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Thursday, October 26, 2006

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

19 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello,
I read what you wrote about Nez à Nez (2d review, by Tom).
Bof! as we say in France. I don't find your criticisms very pertinent. What's more, the choice of the pictures is thoughtless, I think.
But it's your opinion. We were used to smarter ideas from this blog. I think as a relay of the brand for readers abroad France that cannot smell the products, it's very amateur.
Personaly, I smelled them and I think at least 6 of the 10 fragrances bring a new look upon fragrance.
Best,
ambroxan

7:23 AM EDT  
Blogger lilybp said...

Agree completely! The only one I liked at all was the Atelier--and I noticed that I have never been moved to wear it again.

7:51 AM EDT  
Blogger elle said...

I think you hit it on the head - these scents should have come from Mattell. They seem far too tooth achingly sweet to have come from a French house.

8:13 AM EDT  
Blogger Marina said...

Dear Ambroxan,
Sorry we don't agree on this line of scents. And I am so sad you didn't like the pictures. I thought they would be such a nice touch just before Halloween.

8:34 AM EDT  
Blogger marchlion said...

Well, I'M enjoying you dogging the house. It can't all be hugs and air kisses, can it? Plus, that's the point of a blog -- you can write what you want... on a certain level, what does it matter if we like different things? Even Colombina forgave me eventually (I think) for ragging on Marina de Bourbon (which, dang, I keep meaning to retry.)

10:31 AM EDT  
Blogger Marina said...

March,
I forgave, but I did not forget "the rubber feet dipped in amber" :-)

(Tom, I will stop butting in to your comments now)

10:34 AM EDT  
Blogger Kelley said...

Tom, great review. Sounds like ambroxan (one of my favorite scent chemicals often used as a substitute for the very expensive ambergris) woke up on the wrong side of the bed! As I always say...it's one thing to "dog" a fragrance and quite another to criticize a human being. If he/she didn't like your reviews, he/she could have just disagreed. Ambroxan probably works for Nez a Nez!

11:05 AM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I enjoyed your dogging...you do it well! And, ambroxan aside, it sounds like they deserve the ragging they got. Fragrance quality is often debatable (perhaps not in this case), poor customer service is not!

11:52 AM EDT  
Blogger tmp00 said...

Ambroxan-

I wish I could have gotten from them what you did. Sadly, I got variotions on a cloying mess, and it does not make me happy to type that: I was really looking forward to these and hoping they would be great.

As to the picture, that was Columbina's coice, but mine was not nearly as polite.

11:57 AM EDT  
Blogger tmp00 said...

Lily-

Of them, I think there were a couple that could have worked for me: Rosier Ardent had a great opening and Atelier D’Artiste had a nice opening and a great drydown, but both of them went so hideously sweet within moments that I finally know what people who loathe Miel de Bois must be experiencing.

12:01 PM EDT  
Blogger tmp00 said...

Elle-

I really didn't have fun with these, and I was truly saddened by that.

12:02 PM EDT  
Blogger tmp00 said...

March-

No, we can't be all hugs. I just hate having practically so little nice to say about someone's baby.

As long as you don't profess deep love for wearing PoTL in heavy Air Conditioning, I think you're okay ;-)

12:04 PM EDT  
Blogger tmp00 said...

Ambroxan might work for them; which makes me feel worse that I simply had nothing good to say about the scents. Can't help it. They're just not my cuppa tea (Or high-fructose corn syrup, sugar and polydextrose, as it were..)

12:07 PM EDT  
Blogger tmp00 said...

Sybil-

Thank you. I am unwilling to debate the fragrances, I will leave them to those that like them. The customer service aspect, however, was not great. That is an area where they can immediatley improve.

12:09 PM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for your comments. Sorry you didn't like my tune.
No, I don't work with Nez à Nez.
I can understand what you feel with this brand. I admit the way the scents are presented seemed to be 'particular' and that I don't like the very fruity ones like Ambre à Sade or Bouche Baie.
As a Frenchman maybe, I must have a different way of seeing perfumery. As I said to Robin last week end, perfume industry is very often attacked 'from outside'.If you guys who love perfume decide to assault on it whenever it's possible, perfume is still going to have tough days to come.

3:00 PM EDT  
Blogger tmp00 said...

I don't want to appear mean-spirited, but a bad review is not an "assault", from the inside or the outside. It is merely one person's opinion, and apparently one that is shared by a few others.

Whether I was a Frenchman, an Albanian, an American or a resident of Alpha Centauri, I would still find these not to my taste.

3:08 PM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello,

We are several french forumers and we discover Nez à Nez last year. We are more than fifty writers to follow their evolution. And we like them.

Personnaly, I wear three of Nez à Nez 's perfumes. Vanithé, Ambre à Sade and Marron Chic.

I don't think that Marron Chic go nowhere. It started for me like the best cocoa scent I ever scent. It's velouty, powdery. Iris is completely perceptible and great.

I'm fed up to read about "intelligentsia". I like sugar in perfume and I'm not alone. Each time a fruity sugar scent is launched, bloggers dogged them like a bad perfumes. Before Luca Turin explain that Angel is a beautiful perfumes, we read that is completely vulgar. Look around you and maybe you'll see what people think: Scents are completely emotional, personnal and subjective. Damage that this is often forgotten.


Ellena

1:14 PM EDT  
Blogger tmp00 said...

Ellena-

I am very glad that these work for you. They don't for me.

Do you condsider Miel de Bois not to be a sweet scent? I feel that it is, and I adore it. What about Aomassai?

8:57 PM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How very strange that blogs are now "assaulted" (LOL) by obvious shills of the perfume house being criticized in a review. BTW, ambroxan is, as a substitute for ambergris, so lacking in charm, the subtle sweetness, milkiness, seaweed and feminine notes of true ambergris that even newbie amateur perfumers are rejecting it. Just sayin'

9:11 AM EST  

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