Caban

I have been quite impressed by the Vestiaire line thus far, but Caban might be my favourite yet. A peppery-amber scent with a lovely woody drydown, it feels luxurious to me, as well as slightly unusual. I love an elemi note as part of an amber accord - it is smoothly balsamic with a pine-like edge, slightly prettier and more luxurious than other ambery notes in my opinion. Caban opens with rosy pink pepper against a backdrop of the aforementioned elemi in its green, balsamic glory. The pink pepper is particularly rosy here, I am surprised there is no rose note listed. Black pepper enhances the nose-tickling, spicy side of the pink pepper. I get sandalwood from the early phase of Caban, lasting until the drydown. It is quite obviously synthetic, but is restrained enough to provide a woody backdrop to the other notes. As it develops, I get a hint of peachy osmanthus, and the warm amber accord develops softly, becoming more resinous and dry as it progresses. Soft vanilla adds just the right amount of sweetness at the drydown stage. The rosy accord lingers, joined by earthy patchouli - a new take on that classic accord. The sandalwood and amber enhance it to perfection. There is a hay-like note in there too. It is warm and cosy, yet sophisticated and elegant. It fades to a powdery, softly sweet amber-vanilla skin scent with some earthiness. Sillage and longevity are moderate. Best worn in cool weather, given its warmth. Despite being creative and unusual, Caban really works. Its components are familiar, yet as a whole it is quite an original composition. Feminine-leaning in my opinion, Caban is a masterfully composed, modern scent with a nod to the classics. 4/5.

I received a sample of this with an order and I am really in love with it. It may seem basic to others but it’s unique to me. Typically I really struggle with this type of scent profile because they always remind me too much of how my hair smells when it’s been unwashed for too long! I have tried many of the fragrances in the “reminds me of” section and I love the idea of them but many of them give me the feeling that I smell dirty, even tho I enjoy them on other people. I believe the cause may be Jasmine accompanied by heavy sandal wood that creates this effect to my nose. This fragrance does not give me that feeling and perhaps it’s because there is little to no Jasmine in Caban. The resinous elemi combined with the Tonka gives this fragrance a warm, intoxicating depth that also seems different than the majority of sandalwood dominant fragrances I’ve tried. This is unisex in my opinion maybe a tiny bit masculine. I see some saying it reminds them of Gris Charnel and I think I can see that, if you were to take Gris Charnel and remove the cardamon and vetiver and amplify and thicken the warm base notes making them resinous then it would smell similar to Caban. I actually love Gris Charnel and so it makes sense I love this too but they really are different enough to invoke different feelings to my mind. Gris Charnel feels foggy, hazy and cozy to me. Caban feels warm, mysterious and slightly dark. I actually think I prefer this more because that deep warm base really speaks to me.

It’s such a chic perfume! Simple but unique. Wearing this, you can dress up or down. Cozy sweater, white T-shirt, or fancy dress, it fits all. The sandalwood here is not too dark or woody, but on the airy side. The floral notes and tonka beans bring out the sweetness, but never too much. The bottle label lists pepper, rose and tonka, I’m not sure if I can immediately tell the floral note is rose. The scent has a gourmand touch, maybe coconut as people mentioned, but in a most elegant way. However, I’m struggling with the opening. It’s way too spicy for me, as I’m not a fan of peppers and olibanum, and the spiciness does linger a while. Once that stage passed, the drydown is absolutely beautiful! I personally don’t think this perfume has the best performance, but my workmate could get a decent scent trail from me 6 hours after I applied it, even his nose was not fully functioning as he was still recovering from a cold. I like to spray this on my clothes and pillow, as it’s too spicy on my skin. It’s sweeter on fabric. Caban is very underrated in this line, and this line is becoming my favorite line among the designer brands. Went to the YSL store on 11 Aug. I was told by the SA that Caban has been discontinued. I hope not worldwide.

Lately, I have been wearing the bejeezus out of this. The day I got it, I sprayed myself way too much and became anosmic very soon after. I went to visit my parents and they commented that it was so sweet and that they didn't like it. Well that shocked me because I didn't get that at all. I guess in huge doses it must come across as sweet. Anyway, fast forward about a month and I've literally been wearing this every day. Maybe 3 sprays from the chest down and I can smell it softly all day. It's a good day wear/anywhere fragrance. It's reminiscent, at least to me, of Cuir Beluga and has something like Iso E Super or some such aroma chemical that I can smell off the top. All I can say is I'm glad I got the 125 ml cause I love it. Oct 20/23: Just before using this bottle up, I saw there was a price increase to $390/125ml which is way more than the going price at the time I bought it (I think it was just under $300, maybe $275). I picked up 2 bottles for $290 (department store) and $250 (airport duty free) in Paris. This shows the insane advantage the government takes of consumers. Up to 56% in taxes/duty! And of course YSL's price bump is disturbing. Glad to have backups but man.

It opens up with pepper and sweet ambers, but then quickly evolves into its true scent profile, which on my skin, is a predominantly tonka bean fragrance that is accentuated by a beautiful creamy sandalwood, with Resins and spices in the back, followed by a very subtle but noticeable Osmanthus note, it smells quite elegant and feels both unique and inviting, definitely a hidden gem, as all I hear about from this line, are Tuxedo and Babycat (I've yet to smell both as my YSL boutique had them out of stock) to virtually no end, whereas I've only ever heard Caban be mentioned once in passing. Wearability wise, this is perfectly unisex, I can see it being a good casual and formal fragrance, with it being usable virtually anywhere outside hot days in my opinion, I get around 9 hours longevity on my skin which is sad as others seem to get poor longevity; it projects somewhere between medium and strong on my skin, but I'd say it leans more to the medium. Overall I quite like it, very much a wearable piece of art in my opinion, and it only makes me more excited to try Babycat and Tuxedo in future, definitely worth a try in my opinion, needs to be talked about more. 8.6/10