originally created in 1988 by Francis Pickthall, and was transformed by Beverley Bayne into a sparkling Chypre'. That explains why this feels so different (more astringent and less rounded) than Duchaufour's other creations; Fragantica has misattributed it.