Comme des Garcons - Daphne

I almost tought that I would like Comme des Garcons new scent Daphne as much as By Kilian´s Back to Black, but no.


I think it smells horrible. At least the first hours. And it smell so strange I would almost suspect that it was something wrong with my sample, but I doubt that.


Happy and curious I am about to try Daphne for the first time, dab on a few drops and... Waits... sniffs... and... uuuueeeh? Well, ok there is a quite likeable citrus scent there but it is pretty much covered by a smell of slightly rancid deep frying oil. Right, Comme des Garcons Daphne smells of rancid deep frying oil! I think it´s really strange and suspect there must be something wrong with my sense of smell. Ask the husband and he smell my wrist and goes... Uuuuh, sorry but I think it smells like rancid butter, he says, is it some kind of cheap perfume oil? I wish, but no, it is a expensive perfume actually.


Everyone I ask think it smells rancid on me. After about half an hour I can almost sense a beautiful scent of orange covered tuberose, sorry enough also totally covered with rancid oil that also turned into something like melting plastic. This is really, really bad. I could have washed it off, but still to curious about what to come and after all, it doesn´t smell any worse than working in the kitchen at a fast food restaurant (without getting paid tough).


Daphne is shortly speaking a very frustrating olfactory experience. After about 3-4 hours the orange-tuberose starting to overpowering the oil and plastic, even tough I can smell the oil thing trough out the perfume. Daphne is extremly long-lasting and after about 12 hours it smells really good on me. The basenote is very warm, rich, pretty, sensual and exciting. But not worth waiting for tough.


I guess that Daphne don´t mixes well with my skinchemistry. Probably it smells really good on most people. But really, try before you buy! I am a little envious with the people that Daphne smells good on.


Well, that wasn´t a positive review was it? And I´ve got more to come, another dissapointing experience was Parfums d'Empire´s Wazamba. But more about that another day.

Pic: Palace chinese

Comme des Garcons - Avignon

The picture above shows the Popes´Palace in Avignon. Doesn´t look that cozy if you ask me, I guess hoem decorating wasn´t that big in the 14th century. But I´m sure the Popes´Palace have a lot of interesting rooms.

Space, greatness and a ceratin atmosphere you might find in churches. The biggest church I´ve visit is St Pauls cathedral in London, it´s quite a time ago, but the space under the big dome is impressing. A small countryside church doesn´t have the same space, but there is something special about the atmosphere in chuches even if the church isn´t so big. It would surprise me if that kind of atmosphere wouldn´t to be found in other holy buildings like temples, synagogues and mosques.

Comme des Garcon´s Insence-serie is probably CdG´s most popular line. It consists of five different perfumes; Kyoto, Jaisalmer, Zagorsk, Ouarzazate and Avignon, each of them representing one of the big world religions. Kyoto: buddhism and shintoism, Jaisalmer: hinduism, Zagorsk: christian orthodoxy, Ouarzazate, islam and Avignon: catholicism. The protestantism isn´t among them, because incense isn´t used in the protestantic rituals.

Avignon is said to smell like a catholic church, and I have nothing to say about that. But, what I really think it´s succeed with, is that it manage to smell like the space in a catholic church, or the space in any big, stone building. Avignon manage to be a perfume filled with both emptiness, space and atmosphere. The space in Avignon is filled with that kind of atmosphere created by thousands of candles being burned in that space trough the years. An atmosphere of golden carvings, mural painting with flake off medeival paint and wooden benches so weared down by all the butts sitting on them during the years. An atmosphere of cold and thick stonewalls that has experienced the seasons changing for hundreds of years. A scented atmosphere of a space where incense has trough it´s fragrance in to the smallest corner, where the wooden benches would smell of it for a long time if they where carried out in the sunshine. An atmosphere filled with prayers and holy singing. An atmosphere of holyness.

Yes, i find a greatness in Avignon that´s discouraging. Why should an agnostic like me go around and smell of magnificent holyness? I find myself to easy, on the border to profane something I don´t belive in. A beliving catholic maybe find comfort and ease in Avignon? I don´t really being comfortable with going around smelling like a magnificent and holy building either.

Well yes, I have an odd drawing towards Avignon. In almost the same way as I, raised in a not very religious home in a secular protestantic country still can feel an attraction to catholicism as a religion. The great and beautiful you doesn´t really encounter in protestantic churches and far less if you don´t even visit them. The secret chanting on latin. The saints. The greatness of Virgin Mary. The confession, oh, to be forgiven. But there is also doubble moral standards and hypocritic beliefs, questionable priests and modern people with one foot still left in medeival mysticism.

Well, you realise that people that think that perfume is only a scented experience, doesn´t smell the same way as I do. To me a perfume can be as throwing a stone i a calm lake, making rings on the surface. Of course, not all perfumes has that ability, but CdG´s Avignon sure has it.

Comme des Garcons 2

You know that kind of ink blots used within psychiatry? It´s called rorchachstest and consists of symmetric ink blots that one´s supposed to look at and then say what you think they look like. A lot of people see puppies playing with balls, or strange flowers or exotic birds other see a coupple of perverted siamese twins or a maneating vagina. I think the last examples isn´t that good, so if you see something like that in the ink blots above, maybe you should really consider go talking to someone. What I see? Well, honestly I think most of the blots above looks like strange, messed up butterflies, wxcept for one... eh, let´s skip that, shall we?

Comme des Garcons perfumes will always have a special place for me, since they was the first perfumes that makes me realise there was a whole niche world out there. At this point I have some CdG favourites, but also some I don´t care about at all. But there are also a lot of them still to be tested.

When it comes to CdG 2 I have been quite slow. Noty because I don´t find it interesting, but others has come in my way. But finally I´ve got me a sample of it, and what about it? Oh, it is really fine!

I wish I have encountered it earlier. I´ve only tried it a coupple of times, but it allready become a favourite among the first CdG perfumes. CdG Parfum is a little to much on me, and CdG 3 is one of my sublime favourites, but honestly it is too sublime from time to time. CdG 2 is somewhere in between.

It is the smell of wet black ink, shadows of incense, silhouttes, strenght, soft caressing petals, elusive and straight forward at the same time. It has one thing in common with CdG 3, it is hard to get. And it don´t want to get catched. Leave this fragrance alone, because if you start hunting it with your nose and come to close, it will only end up like a messy blur. Like a rorchachs blot, if you look on it for to long and start thinking about what you see, it´s only become a messy blot of ink.

When having CdG 2 on a little distant, it start´s singing on my skin, changes, develops and become more and more intriguing. Trying to savor it, only a strange muddle is left.

CdG 2 has the strenght in common with CdG Parfum, I imagine by testing CdG 2 I come a little closer to understanding of CdG Parfum. CdG 2 is the bridge between the overdosed spicy CdG Parfum and the elusive, green floral CdG 3. I imagine a relation that makes the whole serie much more interesting, a sum bigger then the parts in it. So CdG 2 was an aha-experience for me. (I´m sure hundreds of perfume lovers has discovered this before me, but for it´s new)

Some of my disliked perfumes.

I am quite entusiasthic as a person, especially when it comes to perfumes. Readers of my blog can easily belive that I really looooooove everything that I encounter, but that is of course not true. Among ten tried perfumes, maybe I swoon about 1 or 2 at most. Sometimes, even if it is rare, I come across an entire line that I really like, as Odori. The usual is that among ten perfume I find about 6-7 ok, nice but not at all good enough to make me go ooooooh. From time to time I even come across perfumes I don´t manage to wear at all, all I want is to run and scrub myself.

Today it´s time to write about the perfumes I´ve come across during the winter and that I don´t like at all. I know I´ve write very positive about some of the oils from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, but I´ve also experienced oils from BPAL that is horrible. Do you feel like smelling like poison mushroom, slowly rottening and molding in a damp cave? Well, then I think you should try Destroying Angel from BPAL. Honestly, I didn´t think it was really a scrubber, but my husband tought it smell like a relative when he has a hangover, so my husband beg me to wash it away, so of course I did. Another from BPAL I have to scrub off was Oya. It smell like something acrid, sedating and headache inducing, the closest I can think of is some kind of narcotic tranquiliser. Not good! Both Oya and Destroying Angel make me shrud when I think about them. The picture above is of Destroying Angel, I find it quite beautiful, but it is one of the poison mushrooms killing most people in US what I can find out. Obviuosly among the one´s that eats mushrooms, I guess more people die of heart diseases and cancer, but you get it.

Another disapointment was Hermes Eau de Merveilles, not a scrubber, but so boring. I try to like it, many do, but on me it smells like something old and stale. Rue de Cambon from Chanel is also a bad one on me, something in it make me think of wet diapers and something moldy. Thanks, but no thanks.

And, Amouage, oh really. For 195 euro/bottle I do expect something more than a nice and strong floral! I have only tried Gold and Lyric, but they don´t manage to make me curious about the others.

And also, CdGs Stephen Jones, that I loiked so much when I´ve got the sample a coupple of months ago. I tried it again some days ago, and no, it didn´t do anything for me no more. It was so artificial and cold, all I could think of was that it would stop smelling.

Well, one good thing is that I´ve order Luckyscent´s samplepack with Le Labo perfumes. I am looking forward to try them finally, it was about time, wasn´t it?