Intriguant Patchouli by Parfumerie Générale {Perfume Review & Musings}
Intriguant Patchouli (Intriguing Patchouli) is my favorite scent so far amongst the offerings of Parfumerie Générale, a niche perfume house from France founded by perfumer-composer Pierre Guillaume. PG are the initials both for the perfumery and the perfumer's name.
The perfume created in 2005 contains top notes of mandarin, lemon, and Persian apple. The heart is particularly rich showcasing patchouli accented with ginger, cinnamon, sandalwood and further paired with a group of animalic notes that includes, civet, castoreum, and musk. The base rests on an accord of amber and musk enriched with benzoin and vanilla....
Intriguant Patchouli although composed with a wealth of notes that makes it one of the more complex PG perfumes offers a straightforward personality to my nose. It is a perfume for people who would be particularly appreciative of sharp powdery animalic perfumes.The patchouli is certainly present but does not dominate the scent. In this sense, it is an intriguing patchouli perfume, that is an atypical one.
My impressions of the perfume are simple. It is at first a musky patchouli, in equal parts it seems, that evolves into a powdery scent with discrete camphorous, medicinal nuances. Parfumerie Générale describes it as a chypre rendered in an animalic fashion and also as a powdery fragrance. The deeply animalic accord tinged with sleek powder is striking.
The citrus notes I feel after the initial stages rather than as the top notes. The powder with time takes on a sharp sexy character. We are not in the territory of cuddly powdery perfumes evocative of babies and clean bodies, nope. It is a womanly powdery trail, which means it suggests seduction, sex, fur, leather, and a whip in the hand rather. For your information, the image of the whip comes to my mind for this scent but not for Bandit by Piguet for example although the latter is considered like a whip of a perfume usually. So perfume-wearer, beware.
I find that it is the sharpness that, interestingly enough, is suggestive of leather, not the smell itself. I would say that it points to the qualities of leather rather than shows it. Then I detect a mix of fruit and church incense. The perfume is heady but not as much as some other of the PG perfumes which are sometimes a bit overwhelming. Some honeyed frutiness is more perceptible in the drydown but fortunately is held in check. The drydown is rounder, more amberey as the sharpness quiets down some. The longer drydown develops a resinous incensey character that is very good.
The perfume is a bit more pronounced than a skin scent but offers some of that quality as well as the perfume melds with the skin effortlessly.
The rarer aspect of this perfume for me is the all-out animalic accord which dares to include the stinkiest animalic excretions found in the creation all put together in an unabashed manner, the sacro-sainct trinity for the lover of feral animalic notes: civet, castoreum, and musk.
Intriguant Patchouli is available at Luckyscent, $80 for 50 ml, as well as on the Parfumerie Generale site.
