Indochine 25

Wow! This stuff is supremely smooth, I don't know what keeps happening? I keep saying I'm not a big honey fan and yet something about honey, beeswax, Immortelle just keeps dragging me back in. The word 'Indochine' reminds me of two things, The song 'Viet Nam' by The Minutemen (because there's a lyric about 'French Indochina') and The movie American Psycho (and possibly mentioned in the book I can't remember now?) there's a restaurant named 'Indochine' along with the infamous & exclusive 'Dorsia' Just shows what a simple mind I have really. In any case this is a stunning fragrance which opens like a beautiful caramel but not that overly sweet, Mula Mula caramel saturation or Ethyl Maltol, this is a very subtle and gorgeously soft caramel comprised of honey and benzoin amber/vanilla. The top notes are unusually bright and doesn't feel heavy for a woody oriental which has a caramelised balsamic and honey dominant heart. The honey actually gives sweetness but for me isn't that characteristic until after the opening has settled. Then the perfume becomes much more deeply woody and about sandalwood but I also get a breathy, alcohol and warm mammal, ambergris note, clear as day but only very fleeting making me wonder if I imagined it or smeared some Ambergris tincture on my jacket and that's what I'm smelling? This has a smoothness that is almost reminiscent of milkshake but it's not creamy or too sweet the woods and honied elements are in such a harmony, the key element to this fragrance is the skill of Guillaume himself. PG25 doesn't need to be loud or overly gourmand to make it's statement it's just a cosmic woodshop/bakery of heavenly delights and most importantly it has the element a perfume needs, light n shade, elegance and restraint...just a pleasure to wear this one. I never think I want to buy another gourmand or warm fragrance because that's my think and I often seek out different looks but sometimes you should just embrace what you like, because you like it for a reason.

This is one of the few fragrances I've ever smelled and was like, this is a sexy scent! I imagine a rich young man entering a gorgeous club in Southeast Asia. The honey and wood together smell like absolute wealth, it has the kind of daringly insistent sweetness (it punches for the entire wear time) that could never be an accident. It's got old money exoticism, full of mystery and confidence. It's absolutely alluring. The texture of it is very thick and dense; the honey note is extremely powerful and melts with the resin in a way that bubbles around the wearer. There's a touch of spice and granularity running through the thick deluge of honey, and a creamy sandalwood note comingling with that as well. Indochine is a great example of why I've been falling in love with Pierre Guillaume perfumery. Every note is chosen intelligently to create an acute and exotic concept, no extra noise, no apologies. And yet everything he makes smells incredible and wearable! You just have to know who you are and what you want, and something in his line will sing to you like the prettiest song. Though Isparta 26, inspired by the Turkish city, is my best partner from the line, Indochine 25 is a distinctive and escapist fragrance to my nose. I find this leans very masculine; it lends a touch of basso profundo, a touch of mystery, with a note profile that feels somewhat out of place on me as a twenty-five-year-old female. Though I love it for what it is, I find it hard to wear because of its solicitous, heavy energy. If wealth/celebration is your seduction mood, you simply have to try this.

OMG! This is SO BEAUTIFUL! Right up my street! It is so subtle and restrained. I bought it on a whim after reading about benzoin on wikipedia I believe- wikipedia is useful for non-political subjects- where I found out that this is a number one example of a high-benzoin containing perfume. I thought "what the heck" and bought it from Lucky. I am only bummed that what I got was 50 ml instead of 100. Because i will go through this! Anyway it is soft and subtle like some vanillas but it has no vanilla. What I mean is there are no edges. The cardamom is super subtle. The reviewer below me was reminded of several scents which I don't know.. I am reminded of Imperial Oppoponax, another one of my favorite perfumes, by Les Néréides, because it too is warm and resinous. But this one is more mild and subtle, buttery smooth without smelling at all like butter. I can't believe that until the reviewer below me, a year (nearly) would pass between reviews here. It is fun to go with my intuition sometimes and to disregard the hype which has steered me wrong so many times. Not always of course but often. One last point i wish to mention. I only found one review of this by Ouch 110 from five years ago on YT. He was underwhelmed and said he wouldn't buy it! So I just wanted to point out here how wonderful it is that we are all so individual. I have come to really believe that no one has taste quite like mine!

Pierre Guillaume is a beautiful human being, perfectly melancholic sculptured introvert-face, so no matter which creation from his imagination I test – I see his face in front me, that goes before everything else. Which makes it difficult, to stay on task and think solely of the Perfume. I already sold about his Praline de Santal and Aomassai - and Indochine is only completely glued me on. Being French, Guillaume obviously was thinking of the legendary French movie about Vietnam–sweepingly romantic “Indochine” from 1992 with Catherine Deneuve as a plantation owner, during last quarter-century of French rule in Southeast Asia. Love those gorgeous landscapes of Saigon and surrounding areas by the way, - people, street-food, opium pipes and other exotic things to follow. Indochine as a perfume is quite a journey as well, only more of a spiritual one. By resinous, calm touch of exotic woods to sweetness of smoky benzoin, it always stays deep, calm and reflective. I enjoy, how honey is made, it turns and twirls into some Asian creamy –sweet treat, like a soufflé, yet never slips into gourmand category, because smoky woods are prevailing and sort of “guarding” the fragrance. To me it gives a sense of peace and presence of other reality and goes into “big loves” category.

I first tested Indochine alone at home, surrounded by my dog and three cats. Gave it a couple spritzes from a sample spray, let it settle, inhaled, and then... an audible gasp! My pets were a little freaked out. Indochine is *literally* breathtaking. Subtle and dusty, like small motes of honey and immortelle and cardamom have just floated by to rest their sweet and spicy accords against this most precious of woods. Smelling Indochine, my mind goes to others of my beloved spiced-wood scents: Givenchy's Organza Indécence, Chanel's Bois des Îles and Égoïste, Guerlain's Samsara, Serge Lutens' Féminité du Bois family, Pierre Guillaume's own Aomassaï... In comparison, Indochine seems to render them all garish and overblown, too ostentatious. It's as though Pierre Guillaume has taken whatever it is that makes this genre of scents so compelling, then through alchemy, boiled it down, reduced it to only essential components, and refined and refined and refined it even further. Indochine is a truly special perfume, receiving my utmost recommendation. May you, too, gasp at its beauty.