Sentiers de Cometes

Unusual, high pitched, intense opening - bright and clear without being light. Incense like, but not a warm incense; perfume-y, but in a very modern way. Once the top notes fizz off a soft, sweet, fruity middle starts to appear. The vanilla and tonka bean combine with the florals - the lilac in particular - into a warm, spicy, feminine accord. A unique non-floral floral. A tiny bit soapy (the ambergris?) with an nose tingling, almost gingery warmth. Powdery, honeyed dry-down kept from tipping over into too much sweetness by the faintly soapy ambergris. A warm, sun-drenched summer afternoon, bees humming among big, fat, sweetly blooming lilacs. Gets progressively drier during it's long dry-down. A unique and somewhat avant-garde fragrance.

For me this is a salty, breezy 1970s musk throwback, even if it's not marketed that way. Overall it presents as a subtle spicy fruit-edged floral with warm balsamic vibes, with a beautiful salty musk drydown. Sometimes in the middle with the fruit and salt it can go a bit sour, so I would not wear this on hot days. Hit or miss for the middle with me. However I usually don't like fruity scents at all so bravo to this fragrance for winning me over. Opens swinging with a bright mandarin and orange blossom, then some carrot seeds rain down and balance the high-pitched opening. With the florals you get the stems too for a green effect, most prominent is the lilac. The mandarin with the stemmy florals is very robust and dense, the texture reminds me of a mandarin green rooibois. Then we're on to that wonderful salty musk drydown I love. The base is a Tonkinese musk which I guess harkens back to the 1910s/1920s but I've got the 70s in my mind and I'm not letting it go. The drydown is very similar to DSH Musk Futura which is 70s themed. Also reminds me of Rodin fragrances which are 70s inspired - somewhere between Bis and #3. The note pyramid is missing lavender, and I've seen blogs refer to pink pepper and peruvian schinus fruit as well. There is no cumin despite the votes - I'm guessing people are voting cumin to compensate for the soft spicy notes missing in the pyramid.

#1606 in my "Tour de Fragrance" Got this as a decant from scentsplit.com for $3.99. They want $185 for 100ml and I'm not seeing another source. First off, this has an unambiguously floral and feminine opening with hints of sweetness that smells like marshmallows. That would be the contribution of the carrot seed. Smells like Gypsy Story "Spring in August" to me, one of a number of purchases I've made for a woman who goes for this kind of scent that I am friends with and don't see very often. She has about two hundred fragrances, so I have never smelled it on her but one time, though she claims to wear it often. She may just be sparing my feelings, so I keep getting her new fragrances. I'd say if a woman will wear Dolce & Gabana "Pour Femme Intense", Fresh "Fresh Lily Jasmine", or Kilian "Princess" they'll wear this. This is just not for men. This gets much more masculine in the dry down about an hour in, so ladies beware. Personally, I wouldn't let the women in my life smell this on me, at least not for the first hour. I wasn't seeing anyone today, so didn't scrub this off so I could comment on the longevity, which is quite good. Same with the silage. I don't find this outright repellant, but I don't think smelling this on a woman would do anything for me. Good Luck but Keep Hunting!

This is my second attempt with YeYe parfums and my first experience with Sentiers. It smelled good on the blotter, interesting, unique, solidly unisex, but I am finding most of their fragrances to lean way too masculine for me when applied, and to smell so similar that it is hard to tell many of them apart from each other. I find them in the category of more "moody home fragrance candle" than skin wearable. Once on, there might be some florals in here, but you wouldn't know it for the musk and incense that punch you in the face and continue to leer at you the rest of the day. ONE SMALL SPRAY....and I'm down for the count. I gave it a good half hour and had to scrub it....and scrub it....and scrub it. It's STILL hanging out two hours later and I may have to resort to household cleaning agents instead of hand soap to try to remove it, I'm finding it that vile. SO NAUSEATING. I hate to use such negative language in reviews...everyone has their preferences and I can usually find SOMETHING to like in any given fragrance, but I am at a loss with this one. I just can't.

On my cool dry skin this perfume reminds me an expensive facial moisturizer scent.