Tag Archives: Labdanum 18

Woohoo!! It’s amber time!

I've been thinking, Perfume thoughts, World of Perfume December 29, 2014 Comments: 6

And vanilla and oud. 🙂 But amber is the note that first comes to mind  when it’s cold outside.

That said, this morning I wanted to celebrate this wonderful sunny and wGolden amber close up backlit shows crystalshite day (the snow is still unmelted) with Ambre Sultan, only to not be able to find my decant. So I decided to put Ambre Precieux on. I’m very happy with that choice. If I smell a waft from afar (and not on my turtleneck), I catch what I would call a flowery hint. It’s basically wonderful.

And amber fits perfectly with this cold weather, it just makes you feel warm all over by smelling it.

My other ambery choices will include MdO Ambre, Ambra Nobile by Nobile 1942 and Le Labo Labdanum 18.

With a special mention of Caravelle Epicee, which I don’t actually count among ambers but theoretically it is, so it goes on the list. I mean, there are so many other things going on in there that saying it’s an amber perfume doesn’t do it justice.

I still find that to be one of the best winter perfumes ever. At least for me. It hits all my spicy, warm, gourmand-y buttons. Plus, it smells really sexy.

P.S. That was my first ever perfume review. 🙂

 

The easy choice – Labdanum 18 by Le Labo

World of Perfume October 29, 2011 Comments: 20

I’m calling this an easy choice because each time I have to go someplace and don’t know what to wear, I reach for this. 🙂
My relatively large decant came through a split and the speed I’m going through it, makes me think I will have to start looking for another one soon.

Notes: Labdanum, tonka beans, vanilla, castoreum, patchouli.

If I were to describe this perfume in one word, I’d say it smells ambery. 🙂

Lately, I realized I write down my notes on a perfume, then I go see what are the notes listed and then I go investigate which parts combined to get me the smells I was getting.

One of the good things about Labdanum 18 is that I believe I know what castoreum smells like. The process of elimination brought me there. 🙂
So, the vanilla, labdanum and tonka beans are responsible for the ambery feel but all very nicely tempered so no note overpowers the other. I also detect light whiffs of some herbal sharpness and I thought that came from patchouli but cannot really say for sure.

The problem with this perfume is that it is better smelled around you than on you. I mean, for reviewing purposes, I get less when I smell it on my wrist than when I smell it around me when I wear it. Then it sort of jumps out at me at all times. Not that this perfume jumps, it’s more like it suddenly stealthily overpowers you and you are left wondering how you didn’t know it was there a second ago.
It’s an aural perfume to me (you know, it has the amount of sillage like an aura – just right).

Which brings me to the last note and castoreum. I have a problem detecting that particular tinge to this perfume on my writs, but when I catch a whiff of my “aura” there is a light sexy, possibly dirty or animalic to some, tinge to this perfume. But when you want to take a better look, it’s gone. And then when you’re not watching, it hovers around the edge of your vision, only to disappear when you take a better look.

There doesn’t seem to be much development to this perfume (at least not to me) but I don’t mind that because I really love the way it starts and those “sleight of hand” changes it does so it remains smelling the same with some minor changes for the  duration.

P.S. I just checked the Le Labo site and they list more notes than Luckyscent.
The ones missing up there are: cista, civet, musk aubepine, birch tar, cinnamon, gurjaum balsam.
Can’t say I got any cinnamon but the first 3 could be all responsible for what I thought was solely castoreum’s part. Oh well, I guess I still need to learn how it smells then. 🙂