We went from Buddhist tranquility to chirpy, North American happiness via the crack of a riding crop over on YouTube the other day, with reviews of scents from Armani, Piguet and Clinique. Here’s a link to the video: Armani Prive Santal Dan Sha, Piguet Cravache edp, Piguet Zazen, Clinique Happy limited edition and Clinique Happy For Men reviews. For timestamps and further thoughts on the compositions, please keep reading.
Armani Prive Santal Dan Sha (Fabrice Pellegrin) 1:42
Piguet Zazen 15:33
Piguet Cravache edp 2023 23:23
Piguet Cravache edt circa 2010 29:18
Clinique Happy
(Rodrigo Flores-Roux, Jean-Claude Delville) 32:33
Clinique Happy For Men 41:18
It’s interesting comparing the Cliniques with Cravache edp, because the former are still very much of their time (reflecting the 90s’ love of ‘exotic’ fruit placed over space-filling shampoo musks) whereas the latter is trying to remain true to its original release context (1963) while simultaneously being appealing to modern tastes. That’s a tough feat to pull off, and whereas there’s no doubt that the new Cravache is a likeable, wearable woody-aromatic, it is perhaps a touch too eager to please in order to be truly memorable and distinctive.
Far more interesting is Zazen, which somehow locates starchiness as the point of commonality between green apple, steamed rice and tonka bean, and then uses this unexpected link to make an intriguing statement on 21st peacefulness. With a similarly spiritual bent, Santal Dan Sha takes the herbaceous, charcoal-y sandalwood note known so well from Le Labo Santal 33 and covers it with a sprinkling of temperature-lowering cardamom. Both are well worth checking out.
Persolaise
[Samples provided by the brands in 2023.]
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I only own two perfumes from Armani Prive: Bois Encens and Iris Celadon.
They’re both good ones!