Tuesday, January 26, 2010

SOTD: Balmain Ivoire (Quick sniff)

Photo of a flowering sprig of oregano.
After ignoring the bottle almost since its arrival, today I finally doused myself thoroughly with Balmain Ivoire.

Last time, the green aspects were bitter - pleasantly so. This time, out in the cold and with a more generous application, they were more herbal - again, pleasantly so. It was as if oregano, sage, and rosemary had some common descendent, with perhaps mint far, far back in the genealogy.

I liked it very much. And this is a quick post, so I'll leave it at that.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: By Franz Xaver. Wikimedia Commons.

4 comments:

  1. I bought an unsniffed bottle of Ivoire edt last spring - Cheap! Recommended! Why not! - and then was so appalled by the juxtaposition of soapy and mossy in its heart that it sat unused for several weeks. Then one humid Saturday I knew I'd be spending in the sun, watching various offspring attempt to hit baseballs, I grabbed it and spritzed. The humidity did such wonderful things to it that I reversed my position immediately.

    I wore it long enough that day to actually experience the beautiful rich drydown - and now I know that I don't do well with chypres or anything mossy, EXCEPT in humid weather. Then, they're perfect.

    (I also recently picked up a vintage mini parfum, but haven't tried it yet. Looking forward to it.)

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  2. I have bought not one, but THREE minis of Ivoire in a bid to bond with it, and even sent one back to the Ebay seller, declaring it to be off. Yet in truth with all three I got various degrees of urinous saddles, coupled with floral soapiness. Not a felicitous combination.

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  3. Hmm, I don't think I tried it in humid weather - trip to Florida called for, preceded by another Ebay trawl.

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  4. Mals, that's interesting. It did seem like almost a different scent in the cold - does cold air tend to be less humid? Or, wait, same relative humidity in the cold means less water? It's been too long since I was in science class. Anyway, very different scent, I just happen to like both scents. And it seems to transform a little more than average through its life cycle, too.

    Flittersniffer, I don't know why I like it, because I also get floral soapiness, though not the urinous saddles. (Oog.) And I normally hate soap and am a little iffy about florals. Maybe it's the galbanum - it has galbanum, doesn't it? That'll sell me on almost anything. Though it didn't fix Le Temps D'une Fete for me, sadly.

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