Hold Your Nez, Part Deux

Review by Tom Last time I reviewed 5 of La Nez's scents, this time I will review the other 5 in the pack: Fôret de Bécharré: Starts off smelling rather, well, elderly. It's very soft, still sweet, but has some amber in there. I get some very vague citrus note, but it seems that there is a lot in there than kind of cancels each other out like an acid and a base. It's nice, but I wouldn't go out my way to get it. Rosier Ardent: I wanted to write "well now we're takling!", since there is a great initial blast of cumin, cardamom and cedar in this one. Sadly, that fades and it goes all cinnamon sweetness, like something that you'd hang from your car's rearview mirror for the holidays. Damn. Atelier D’Artiste: Starts off with a really nice vetiver/tobacco thing, then goes suddenly, horrifyingly sweet, with something that smells to me like menthol. Like the scene in "The Shining" when Jack finds the woman in room 227. Run!!! Actually, this one dries down to the best of the bunch, just not good enough to go through getting it from France. Marron Chic: Another one that lists about 24 different notes in it, none of which I can discern. What I get is the smell of Tempera paints. It however is heavenly compared to: Bouche Baie: Starts off with a blast of sweetness that goes beyond cotton-candy into, I don't know what- an industrial sweetness that men in lab coats would add using an eye-dropper (and dressed in hazmat suits) to large vats that eventually be made into children's cereal. After a few minutes, it drops down to merely diabetic coma. I really don't enjoy dogging a house this way (although from the writing you might get the idea that I do), and if you like candy-sweetness, perhaps these will be just up your alley. I find that the sweetness in these is rather industrial smelling; more than a few of them remind me of cereals that my parents wouldn't have in the house. I find it surprising that a French house did these. They not only don't smell what I think of as French, they smell like something Dow would put out. Or Mattell. Adding the loooooong shipping time, lack of communication on the shippers part (emails were not returned; I wasn't concerned about $15 worth of samples, but I'd be more concerned about a 79 EU bottle), and shockingly shoddy packaging, I'm afraid that I can't say anything much nice about the house or the experience. The scents are priced as mentioned above for 3.4 oz at their website, if you dare. * The images are from geocities.com/womenofhorror