Sidi Bel-Abbès

Sidi bel-Abbès, the city, housed the headquarters of the French Foreign Legion prior to Algerian independence in 1962. Sidi bel-Abbès, the perfume, is like a yellowed photograph or a postcard from that time addressed to an unknown woman by a man whose struggle for her love matched his fervor for his military cause - a local freedom fighter maybe or, perhaps, a foreign soldier. Sidi bel-Abbès, essentially, is a romantic scent that has been stripped to a ghost of a memory about what once was or what could have been. A promise of young love, impossible or forbidden, symbolised by unsweetened and spiced red berries and dark patchouli, is almost suffocated by brutally charred woods and smoke, brown tobacco and birch tar leather. In spite of the relentless intensity of the vertical layers here there is a palpable sense of austerity and loss, perhaps regret, and the overall feeling is that of muted vastness of a landscape viewed from a birds eye perspective through a sepia lense of vanilla and coumarin. Sidi bel-Abbès feels best when it’s almost forgotten and allowed to release resinous-ambery wafts in its own time. In fact it would appear that the more attention is paid to the scent the less it works. This illustrates well an intriguing paradox about this mysterious creation; whatever once deserved a chance didn’t succeed; yet what we’re told isn’t worth pursuing wouldn’t let us go.

One of the best tobacco fragrances I've ever smelled. Notes are Tobacco, Beeswax and Cumin (according to Serge Lutens product knowledge document). The story is meant to be a mysterious love between a French soldier (Sidi Bel-Abbès was a city in North Africa where the French foreign Legion was stationed) and a local woman. Can't wait to have this in my collection, so upset it's been discontinued but I'm glad that I have access to the fragrance still. Amazing longevity as well. 10/10 I have a few bottles left if anyone in Canada wants one they can message me!

A really beautiful and exotic Oriental that is one of my favorites In the amazing Serge Lutens line. The perfume opens with notes of cherry, raspberry and plums. The heart is tobacco, cumin and leather. The perfume settles into a bed of vanilla, incense and cypriol. The perfume is beautifully blended and immediately takes you to exotic Northern Algeria where it takes its name from. Unisex slight feminine leaning with moderate projection and good longevity. Absolutely not worth its asking price. Enjoy!

$600?!?!?!?!?!??? And it's worth it, unfortunately. By Christopher Sheldrake. 2015. What a dense, rich, earthy, tobacco fragrance with dried fruit and resinous notes; smokey, maybe a little too smokey at first, but then mellowing out into a boozy, old leather. So perfect for Fall and Winter. Would this be the most I've ever spent on fragrance? Oh yeah. Am I saving up for it? Big time.

Opens with pimento, plums and raspberries I think. I get cade, leather, frankincense and cypriol. The backbone of vanilla and cumin is there lingering as with most Serge Lutens fragrances. This will make your memories bubble up for sure, there is something spiritual and hauntingly beautiful in this potion.

My favorite scent of all time. I have 25ml left in my bottle. Now I only wear when I go out to an exclusive French restaurant or formal gathering. If you are considering selling yours in Canada please pm me.

The opening moments of Sidi Bel-Abbès on my skin are quite confusing: the very first whiffs are of a mild chocolate aroma, but it's swiftly replaced by crystalline red berries and fresh plums, mingled with cold, even mineral frankincense, only to be purged out by a razor-sharp smoky woody aromachemical. Fortunately, this sharp woody smoke fades away after no more than 30 minutes. Sidi Bel-Abbès settles into a fluid resinous dry down, at first closer to labdanum, with its slightly chocolate-y, darker, slightly leathery aroma, but later shifts into something more akin to benzoin and Peru/Tolu balsam, with a more pronounced vanilla and more golden in tone. The whole is then coated with shimmers of fizzy rosy incense, like a soft glow of dawn, over a tranquil lake of resins. The sillage of Sidi Bel-Abbès is extremely close to skin, and the longevity is around 6 hours. I enjoyed the peaceful, mild, balmy dry down of Sidi Bel-Abbès, but overall it feels overly abstract and lacks the depth/complexity/magic of typical Lutens offerings. The forceful smoky wood at the beginning also feels quite synthetic according to my taste. Even if it was released in export range, I wouldn't say that it's among the most interesting ones. Therefore, I would not particularly recommend it at its current price range.

In general all the perfumes of the "Gold" collection are very direct in their reading of the notes, there is not much evolution. The quality is high enough without doubt, do we smell the difference with all the other Lutens? not really. They would have made great additions to the normal collection and we can not help thinking that this price is a profitability operation of little elegance. Sidi Bel-Abbès is a cold incense whith tobacco, notes of wax, polish. There is something of very manly, old school cologne - old barbershop - but in a super high density, almost mineral. Very nice.

plummy tobacco on a bed of cedar/ish/indiscernible watery woodiness, becomes a skin scent after about 30mins or so. would be a disappointment in the serge lutens mainline, let alone the 700 or so pricing their d'or line commands.

My Night at Maud's by Éric Rohmer 1969

Assuming Serge is not playing linguistic tricks on us, which he has been prone to do, he is making introductions for us to a holy man descended from Muhammad, Sidi Bel-Abbes, who is buried in a city in Algeria named for him. Or maybe it's the city itself that is the source of inspiration. As far as first impressions go, it seems we are quite taken with Sidi upon the handshake, or the city when we first stroll into it, but then we find out the revered holy man/city is actually a bit of a bore and the encounter becomes unmemorable. That handshake, the opening moments of the perfume, are wonderful. I get so very close to saying I smell an oud accord, but that's not it. There are notes of tree fruit, which is typical of an oud accord, that call to mind juicy figs and apricots. Oud has a tendency to have a "bleu cheese" fruit type note to it, and it's there in Sidi, paired with something a bit spicy, sweaty and funky, also typical of an oud accord, that with a few more sniffs reveals itself to be an extremely smooth cumin note. Both of these are underpinned by a slightly smokey wood note and leathery facets, also typical of oud. The blending and materials used for this opening are one of the most evocative things I have smelled from Christopher Sheldrake in a very long time. It is so good. Superbly smooth, well rounded, every note singing in a harmonic tenor at the perfect pitch, this is one of the very rare times where I find myself saying that "oud" - in so much as this is oud - is desperately pretty. The handshake is over quite quickly, under 30 minutes, and the perfume quiets down to soft whispers of tobacco, floral beeswax, and leather. Despite the aged vanillic tobacco note and the beeswax, Sidi stays firmly on the pleasant side of sweet, opting for slightly greater measures of a floral amalgam, animalics, and leather. Just like the opening, this heart and base is extremely pretty.... But unlike the opening, it's boring. I'm not sure what happened with Sidi; it's a short-lived top that goes quickly to a base skin scent, no heart, and it is incredibly meek, quiet, and short on longevity for an extrait. I find it very hard to believe this is an extrait seeing as how it's already a skin scent after less than four hours, and pretty much fully gone within six to seven. The final scent on skin, barely detectable, is a delectable and dry vanilla that is also perfectly on the line of sweet and earthy without being too sweet and earthy. If this was currently being produced in an EdT or EdC concentration at half the price, I would be very tempted to make a full bottle purchase. But it's not. It's discontinued, it's an extrait (supposedly), and because of these two factors you can only purchase it for nose-bleeding and heart-attack inducing prices on the dubious aftermarket. I'll live with my sample, and when it's gone, it's gone - just like Sidi.

High-end barbershop with some rich leather, berries, and incense.

Aromatic sweetness. Opens with some sort of fruity, berry-ish tone. Something tobacco-ish, coarse appears, the fruitiness gains more depth, there is a soft, silky leather accord paired with with and almost Maraschino cherry-berry sweetness. It's priced very out of reach and doesn't seem to be worth its price. Fortunately, I am not swooned by Sidi Bel-Abbes at all.

This is in a similar vein as perfumes from brands like Clive Christian, Montale, and Roja Dove: over-stuffed and ostentatious in a manner that borders on trashy, only here the volume has been dipped down a few notches. In no specific order, this flip flops between (what smells to me like) notes of wine, suede, chocolate, iris, incense, jasmine, and some citrus for punchy aeration. It shifts around a lot, and that’s really what tanks it: it’s too hard to tell what you’re smelling at any given moment. If I were to describe it, I’d say that it smells like a vodka cocktail served on a leather tray. There’s something environmental about it, but it’s such a mush — a grey-smelling semi-industrial scent cloud, that, for whatever reason, makes me think of a fog machine. Out of focus and moody, but not entirely unappealing, if the price weren’t such a joke, this is the one that I’d consider following up with again. I’ll wait until it hits the Fragrancenet clearance bin for $50 or so.

This is one the Serge Lutens’s “Section d'Or” line members. The fragrance name was inspired by a city in Algeria. And the soul of Arabic culture exists here, like many other SL fragrances. . Sidi Bel-Abbès starts up with a bunch of spices that brings an old classic masculine type fragrance. It hints at the SL special spicy DNA. In the middle its general vibe is reminiscent of COCO Chanel because of rose, clove, vanilla and a resinous combination. Then it follows in a different way through a tobacco and smoky leather base. It’s chick and classic and to me it makes a perfect match for men’s outerwear.

I was desesprately searching for a sample of Luten's Fumerie Turque (same nose of this one) as it's one of the best Tobacco based fragrance ever. Finally it's available on ........ Serge Lutens official website for 170 euros/75 ml. It was a very hard to find, and relatively expensive comparing with SL habitual frags. What I don't understand, Luten's perfumes turns around 70-90 dollars, and now a similar fragrance from the same house goes a 500 dollars/50 ml..... Shoking. This price beats Xerjoff, Clive Christian ..... Better stay in Guerlain and Tom Ford privates, they are still more "wearable".

Sour Lokum... a sour Turkish delight! This is like a rosewater Lokum with a tingle bitterness. I detect raspberries, leather, rosewater, cedar, agarwood, incense, myrrh, and sandalwood. It's a cute blend but the price tag is just too much for this mix! There are few blends that smells mostly identical but they're not on min mind at the moment! maybe "Turkish Leather" by Pryn. Cute but doesn't worth the price tag at all.

This is a gorgeous unisex fragrance that has a berry tobacco theme. It is one of the best of the whole Section D'or line but the price tag at $900AU is just too much for most people, including me so I just load myself up with this when I'm in a Mecca store! Divine perfume!

What I feel: tonka-almond, resins, cherry, dried fruits, tobacco, honey, vanille, chamomile, citrus. A very relaxing skin scent. The most amazing thing: Lutens is always faithful to his story, here you can smell crearly the Lutens DNA, but time goes by, and artists do too.

No doubt that this is one stunning tobacco fragrance that I'm loving so much, I'm considering paying the $800A plus for it My favourite from the gold line! Just gorgeous, I'm in love! Would class it as male focused but still very unisex! (I'm female)