SOTD: Rochas Tocade

I've never understood the appeal of Rochas Tocade. Luca Turin loves it. Everyone else seems to love it. And it's inexpensive, so I bought a bottle unsniffed, and was disappointed - in everything but the whacky bottle itself, which I love. Today, I sprayed lots on with the expectation that I would add Tocade to the giveaway list.

Maybe overspraying was the key to success. On previous wearings, I smelled this as uninviting synthetic rose, fading to nonspecific "Yeah, there's still some perfume there" basenotes. This time, the dubious rose was veiled by better things - I got more of the vanilla, and something else that might be the magnolia and lily of the valley. As the flowers faded to the background, the end was musky powder, something that I normally hate, but not this time. Maybe the overspray gave me enough patchouli and cedar to reconcile me to powder, just as the coconut and sandalwood in Cadjmere lead me to love the powder in that fragrance.

So I'm declaring it to be a powder-musk-wood fragrance, not a rose scent. Using that definition, I enjoyed the last few hours, and I can imagine that with a few more wearings, I could grow fond of this. So I'm keeping it. And I still love that bottle.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By JM Suarez. Wikimedia Commons.