Parfum d’Empire Cuir Ottoman

Cuir Ottoman was a leather recommended to me by a friend who said that if I wasn’t already obsessed with leather then I would be once I smelled this.

Cuir Ottoman

Cuir Ottoman

In Bottle: Leather, nice and smooth with a warm and soft quality. A bit of floral layering in the back that helps the leather pull away from its often “too strong” personality. The mix is very nice.

Applied: Leather, soft and smooth and yielding. This isn’t too strong or too evident as the florals in this–a jasmine with iris blend–help temper the leather even more. The leather is definitely the star of the show though as it reminds me of a well-loved old leather jacket passing through a field of flowers. It’s one of the better done leathers out there, that actually mimics the real scent very well. It is also a very good balance in almost every category, making this a good unisex fragrance. As the scent heads toward its end stage, there’s a smokiness that amps up that I’m guessing is the resin and incense giving the leather fragrance a smoky quality.

Extra: Cuir Ottoman is very nicely done and really well-balanced. I have no complaints about its composition as it’s just so nicely done. The fragrance was released in 2006.

Design: Parfums d’Empire’s bottle designs seem pretty similar to each other. Tall glass, an accented cap. I can’t complain about the functionality, but the form was a little bland. Still, the same thing could be said about most niche houses. You buy it for the juice and not the design. Unless you’re buying an Agonist perfume, then we all know.

Fragrance Family: Floral Leather Oriental

Notes: Jasmine, leather, iris, benzoin, balsams, resins, incense.

So Cuir Ottoman is definitely worth a shot. It’s a great scent that’s wonderfully composed. But in so far as making me obsess about leathers, we’ll have to wait on that one.

Reviewed in This Post: Cuir Ottoman,  2010, Eau de Parfum.


Jean Desprez Bal a Versailles

People hunt down bottles of Bal à Versailles to see what it smells like. I have to say some of these people probably do it because they’re curious about the perfume Michael Jackson wore. Hard to blame them for being curious, but amongst some of the more popular opinions include, “This doesn’t smell like how I’d imagine Michael Jackson would smell like” and “This smells weird”.

Bal à Versailles

In Bottle: It opens as an aromatic animalic. Love how that rolls off the tongue. Rosemary is prominent at first, followed by a very light dust of florals that are accompanied by a dark animalic undertone.

Applied: Get used to that dark animalic undertone as it will accompany you on your olfactory quest. The rosemary is quick to open up and for me, the rosemary stuck around in the top notes and fled as the mid-stage introduces a very classic smelling floral. Powder and flowers, sultry, dark, sensual. The florals are joined by a smooth series of woods that keep this fragrance somewhat unisex. This is a masquerade party in the form of a perfume. It’s classic, it’s sensual, but it’s not afraid to be elegant either. It’s a deeply complex little journey as the mid-stage slowly gets more and more sultry on entering the final round of its very interesting existence. The end stage is a mix of warm amber, smooth woods, and sensual musk.

Extra: Bal à Versailles was released in 1962 and ever since a certain King of Pop adopted it as one of his favorite perfumes, it has been known to many of his fans as, “That perfume Michael Jackson liked, but I don’t”. For the rest of us, Bal à Versailles is a beautiful piece of complex nose art.

Design: I like the shape of the bottle, very vintage looking. It’s beautifully designed and beautifully presented. I’m even okay with the Rococo-style painting on the bottle which at first glance seems out of place, but grew on me. It’s Rococo, how can I lose? For someone who doesn’t usually get on board with things like this, Bal à Versailles played just the right amount of right to make the design work. Not to mention the look of this bottle is so easy to recognize anywhere.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Rosemary, orange blossom, mandarin orange, cassia, jasmine, rose, neroli, bergamot, bulgarian rose, lemon, sandalwood, patchouli, lilac, orris root, vetiver, ylang-ylang, lily-of-the-valley, tolu balsam, amber, musk, benzoin, civet, vanilla, cedar, resins.

Now, bear in mind that Bal à Versailles is not the most accessible fragrance out there in terms of going to a department store, slapping some money on the counter and saying, “I’ll have the usual, Tom”. I wish ordering perfume was like that. Anyway, Bal à Versailles is not as hard to find as one might think. It’s not everywhere like Britney Spears Fantasy, but it’s not squirreled away in an obscure niche like–heh–Bruce Willis Cologne either. You can easily find Bal à Versailles on discounter sites and some department stores. I recommend anyone interesting in fragrance to give it a sniff. And if you were wondering what one of Michael Jackson’s favorite perfumes smells like, well, there you go.

Reviewed in This Post: Bal à Versailles, 2003, Eau de Toilette.