Year: 2011
Nose: Christopher Sheldrake
Super harsh opening, pungent green notes, raw freshly-cut carnation flowers, a massive aldehydes feel, all in a trasparent, metallic, vibrant cloud, with a slightly sweet base. The carnation is powerful, vivid and biting, surrounded by spices (cloves and pepper) and a tasty, savoury bittersweet note of pimiento. The softer base of vanilla and ylang comes in shape and emerges as minutes pass, slowly turning the fragrance in a sweeter and almost slightly milky tanning cream-like scent (I recall Un bois vanille). The middle phase is basically a talcum-musky fairly pleasant and sweet take on the initial accord - meaning that it's still all there, just "emulsified" in a sweeter shape. The evolution is a bit odd and almost "sea-roving", it ranges from metallic to sweet than switching back to a dry green/floral, then ending back again to a musky sweet drydown, which eventually dries and settles in a discomforting floral/medicinal accord. And frankly I do not enjoy any of these passages in particular, it's like watching a movie with people yelling and moving in front of the screen – the movie is carnation and the rest is, well, all the rest that surrounds (or better say, covers) it here. Plus I don't get any "feeling" in particular - it's not refined, not pleasant, not "ironic", not evocative... not even shady or masculine or avant-garde. Not that it has to be some of these, it's just that it's more kind of a sequence of smells, none of which achieves any result in terms of identity. A bit too much, in a bit too much unclear concept. If you like carnation, you'd better go CdG's Carnation - an unbeatable quintessential tribute to this beautiful flower.
5/10
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