Gents --
While hoofing around the city on Black Friday (don't ask), I happened upon Frederic Malle's new Upper East Side boutique. It's a very cool space. But the best thing about it is the way you can check out the fragrances.
There are 3 ventilated "scent booths" (click on "our stores") in the store. These are round, plexiglass cylinders reaching nearly to ceiling. There's a sliding door approximately halfway up the tube. The salesperson opens the door, sprays a bit of fragrance, closes the door for a few seconds, and then opens it again for you. When you stick your nose in, you're told that what you smell is an approximation of what others will smell when they're around you. And, for this potential customer at least, it seemed to be a very effective way of gauging a fragrance in terms of its overall strength & thus its real-world effect upon others.
Other than the fact that they're pricey, I'm not overly familiar with Malle's scents. I asked the saleswoman -- who was extremely low-key & knowledgeable, btw -- what she had in the way of sandalwood. She pointed me to their Vetiver Extraordinaire, which she said is "faceted with sandalwood and other woods."
Upon sticking my honker into one of their ventilation booths, I was greeted with a pleasant, low-key woody aroma that was neither too strong nor too weak. Unfortunately my scent vocabulary isn't strong enough to precisely articulate it (check some of the reviews on Basenotes for that if you like). Suffice it to say that to me, it was an understated, clean, woody masculine fragrance that I liked very much. Unfortunately they were out of samples (figures) but she told me they should be getting in more samples within the next couple of weeks.
It's pricey stuff -- $220/100ml, $145/50ml -- but high quality. At least, it smelled that way to me.
Are any of you familiar with this stuff? And if so, what do you think?
While hoofing around the city on Black Friday (don't ask), I happened upon Frederic Malle's new Upper East Side boutique. It's a very cool space. But the best thing about it is the way you can check out the fragrances.
There are 3 ventilated "scent booths" (click on "our stores") in the store. These are round, plexiglass cylinders reaching nearly to ceiling. There's a sliding door approximately halfway up the tube. The salesperson opens the door, sprays a bit of fragrance, closes the door for a few seconds, and then opens it again for you. When you stick your nose in, you're told that what you smell is an approximation of what others will smell when they're around you. And, for this potential customer at least, it seemed to be a very effective way of gauging a fragrance in terms of its overall strength & thus its real-world effect upon others.
Other than the fact that they're pricey, I'm not overly familiar with Malle's scents. I asked the saleswoman -- who was extremely low-key & knowledgeable, btw -- what she had in the way of sandalwood. She pointed me to their Vetiver Extraordinaire, which she said is "faceted with sandalwood and other woods."
Upon sticking my honker into one of their ventilation booths, I was greeted with a pleasant, low-key woody aroma that was neither too strong nor too weak. Unfortunately my scent vocabulary isn't strong enough to precisely articulate it (check some of the reviews on Basenotes for that if you like). Suffice it to say that to me, it was an understated, clean, woody masculine fragrance that I liked very much. Unfortunately they were out of samples (figures) but she told me they should be getting in more samples within the next couple of weeks.
It's pricey stuff -- $220/100ml, $145/50ml -- but high quality. At least, it smelled that way to me.
Are any of you familiar with this stuff? And if so, what do you think?
