Le Temps d'Une Fête : Parfums de Nicolai

This is just a quickie review of a perfume I'm sampling today, although I'm worried I won't do it justice! Le Temps d'Une Fête is an unusual floral green chypre. It starts out very juicy, but tart and sparkling--no sweet tooty-frooty. There's a bitter edge to the juiciness that holds my attention. After just a few minutes there's a hint of the fleshy white floral heart, which gets closer and closer, and just when you think it's going to turn into a full-blown, over-ripe, skanky narcissus, that bitter edge balances it again, and it turns radiantly green. There's definately my beloved galbanum in there, but it's more like dandelion sap than green pepper. I'm probably detecting a really amazing melding of galbanum with the resins and woods.

Luckyscent says the notes are: galbanum, mastic, opoponax, narcissus, hyacinth, daffodil, styrax, oakmoss, sandalwood.

The fruitiness could be in my imagination, I suppose. There is no fruit in the notes. However, my nose is so attuned to bitter green vintage scents that perhaps it's affecting my perception on modern perfumes, with their very different aromachemicals. Or perhaps I'm just super-sensitive to the heavily overripe quality of hyacinth, and it reads as fruity to me. As this lovely perfume dries down, I'm finally getting some oakmoss and--oh! some warm, delicious sandalwood just popped in! It's continuing into a whole new stage of yumminess, even though it is a bit shy on the oakmoss and sandalwood drydown for my taste. This is definately a modern style of perfume, with lots of airiness rather than the density I'm used to. But it is also a really interesting perfume, and the dandelion sap quality is my favorite part. It reminds me of making dandelion chains when I was a kid, splitting the stems in half and smelling that sticky, white sap inside, then knotting the slippery stems together. Did you ever do that? Incredible stuff!