Memory Motel

Well, well, well. Looks like I’ve finally found my perfect tobacco fragrance. I’m completely baffled to not see honey in the top notes. Not only does the opening of Memory Motel smell like honey to me - it’s hands down the most realistic honey I’ve ever smelled in a perfume. It reminds me of the freshly made honey we would buy for my grandpa from little outside stalls during the summer in Denmark. It’s heavenly. The tobacco is great as well, sweet and a bit earthy. Like sticking your nose into a bag of high quality tobacco leaves. While there's a hint of smokiness in the dry down, it's nothing like full on cigarette smoke. I haven’t the faintest clue what carnation smells like, but I don’t get much iris. On me, it goes from honey to sweet, spicy, leathery tobacco. It’s perfectly blended, the vanilla never becomes overpowering. It’s unapologetically a tobacco and leather fragrance, but with the perfect amount of sweetness. Instant love, I will absolutely be getting a full bottle of Memory Motel. While it’s a somewhat dark perfume, I don’t find it to be overly “dense”. Sillage is pretty good, and longevity is moderate. Perfectly unisex.

Oh Memory Motel, where do I even begin.. First things first, it's odd that only one person has mentioned how chypre-ish this is, at least in the opening. It shares the same structure with modern chypres - effervescent bergamot, powdery oakmoss and mildly earthy, albeit clean treatment of patchouli with an added spicy edge from carnation. However, 5-10 minutes into application and Memory Motel did a complete 180 on me. The chypre nuances are now replaced with an ashy vanilla accord, polished leather and high quality organic hand picked, dried and rolled cigars, pungent and aromatic without the sharp chemical smell of cigarette smoke. Smelling Memory Motel is like taking a trip down memory lane. It conjures up this small yet irresistibly charming jazz club located in the heart of Saigon that I visited a couple years back, you know, with all those jazzy ambiences - the dim lights, the smell of expensive leather couch, cigar smoke and live performances of some Nina Simone classics. Satisfyingly nostalgic with just a hint of melancholy, a work of art for sure.

Since some of my favourite notes are listed, I had big expectations - and they were absolutely fulfilled. It opens kind of fresh but it settles immediately as a patchouli-tobacco-leather scent that somehow still manages to be delicate. There’s something in the iris mixed with warmer notes that always feels extremely nostalgic and emotional to me, and this perfumes is the epitome of that. This is the perfume of your room in a fresh yet sticky summer night, while you’re sitting on the leather couch where you first made love with the one you know will be the forever the most epic love of your life. Them and their scent are long gone, but the one of the pack of cigarettes you just smoked wondering why and how it all went wrong with them in the end still lingers, even if the floral breeze coming from the bushes in the nearby gardens fights to drag it away. My only complaint is that, being quite delicate, its longevity is also very ephemeral, but still, not a deal breaker. (@sharpteethstarlet on TT for more reviews 🌝)

Ohhh lovely! The smell of dusty damp carpet with sun drenching a couch through a window on a cold day - you know the last people here probably smoked but that’s okay it gives the place a lived in vibe... Yeah... I totally get the Rolling Stones - staying in a Motel in Montauk analogy... it totally works for me and don’t let this put you off. It’s a quirky vanilla scent done so much better than 4160 Tuesdays et al. I would describe it as a Purple Vanilla scent! I disagree with Framorena’s review - this is a Vanilla scent though in part I agree the complimentary scents amazingly are strong enough to clearly make themselves known (more so nose to skin) yet still make this vanilla with an awesome skew. Only Olfactive Studios Vanilla Shot does as well in making a dual personality vanilla. Super pungent. If you like vanilla and left field this will not disappoint.

During the spring of 2021 I went on a "journey" to find the most excellent tobacco based fragrance. This journey ended when I found Memory Motel. I've also always been partial to leathery fragrances, so this one was a double whammy for me. The leather, and the tobacco note interplay really well here. Giving each other equal space thru out. One thing that I particularly like about this one, is that the tobacco is dry. Often with tobacco fragrances, it smells like wet tobacco. Which can be a bit syrupy at times. But here it's a nice dry tobacco. But not dry in the sense that it's old and stale. It feels like sticking your nose in a leather pouch filled with the finest pipe tobacco. If you like leather and tobacco perfumes, you have to try this. Longevity and sillage is also good. Maybe not a 5, but definitely a strong 4.

This is absolutely stunning. And completely unique. Sweet but not overly sweet. It is so well blended that I can’t pick out any notes in particular. It’s a semi sweet, vanilla/ incense/ tobacco/ carnation but it’s soooo much more. I don’t get any smoke like other people though and the comment about the dentist office... I don’t relate to that at all. I highly recommend trying each perfume from this wonderful brand. Suma Oriental and Ambre Khandjar are also stunning. Une Nuit Nomade sell their samples on their website for a very reasonable price and I bought travel sprays of my favorites, 25ml for 39,00 €. Took 3.5 weeks to deliver from Europe to Australia during the pandemic, so worth the wait!

An intrigue: Annick Menardo partially recreates her own Le Labo Patchouli 24 (my signature scent for a couple of years) without the definitive birch tar but with added iris and carnation...? P24 smells a lot like peaty Scotch. This could be the air over the moor where the peat comes from. I get compliments on P24 nearly every time I wear it; never happens with MM. It speaks in an inside voice. Overall: Soapy, pleasant, a touch ethereal... Also, amusing that the promo image features a dollar bill because it does smell a bit like a fresh note? The seedy motel association is iffy. I wonder if they'd called this Afternoon Garden or Graduation Day if your mind wouldn't just go there instead.

Thought this would be a heavy fragrance , but in my skin , everything is balanced . Not too masculine and not a super sweet boozy tobacco . The tobacco and leather are noticeable but not heavy , same with the rum. There’s a dustiness that reminds me of cocoa powder but that could be the iris and vanilla so it goes sweeter later in the Drydown. I finally found a boozy, tobacco fragrance that isn’t so dark and heavy that I can wear year round but only down side is this only projects for about 30 mins and becomes skin scent then I can’t smell anything after 4 hours . I will sleep with this on to see if perhaps I’ve gone nose blind. Otherwise I would totally buy a full bottle .

Truly a beautiful fragrance to me. Not as much tobacco as I would've expected from the notes, and it works. What really pops to me is the iris and carnations. The tobacco actually works as the base if that makes sense, because I feel like sometimes it can become overpowering and steal the show a lot of times. Anyways this reminds me of my grandma's couch, and the whole house really, like 1 to 1. In feelings, this fragrance evokes a still, almost dead air, in a slightly melancholy way to me. This also smells very similar to The Mariner's Rhyme minus the tobacco.

What a wonderful fragance !!! I had heard about it and boy did it delivered! It was love at first sniff. Memory Motel is warm, cosy, comfortable and terribly addictive. Once I had it on my frist I could not stop smelling it. You can smell tobacco almost instantly, the vanilla is present but is not sweet, it simply makes the fragrance "rounder". And the leather adds a little animalic touch which finished to win my heart. One of the best fragrances I had the chance to smell this year. It lasts for hours.

I'm sitting in a bar in old Havana, listening to live music and taking in the atmosphere. Men are smoking high quality cigars, women are dressed in heels wearing beautiful spicy floral perfume. The air is thick with carefree attitude. It's all mixing into one sultry scent. And that's what Memory Motel smells like. Wonderful performance. Perfectly unisex but leans a little masculine. Another masterpiece from Annick Menardo and now it's on my short list.

My grandpas cologne, the gorgeous one. Don't get me wrong. My late papaw was The Man in my life. I will always judge fragrances by how they would go with him, in his suit and tie, opening door on his old car for baby me. This is a scent of a gentleman, the kind that goes big. You can buy me a huge rose bouquet, or you can just simply bring one simple carnation, wearing this fragrance. And I will know. What a man! What a scent!

One of the very best tobacco-note fragrances out there, and surprisingly elegant for a run-down seaside motel. A perfect balance between sweet floral notes, stale cigarette smoke in the curtains, and a little hippie incense - it all feels very soft and smooth. Given the source of the fragrance's name, I would expect a hint of ocean/salt notes, but there's nothing like that. Very much a cool weather scent.

waw , you really fall into the warm, round, comfortable ambiance of an old area. It's very similar to Tobacco Vanille but with more caractere. The smoke of honeyed blond tobacco, an abandoned glass of rum, the patineted leather of old armchairs, oozing vanilla pods brought back from far away, the swirls of a hippy incense. Gorgeous

Bought a bottle at Lucky Scent in Hollywood on vacation earlier this year. I was looking for a spicy carnation and this was recommended as something that might "scratch that itch". I later acquired Carner Barcelona Sweet William (still looking for that "perfect" spicy carnation!) and I find they check a lot of the same boxes.

This smells so nostalgic to me. I would love it on a man and wear it myself. Beautiful contrast of brightness and heaviness. It’s sweet, spicy and earthy but it’s not thick/cloying at all. The spice: I’m getting cloves pretty strongly - maybe from the carnation?

This is the most unique fragrance that I recently smelled! Wow, I didn't expect that because it's out of the hype focus. It's the most realistic carnation so far. Spicy, mossy carnation with some abmer-like sweetness. Definitely worth trying.

A bit of citrus, nice clean powdery iris and carnation, some incense and a semi sweet base with tobacco and leather. Not to lipsticky, not to heavy or cloying just so well balanced. Classy and wearable

Amazing. Not too heavy. Feels like smoking a clove cigarette while sitting in a sunlight. Spicy-sweet, tobacco note is very soft, leather note is not sharp.

Soundtrack to this perfume: The Growlers album "City Club". Love them both