Soul by Costume National (2015)

Nose: Dominique Ropion

This new addition to Costume National’s fragrances range represents the unnecessary confirmation that the only good Costume National scents ever made where the early couple of ones composed by Bruyère – 21 and Scent Intense. It almost seems the guys at Costume National share this feeling as well, since Soul smells basically like an unneeded rewriting of Scent Intense crossed with influences from some of those contemporary Middle East cheap brands which are quite invading the market lately – brands like Arabian Oud, Lattafa, Swiss Arabian and countless of similar ones, with their nuclear, and often sweetish spicy-smoky oud and/or leather blends. Soul is for me exactly halfway all of that, and I wonder why they hired some renowned nose like Ropion for such an uninspired, clerical copy-and-paste job. Soul definitely keeps Scent Intense’s peculiar bone structure of powerful, sort of dry and extremely synthetic amber-musk-fruity notes, and boringly crosses it with a smoky praline of vanilla and artificial, sort of medicinal-nutty oud with a dark shade of leathery patchouli and a greyish salty feel of ambergris. The result is basically “Scent Intense Oud & Patchouli” with a whiff of M7’s trademark ambery-medicinal oud.

Is it any good? Well, sort of. If you like Scent Intense, then that’s still way above this, as it smells richer, more quality and more fascinatingly complex, and also kind of more focused; if you don’t care for it, then Soul may be a slightly more peculiar than usual sort of “futuristic”, androgynous, dirty yet sort of “aseptic” take on oud and synthetic leather with an initially stomach-piercing galore of powdery-musky vanilla tinged with a nondescript candy vibe. A powerful sweetish musky candy with a drop of cheap smoky oud & patchouli, and an everlasting artificial and linear drydown... sounds familiar, eh? Nothing that probably some Middle Eastern drugstore brand isn’t already doing for ten dollars a bottle. Not abysmal, but go for Scent Intense anyway.

6-6,5/10

Two more picks from Costume National Scents

Here I reviewed Costume National best scent ever for me - here's another couple of very good ones.

Costume National 21

Year: 2007
Nose: IFF

The opening of 21 is not far from Scent Intense to some extent, you easily spot the same nose behind the two scents. An elusive and captivating potion of synthetics and naturals which smells completely new and futuristic to me, chic, modern, clean but not minimalist, rather dense and tasty. Basically it's a complex, yet incredibly harmonic and tight blend of milky white musks, violet, bergamot, perhaps aniseed, cedar and aromatic cozy woods (cashmeran), a patchouli note transfigured in a silky and dusty satin "synthesis" of it... Then vanillin, tonka, a tiny fruity heart halfway zesty, plummy and peachy (this is the main thing in common with Scent Intense, apart from the general style). Finally a light cumin spicy breeze arises, airy and thin. The contrasting interplay between the silky musks, the flowers, the spices and the dusty base notes is pure elegance and genius. Deeply aromatic and compact, some notes smell clear and sharp, some other incredibly blended one into another, the result is an utterly elegant, irresistible, milky, narcotic and dusty concoction, pure and pale but sexy and shady at the same time. A salty-mineral note of aldehydes gives the structure a contemporary metallic, almost iodine feel. Splendid materials and a talented nose for a refined, versatile, classy, sexy, incredibly good smelling, totally and genuinely "new", finally also decently-priced scent... What would you ask more?

8,5-9/10

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Scent

Year: 2002
Nose: Laurent Bruyere

A whiter, lighter, more delicate version of Scent Intense, with a more floral-linen soul and less darker contrasts, less warm-sticky ambery woods. Personally I prefer the Intense version (so basically my same review for that applies here too), as it sounds more interesting, fascinating and "stereo", but this may be a good lighter and more luminous alternative.

8/10

Scent Intense EDP by Costume National

Year: 2002
Nose: Laurent Bruyere

This fragrance completely got me. I had the same instant "feeling" I had with Cuiron, both the first time I tried it years ago, and when I bought myself a bottle some weeks ago after years of memories. Same "wow" vibe, which reminds me of the difference between loving a scent being totally blown away by it, and just liking it – that's a healthy reminder thanks to which I regularly sell some fragrances I realise I just "like". I thought of Cuiron also for a sort of slight and broad similarity between the two – same era, same "concept", same synthetic approach. I still think Cuiron was and is probably more daring and more "revolutionary", but Scent Intense comes just a tiny step below. Well however, Scent Intense has basically a perfect balance of two winning features: it's done extremely well, and smells terribly good. That kind of good you keep coming back to smell it and run buying a backup bottle. On my skin it's not that dark, though: it opens with a white-luminous, juicy and fruity accord of tea and hibiscus, which has basically a lively and fruity smell too, with a hint of spices (cloves, perhaps), a subtle balsamic vein, and a cozy, mellow, grey-black synthetic amber-woody base (I guess cashmeran, that sort of restrained velvety aromatic base aroma). After a while it also emerges a slight smoky note, and on the drydown, the salty taste of aldehydes gets a prominent role. The result is a nondescript blend which manages to be just a bit dark, dusty, "black" like if a drop of trisamber was used here, but at the same incredibly bright, dense and tasty, with the translucent aspect provided by aldehydes. Utterly sophisticated as well. I must admit it's quite hard to describe the scent, the best I can think of is a tea-amber bone-structure, slightly powdery, surely fruity-floral, with a palpable dose of aldehydes which gives a metallic-salty feeling. All in quite a unique way, let's say "minimalist-avantgarde", with a brilliant, smart and creative use of synthetics: the amber accord is not a classic, dusty, embracing, warm amber, instead it's a sort of black cube of with an ambery fog inside: that's the visual feeling. The smell is somehow that, but it feels restrained and "encapsulated" in an artificial layout. All the scent is actually a sort of geometrical and rather simple structure of synthetic notes, which however manage to smell simply and *terrifically* good, cozy and pleasant. Which is an ultra rare thing: usually such "avantgarde" scents do smell interesting, challenging, smart, fascinating, but in my opinion, they rarely manage to smell at the same time "good" and cozy in a classic, "popular" meaning (as a scent is supposed to smell, in the end: pleasant). For example, I am also a huge fan of Slumberhouse, but I doubt I'll ever get compliments on the subway for Zahd or Vikt – the are unbelievable scents, but they surely don't smell "good"; while instead, Scent Intense is the perfect "good-smelling" scent which may actually get you lots of compliments from "normal people". We are still lucky this unbelievable gem is still on sale, and for quite a decent price. Also, perfect projection (it's one of those scents you can better smell "in the sillage" than on skin) and long persistence. Surely worth a try! To me it was actually worth the blind buy.

9/10