Femme Rochas 2013

Finally managed to try this in store today. The bottle of the current version available is not the packaging displayed in the image here by the way. Opens very strong but quickly dries down to a gorgeous warm fruity floral with a slight spice note to it. I don't get a strong cumin note from this like some people get but a spicy warmth that is very lovely. For reference I dislike very spicy fragrances, this is nowhere near one of those. Also confused about the comments saying it smells like BO it doesn't smell like that at all! Will definitely be buying this eventually. Update 28/10/24 - Just purchased this. Batch code says it's from March 2021, gold and clear cap. Such a gorgeous fragrance. Very strong opening of bergamot which softens over time blending with the plum and peach. The rose and jasmine add a lovely softness to it. The cumin surprisingly adds the perfect amount of warmth and spice to it. The patchouli and oakmoss (unsure if my version has oakmoss) adds a beautiful earthy woody green base to it. Heavenly fragrance.

Buckle up, because this one is no joke. From the start you are met with huge notes of stone fruits and cumin presented on a mossy base. Over time everything becomes a dense combination that plays right on the edge of being unctuous, but never quite crosses the line. It’s safe for family dinner, but I wouldn’t wear it to church. The cumin here is important, because it allows Femme stand on its own in the chypre fruity genre. Where Mitsouko is coy, Femme is ... let’s call it ... forward. Fatale could easily have been the second half of its name, because she takes no prisoners.

In one word:Wonderful! powdery Irish,sweet,leathery leopard fur coat,elegant,lascivious,lecherous, seductive,femenine,Catherine Deneuve in Bunuel's La belle du jour.A good example of how an old fashion chypre can be still modern and weared by both women and men in 2020,a time capsule to the 40's. What people indentifies as cummin I believe is Orris root, at least in my bottle unless is so well blended I can't detect it or your batch is different to mine.

I think the best description of this is from @amandavolpe : "smells like a woman wearing Mitsouko just had sex". It does indeed have the makings of a beautiful fruity chypre but with an added cumin note that makes it smell sweaty and BO-ish. Is it beautiful this way also? Of course. Definitely unisex. For around $30, this is a no brainer. Easy blind buy only for those who already like animalics or are accustomed to cumin.

The cumin doesn't scream at me like it seems to everyone else. Instead I get a slight animalic flavour, with beautiful floral and honey notes. On me this screams decadent, opulent, confident and sex. Pure sex. Will always have a bottle of this!

It is not floral anymore. I find it quite adherent to the old version (1989). It seems to me even deeper, spicy, cuminic. Head notes do not really feel it. I thought I was disappointed and instead ... I like it !!!!

tons and tons of cumin. my bottle looks like the old bottle, but it's got to be this reformulation-reimagining, because it follows this note structure. i love it. it could easily be a signature scent.

sono curiosa di sentirlo...spero non sia la solita delusione delle riedizioni

I'm kind of perplexed by many reviews: apparently people are smelling different formulations and there's no way to say when they change and how. This is indeed unreal. Also, I don't understand why people write here comments that are NOT reviews, but expectations and suppositions. This is not the right place and I truly wish moderators could put an end to this. I'll try to describe what I'am smelling, hoping to provide some help to others. Despite being in the old bottle I just bought it and based on the ingredients I definitely say it's the new versione. Also need to tell that I've never smelled the vintage. The scent is interesting: strong and very feminine and mature. Despite the strong peach notes it's not a sweet generic fruity at all, neither it's a floral scent. Not at all. The opening has definitely some citrus notes, and some fresh fruits, but cumin and spices are HUGE right from the beginning. The floral notes listed are harder to perceive alongside with it but oakmoss and patchouli are definitely a force, providing a soft war carpet underneath everything else. Plum to me comes later than peach and it's a very nice note indeed. Overall I quite like this one. It's not a girly scent at all, but it's a very nice fragrance for a night out: sexy and self assured. Definitely suited for cold weather since I can imagine it becoming pretty overbearing. But I do wish a bit more respect from PG to its consumers: it's pretty insulting to keep playing with formulation, especially considering they are using a old and respected name that leads people to expect something from it.

The cumin is strong in this one! Cumin is not a note I find appealing in perfume. I understand how animalics such as civet and castoreum can add depth, sensuality, and some dirtiness in fragrance though they are difficult notes for many people. But cumin smells exactly like BO. For example, I like Luten's Fleur d'Oranger, but that cumin note keeps me from loving it, and I wait in anticipation for it to finally recede! Enter Femme. The first blast is straight on cumin, but it is a restrained cumin, if such a thing is possible! Yes, there is a distinct smell of BO, but something, the peach I assume, makes it bearable. As a matter of fact, I almost like it! After a while, it becomes less pronounced and blends in with what I imagine to be other spices - cinnamon comes to find - even though they are not listed, and the fruits add just enough sweetness to make this a fragrance I can wear and enjoy. Other than the vanilla, I get little of anything else. Today I tried layering it with some vintage Balenciaga Quadrille, and it's beautiful. My bottle is shaped like the old bottle with a gold cap instead of black, and I'm not sure what makes it different if anything, but overall this is a nice perfume, albeit challenging. Good projection, sillage, and longevity. EDIT - Interestingly enough, I am wearing this right now as my bedtime perfume, and I am liking it much more. "Femme" is the perfect name, as right now, I feel very womanly and 100% seductive! I've never experienced the original, so what I am smelling now isn't tainted - or haunted - by the past.

This is a very interesting fragrance. It does smell like dirty underwear, but not in a bad way. For some magical reason if I spray this during the day, the cumin is overpresent and it smells sweaty and sticky. But at night Femme really blossoms. The flowers and the fruits make for a heady combination. Femme isn't sexy. It's not mysterious or alluring. It's explicit, sexual, it's vulgar. It smells like a woman who wears Mitsouko and has just had sex. I might have just gotten out of the shower, but I soon as I spray this, I feel dirty. I love the experience of wearing this perfume, but it's definitely not something I can picture wearing on a daily basis or as a signature perfume. It also doesn't last very long, 3-4 hours maximum. Sadly, I haven't smelled the original Femme, so I can't make a comparison. Edit: I finally scored a vintage bottle and to my nose there are two main differences: no stinky cumin and the leather is way more present. Otherwise, the current reformulation is pretty close to the original once the cumin note is gone.

ETA: I thought my sample was the old formulation, but turns out it was the newer one, hence the strong cumin note. This is good-- it actually works as a peppery, woody oakmoss substitute. I expect the old formulation will be more green and floral though, and it’s still easy to find, so will try a FB of the vintage at some point. An old-school spicy... at first busy and powdery, very “perfume counter.” Something reads as cumin, perhaps the cloves, carnation, and oakmoss. There’s also something dry and woody, like cedar. A few minutes later, it turns into an ultra-elegant, concentrated and sweeter Mitsouko. I get some of the fruitiness, but not too much; it feels like the dry skin of a peach rather than the juicy flesh. Citrus and florals take back stage, letting the wooded oakmoss shine. A classic chypre, Rochas Femme highly elegant and wearable with just the right amount of dirty earthiness to feel sultry.

Smells very much like an older Avon perfume. Which is not a bad thing, since I used to love the antique Avon perfumes, like Here's My Heart, Persian Wood, Regénce... I get no fruits at all. Not even on my clothes. This smells like something a flapper from the roaring 20's would wear to a blind pig or a dive bar..again, in the best of ways. A sexy, warm, woody, jasmine wonder, with a patchouli kiss. Yes, I like it very much. Decent performance and a nice price point. EDIT- so yes, the fruit does come forward, but on me, it's just a whisper on the skin, a bit more prominent on the clothes. So well blended, I would never call this a fruity perfume like say, Vince Camuto perfumes tend to be. And lots of the celebrity perfumes are. This one really gets better the longer it's on!

And I’m back again. I love this when I can’t smell the cumin. When the cumin makes itself present, however, I feel like I’ve spread curry paste all over my body. Not a pleasant feeling, although I do enjoy eating (mind you, not spritzing) curry. The problem is, this Femme is capricious and I never know which one I’m going to get: rosy peach or peach curry. I’m stuck in a complicated, voluble affair with this fragrance.

I don't get any of the cumin stank at all, which I actually kind of hoped for. It's just spiced fruit on me, not bad at all, but surprisingly clean.

I really enjoyed the vintage version of Femme, a rich, fruity, spicy chypre - a classic of the genre by Edouard Roudnitska himself. A bolder, less refined chypre than, say, Guerlain Mitsouko, it had an opulent, irreverent charm. It also reminded me a lot of Amouage Jubilation 25, my favourite modern chypre. I bought a large bottle of the current Femme EDT for next to nothing in order to compare it to my vintage miniature. While they are similar, it is a shadow of its former self. The current EDT is a cumin bomb - the oakmoss and leather of the original are nowhere to be found, nor the cinnamon, which was the most prominent spicy note in my vintage miniature. Obviously oakmoss has been banned for use in perfumery for a while now, but this doesn't fully explain the big deviation from the original formula. Femme (EDT, purchased 2024) opens with an intense, sweaty cumin note, so strong and pungent it brings to mind curry. The fruity notes temper it somewhat, but the peach is much more subdued here than in the original. The plum is bold, sweet and jammy, but is somewhat harsh. I get a fleeting detergent-like soapiness up top, bright but also harsh. Femme remains a cumin bomb throughout, with little development. I get some soft powdery rose after a while, but it feels like an afterthought. The animalic, mossy leather base of the original that so charmed me is absent here, replaced by a lacklustre cloud of patchouli, some thin, synthetic woods and a hint of musky vanilla. Its performance is powerful - sillage is enormous and longevity is eternal. Two sprays lasted on my skin for over 24 hours and post-shower, so be warned - apply sparingly! Unisex despite its name, it is a cold weather scent. Imbalanced, harsh and with an underwhelming, undeveloped "chypre" base, Femme EDT is ultimately disappointing in my opinion. It's not the worst perfume I've ever smelled, and will work for people who enjoy cumin scents, but it pales in comparison to the masterpiece that was the original. Buy a vintage bottle, or invest in Jubilation 25 instead. 2.5/5.

Me and my new fascination with chypre fragrances I heard of this one and it’s similarity to amouage jubilation 25 for women and since I was smitten by the latter being a actual alternative to mitsouko which is one of the greatest scents of all time I had to try it I heard some reviewers show their happiness with this thing and they kept mentioning the cumin I was nervous every time they explained how the cumin changes the composition of a very close “relative” to other chypre scents So I ordered it while having high hopes that the cumin might not be a problem and still nervous at the same time It arrived and for the price let me tell you from the presentation to the bottle the brand definitely could’ve charged more but they didn’t The moment I sprayed it on my skin a couple moments later I said..............”NO” The cumin destroys the composition completely it pisses on it so bad that it seems like someone made a mistake composing it And the idea of “olivier cresp” which is one of the greats in this industry actually ruining this was an annoying thing to witness It was stinky ...... it was airy.......you could feel the cumin fighting the original dna like it’s an enemy as much as the quality was good but the whole structure was a disaster Performance was good for an EDT

Oh no I bought the wrong perfume! They have completely reformulated it, this is completely different perfume from vintage Femme, not even a nod to the old. This is aldehyde, cumin and amberwood, the three notes I hate most in a perfume. It is headache inducing. Whatever plum I noticed is gone in five minutes, instead I’m battling a strong mid note of cumin and amberwood, maybe even labdenum(?). It sounds horrible and it is, but the whole is much better than its parts. It’s strong and kinda addictive. Later a smokiness comes through (another note I hate) but it works. Definitely leans masculine. Overall it’s an ok scent for the right nose but it is NOT the original, not even close. I feel cheated.

Congratulations my dear Rochas, you have transformed the version of 89 by Olivier C. who was a cold, but amber perfume with a little of glamour very suitable for the powerful women and the feminist movement of 80-90, in another stinky scent, for paid "luxury" ladies, which is no longer related to the original of the 40's, which was strong, incense with fruity notes nor with the feminist jewel of 89. This reformulation is not made by Olivier C., it's made by Jean-Michel Duriez, who was their creator till 2015 and I'm not surprised it's gone, after this failure. Femme Rochas has been one of the perfumes that resonated in the halls of European feminist lodges since 89, now is a sweat, commonplace, escort seductiveness perfume....another jewelry is gone. Jasmine in it is horrible.It's uncontrollable, it gives you a headache and it's very sweet.I have described in more detail all the variants on the page for the one from 89. What can I say, I bought it and threw it away in the same hour. I forgot to specify, if you want Oliver's version, take the EDT is it still clean, they didn't reformulated it.

After owning a vintage bottle of Femme Parfum, I was curious to see how the modern formulation held up as I’d never tried it. I blind bought a bottle of the EDT, and unfortunately it was a bitter disappointment to put it bluntly. The vintage version revolves around the beautifully soft, smooth and seductive composition of creamy oakmoss and dark leather alongside cinnamon and sweet plum. The current EDT has completely lost the oakmoss and the leather, and seemingly the cinnamon too. This can only be described as a cumin bomb, it’s absolutely overpowering with the only saving grace being the sweet plum in the background. I’m not sure where this cumin has come from, this doesn’t smell anything like the original. You might as well save your money and cover yourself in curry powder rather than buy this, or better yet just find yourself a vintage bottle which is a masterpiece.