Penhaligon's Elixir?

[Obsessed]

What's the deal with this stuff? I like eucalyptus and cardamom, but I have trouble imagining them working very well in a cologne.

 

[jonnyt]

It's really nice.
Opens quite sweet, almost feminine but very quickly settles into a spicy and very interesting cologne, quite unlike anything else I own and nothing like any of the other Penhaligon's.
Smells very rich and well balanced so you can't really pick any of the individual ingredients easily.
My wife is very hard to please with my colognes and this is one of her favourites on me.

 

[lsbrodsky]

My wife also likes Elixir on me, but I cannot live with the oriental-style lingering scent. At least I concluded that with one of their sample vials.
Larry

 

[tsmba]

I like the Elixer, too. I've tried a number of scents created by Olivia Giacobetti and I love her work. She's done a number of the L'Artisan scents (Dzing, Fou d'Absinthe, etc) and Lubin's Idole. I'm not knowledgeable enough to describe her style, but she definitely has one. Check out the reviews on BN by SomervilleMetroMan. He is also a fan, and writes excellent reviews to boot!

 

[Isaac]

i wanted to like Elixir, but couldnt get past the Eucalyptus...which never went away with the drydrown for me.. YMMV

 

[Evbo]

I took a whiff of this stuff @ Saks & passed. Not my taste.

 

[FLTiger]

My wife doesn't care for eucalyptus in any shape, form, or fashion. I best not even sample the stuff.

 

[pcb01]

Elixir is one of the (very) few Pen scents I do not have and do not want.

 

[The Knize]

All I have had of Elixir is the 1 ml or whatever Pen's sent me for free. At the time Pen's was being pretty generous with samples and I think I got a vial each of virtually all of their masculine and unisex scents, except Douro, Quercus, Endymion, and LP No. 9. (I guess Pen's has taken LP No. 9 back off the market again. I never did get to smell it.) I do not remember whether the sample set included English Fern or not. Probably not.

I know from experience now that I am going to jinx this for you, Obsessed, by liking it myself, but here we go.

I really liked it from that small sample. It is supposed an homage to Hammam Bouquet, which I completely "get" in Elixir. HB seems very old world, and dry, and dusty. A dirty fragrance for such. I like HB now, but I did not like it all that much at first.

Elixir seems very modern in structure. Clean, forward, assertive. Lots going on, and often hard to pick out specific accords, but in balance. Seems very oriental to me. Relatively tenacious. Lots and lots of evolution on the skin. In other words not linear at all. Elixir may well have been my favorite of all the the Pen's frags I had samples of at that time. At the time I would not have imagined that of all the Pen's scents, Elixir hardly ever comes up. It seems to me that it ought to be popular and controverial.

I have not seen any decant available except from the pricy Perfurmed Court. Infequently available on EBay. I do not know why it does not get much mention and seems harder to get than most Pen's frags. I do know that Pen's seems to confuse things about it For instance, is there a separate men's and a women's expression of it now. I am sure when they started it was one unisex version.

I do not think that 1 ml is enough up on which to base a comprehensive conclusion evaluation. But I think I really dig it!

 

[tsmba]

Try looking on the BaseNotes community. Most participants will sell decants, its how they support their habits I'd get a 8-10ml decant for a good testing experience.

 

[The Knize]

Try looking on the BaseNotes community. Most participants will sell decants, its how they support their habits I'd get a 8-10ml decant for a good testing experience.

I agree and definitely agree on the amount! How do prices from various Basenotes folks compare to BadgerDecant's prices? Seems to me that BadgerDecant is pretty affordable when all is said and done, whereas PerfumedCourt, for instance, is truly impressive and unmatched from what I have seen as to selection, availabilty of scents not sold in the US, discountinued, or rare for other reasons, etc., but PC's prices are rather breathtaking even for run of the mill items! I assume that, in part, that by keeping its prices very high, PC avoids friction with major scent houses over selling decants at all. Scents are a weird business, it seems to me, with lots of competing customs and values. Probably no product out there has its sales price so divorced from the actual cost of manufacturing the product.

I assume the trick is to find someone that has enough in the ways of decant sales to buy large bottles and get the enormous economies of scale as to price per ml available by doing that, but who is not trying to absolutely maximize profit. That is someone "large" but who has "small shop" values/goals. Seems like a tough mix of characteristics to find!

 

[tsmba]

Its easy to call TPC "expensive", until you actually try decanting scents. I felt the same way until I hosted a scent split. People think in terms of purchase price/volume to arrive at a $/ml figure. Then, there is the cost of atomizers and mailing. What gets left out is the work involved decanting. I learned (the hard way, of course) that its not so easy decanting, especially from spray bottles. Ripping off a sprayer ruins the bottle, so you have to spray into a funnel. This isn't so easy....there's a fair amount wasted and it takes time.
BN offers multiple ways to find what you need. You may look at sale ads, post requests, or do swaps. They also have an informal rating system (like TSD) so you can read feedback others have posted. If you need a name, check into "Muddasir"....he has excellent service and pricing and a fine reputation.
If you simply view decant prices based on what a full bottle costs, you'll be disappointed. Factor the intangibles and other costs....and always the value of testing to prevent bad blind buys, decant costs will seem MUCH more reasonable!

 

[The Knize]

Its easy to call TPC "expensive", until you actually try decanting scents. I felt the same way until I hosted a scent split. People think in terms of purchase price/volume to arrive at a $/ml figure. Then, there is the cost of atomizers and mailing. What gets left out is the work involved decanting. I learned (the hard way, of course) that its not so easy decanting, especially from spray bottles. Ripping off a sprayer ruins the bottle, so you have to spray into a funnel. This isn't so easy....there's a fair amount wasted and it takes time.
BN offers multiple ways to find what you need. You may look at sale ads, post requests, or do swaps. They also have an informal rating system (like TSD) so you can read feedback others have posted. If you need a name, check into "Muddasir"....he has excellent service and pricing and a fine reputation.
If you simply view decant prices based on what a full bottle costs, you'll be disappointed. Factor the intangibles and other costs....and always the value of testing to prevent bad blind buys, decant costs will seem MUCH more reasonable!

I think decants are a great deal. And I really appreciate the efforts folks have gone to on on splits. And no great dis to Perfumed Court. Their breadth is truly amazing. All I am saying is that, with some patience, one can usually do a lot better pricewise than PC. Also, I assume that PC is a large enough scale business that it can purchase the very largest bottle and thus get the best prices per ml. And I have no idea how PC really does their decants, but they may well be a lot more automated than spraying into a funnel for individual 5 ml decants! Again I am very grateful to those that have taken individual efforts and proved truly excellent deals to B&B members like me.

 

[tsmba]

I believe TPC is a partnership of three women. I've placed three orders, and each has come in at least three separate mailings. It appears each sender has their own stock of scents. The largest bottle of any fragrance I've encountered has been one liter. That would be an interesting question to ask them....how do you buy your scents?

 

[kingfisher]

Another voice of support for Mudassir. I recently ordered a decant of Endymion from him. Great service, good pricing. No complaints whatsoever. Good guy with a wide variety of scents.

If you are looking for a decant, send him an e-mail and inquire about it. He can be reached at [email protected].

 

[The Knize]

I believe TPC is a partnership of three women. I've placed three orders, and each has come in at least three separate mailings. It appears each sender has their own stock of scents. The largest bottle of any fragrance I've encountered has been one liter. That would be an interesting question to ask them....how do you buy your scents?

<how do you buy your scents?>

Trade secrets for them, I hope! That is, I hope they can get better deals than the rest of us. I think they list that they buy Creed from certain well-known and authorized sources, which they list by name. But that does not mean they are paying over-the-counter prices.

Wow, a liter! I have never seen that. I think I have heard of 400 and maybe 500 ml. Cheers!

 

[tsmba]

I would guess that re-sellers get wholesale pricing on regular bottles. An interesting question would be to find out what the scent houses think of decants? I have yet to see a bottle that isn't designed to foil easy decanting. I thought my spray-into-a-funnel method was crude, then I discovered that's how others do it.
You can wrench the sprayer off the bottle, but then its history.

 

[The Knize]

<An interesting question would be to find out what the scent houses think of decants.>

EBay bars decants. I suspect that part of the reason for that is pressure from the scent houses.

<You can wrench the sprayer off the bottle, but then its history.>

But I doubt that Perfumed Court is going to care about preserving the sprayer if it speeds up decanting to remove it. I can see how the individual decanters, doing decants on a lower scale, would be interested in preserving the sprayer and bottle intact.

 

[Not4you]

Elixir smells like my sweat the day after a hard night of beer drinking. It opens nice but has a beer-booze undertone that is not to my taste.

 

[Emmett]

Its easy to call TPC "expensive", until you actually try decanting scents. I felt the same way until I hosted a scent split. People think in terms of purchase price/volume to arrive at a $/ml figure. Then, there is the cost of atomizers and mailing. What gets left out is the work involved decanting. I learned (the hard way, of course) that its not so easy decanting, especially from spray bottles. Ripping off a sprayer ruins the bottle, so you have to spray into a funnel. This isn't so easy....there's a fair amount wasted and it takes time.
BN offers multiple ways to find what you need. You may look at sale ads, post requests, or do swaps. They also have an informal rating system (like TSD) so you can read feedback others have posted. If you need a name, check into "Muddasir"....he has excellent service and pricing and a fine reputation.
If you simply view decant prices based on what a full bottle costs, you'll be disappointed. Factor the intangibles and other costs....and always the value of testing to prevent bad blind buys, decant costs will seem MUCH more reasonable!

Thanks for the explanation. I was wondering how that worked with spray top bottles.