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.

I reviewed this ages ago and I want to again, in part because I saw someone mention a possible reformulation. I think this is a scent that perhaps changes a fair bit as the bottle ages. My original bottle of this is nearly a decade old, and when I pulled it back out after not having worn scents for some time I still adored it. And I immediately ordered a backup bottle, because this is one I don’t want to be without. Yet something was not totally the same - it was heavier and sweeter than I remembered it being. I wondered if my chemistry had changed in some way. But no - out of curiosity I just sampled the fresh one I just purchased from LS and it is lighter, more sparkling, the pepper and cardamom lifting it. I think perhaps with age the pepper fades and it becomes more benzoin-forward. The fresh bottle smells exactly as I remember it, though. Knowing that, I suspect I’ll be going through it more aggressively; I had put it aside to savor, but it loses just a touch of ethereality.

Oh so sweet - yet somehow not sickly. More the heart of a gorgeous living wood infused with spices and still full of resin. This one plays tricks on me: I thought it was laced with caramelised cinnamon, which was probably the mix of cardamom and benzoin; thought I smelled coconut too, but that must have been a facet of sandalwood. But it's all fine because every trick is pleasing and amusing, not lying in wait to bludgeon you with anything savagely dark. The sweetness also mutates, in waves, into pulses of deeper spiciness sharpening almost to sour or sweat - that thanaka wood has a serious, almost raspy kick at times - then ebbing back to its calm sweet heart again. Confusing yet fascinating and makes me want to go back to it again and again, to learn all its tides and currents and understand it better. A Southeast Asian sea journey, indeed. Slow boat to Saigon please m'sieur!

141) Honey skin Indochine is a real melting of spices, like a chocolate fondant: dry and crisp on the outside, soft and flowing in the center. And most importantly, delicious. Its crust pepper and cardamom crackles under the nose with a little something of toast, black and dry. Then benzoin starts slowly to pour the flood of sweet resin, vanilla, powdered, soft like white sand. Already, a first contrast between dark cold spices and enveloping milky balm. Honey is slowly making its waxy and animal facet participant in turn to a new dimension of flavor, more syrupy, which evokes a black licorice slightly aniseed, such absinthe or ageless whiskey. On the skin, Indochine takes root, its mineral and syrupy animality clings to the skin without looking tacky, with a discreet diffusion. Like all the PG creations the longevity and the sillage is disappointing.

Gourmand without being especially sweet. I'd recommend this for someone looking for a spiced chai scent. Deeply, warmly, and edibly spicy (despite the lack of a named cinnamon note I'm nearly certain that cinnamyl, or however you spell the cinnamon ingredient, must be on the ingredient list) with only a light sweetness, like you added honey to your chai. I generally have problems with cardamom, it tends to go oddly... well it's as if getting perfume in your mouth had a smell, but I don't get that with this one. I'm not sure I want a bottle as I don't really have a need for another edible spice scent, but a very very strong like bordering on love.

This gorgeous Benzoin based Oriental beauty radiates both warmth and tranquility and truly evokes the image of a leisurely river cruise along the Mekong or a Kerala lagoon. It starts off with a burst of cardamom and honey ( and as many reviewers correctly note the smell of an Indian dessert like Rasmalai) and then dries down to reveal the more complex elements like Burmese thanaka wood and black pepper. This is a shimmering beauty of a composition with moderate sillage and projection that induces warm euphoric and nostalgic feelings. Not for those who do not like sweet compositions, and in one word, delicious.

This is a spicy-woody fragrance. The name is rather misleading though, since it doesn't really smell like 'Indochine'. Then I would have added perhaps lemongrass and star anise - which is one of the main ingredients in the Vietnamese Pho soup. Can't say that I sense Thanaka in the fragrance either. It has a sweet powdery woody smell, and it much used in Burmese cosmetics, so not a part of Indochina anyway. Apart from the misleading name, I like the fragrance. It has good projection and is long lasting. PG seems to be especially apt with woody-spicy-patchouli based fragrances.

I really love this perfume and can totally smell the good stuff--benzoin, honey, and precious woods with cardamom lingering throughout. I just wish it was stronger. I do catch it drifting up to my nose, so I wouldn't call it weak, but my personal desire for a perfume like this is that it would be a sillage monster. Nevertheless, I bought it, and I simply spray once more than I normally would. It's an ambery-cardamom dream on a woody base, kind of gourmand, but not totally. Reminds me a bit of Malabah without the tea.

Gawd, this is GORGEOUS. Spicy without being heavy, sweet without being cloying, warm warm warm, and pretty perfectly unisex. I wear it just fine as a woman but can see it being great on a man. My only complaint is that I wish sillage and longevity were better -- within an hour I have to sniff pretty close to get it. I tend to spritz my clothes with it because it lasts better there and I want to be able to keep smelling it! A smell this good shouldn't be so secretive. Still worth it because it's just that lovely.

This smells like someone sophisticated, clean but not boring, a bit mysterious if you want. Someone that looks neutral at first glance and then you talk to them and you think "ohhh you're so cool". For me the cardamom is very prominent, if you like cardamom you will probably love this one. I mean, I see it as a scent that's veeery hard to dislike. Like almost every Pierre Guillame I've smelled, super well done and high quality. Very very beautiful, probably one of my next buys.

At first it seems too much, but let it dry down and let it blow your mind. Delicious, well-rounded, dark but not piercing. Some note or a combination of notes makes me think of oud even though it has no oud. Penhaligon's Halfeti has this same type of yummy sweet earthiness to it in the drydown which is hard to find. Goes straight to my purchase list!

If you like benzoin, PG25 is a perfume where 1/3 of the composition is benzoin then paired with honey in perfect harmony. The honey brings the overtly syrupy sugar tones whilst the benzoin seems to want to play the spicy notes. Balancing that interplay with the rounded, sharp spice of cardamom is the key to Indochine’s outlook.

Mysterious, unique and beautiful. Melting benzoin and animalic honey coated with smoking dark spices. At the end, I smell a kind of peacefull sandalwood. It is for ''high temper'' kind of peoples...

wow, love at first sniff, resin, woods, cardamon , benzoin. absolutely love this fragrance, can smell sweet tobacco but it's likely the honey. would recommend.

it is sophisticated and warm, even though it’s barely there. I imagine this could be a good scent for doing yoga.

God this is so rich, luscious, captivating and sensual. I could bathe in it.