Comme des Garcons Series 3 Incense: Avignon Comme des Garcons for women and men

A serene scent. Give a magical feeling of visiting an old church in France with wet stone walls and the scent of olibanum.

For me the opening smells like an old soap. The dry-down is very similar to Gucci Pour Homme's dry down: smoky and slightly sweet, like a campfire laced with vanilla beans. Good for colder months. I had high hope for this one but I found it a bit too linear and didn't exactly invoke incense for me, probably because I never been to a church.

95% Smoky Incense. I get a bit of rosewood. I have no connections or memories to catholicism but what I can say is it smells a bit antique and dusty.

The drydown is pure vanilla...

Sevilla. Semana Santa. Paso de Cristo. Camina con un cirio detrás del humo del incienso y.........llevarás Avignon. Obra maestra, unisex, atrevida, sagrada. Si te gusta el incienso, no puedes dejar de probarla. Duración?.. Hasta la eternidad. Proyección?? Qué más da?, si ya estas en el cielo?????.....

I got a sample of this one partly because I like incense perfumes but mainly because I lived in Avignon, France and, well, curious to try because of that. But I really, really like this fragrance. In perfume I prefer orientals and gourmands and I have a problem to find something suitable for work that I don't find too plain/boring. This I could probably wear for work - if I only use a few drops. It's warm, comfortable yet interesting and as long as you only use a little, quite discreet.

OK, have to add: a great plus -in my book- for making a perfume of this kind sandalwood-free. I don't know why, but I cannot stand sandalwood, and there are a lot of perfumes in the same "family" that I almost like...if it hadn't been for the sandalwood.

This is absolutely amazing. I was raised catholic. I went to church, confession ,and religion classes for the first 15 years of my life. (i'm a much happier atheist now ha). The only thing I ever missed about going to mass was the incense. When the priest would douse the church in a back and forth motion with the smoking thurible ornament on a chain, and the way your clothes smelled after the mass ended..amazing. This is soooo damn close to that smell. It's not smoky enough, but other than that...an exact memory! I only regret not getting the Heeley Cardinal sample along with this one to do a proper side by side. This is musty, gothy, thick, and beautiful. The incense/spice/myrhh notes are perfectly blended and are of excellent quality. This would smell heavenly on man or woman, but especially on anyone listening to the sisters of mercy dressed in all black :)
lasts a long time too

This is absolutely amazing. I was raised Catholic,and my entire extended family were strict catholics. I went to church, confession ,and religion classes for the first 15 years of my life. (i'm a much happier atheist now ha). The only thing I ever missed about going to mass was the incense. When the priest would douse the church in a back and forth motion with the smoking thurible ornament on a chain, and the way your clothes smelled after the mass ended..amazing. This is soooo damn close to that smell. It's not smoky enough, but other than that...an exact memory! I only regret not getting the Heeley Cardinal sample along with this one to do a proper side by side. This is musty, gothy, thick, and beautiful. The incense/spice/myrhh notes are perfectly blended and are of excellent quality. This would smell heavenly on man or woman, but especially on anyone listening to the sisters of mercy dressed in all black :)

A Lovely warm scent of Champa incenses for a winters evening. Not for daytime wear. Unless your a hippie.People ask me if I meditate....I say: "Sometimes, but mostly I just want to smell like Jiddu Krishnamurti". I do find it funny that they have to put a religious type in front of the word `incence` everytime in this day and age.

It does `bother` me a bit when people say in their reviews:
"..scent brought back many memories of my days being an alter boy". LOL!



Hari Krishna

I just love this Catholic incense - it is monumental like a cathedral, reminds me of the Catholic mass incense. It is a kind of human incense - you have a cathedral / church, incense and people inside. A great fragrance, one of the best incense fragrances ever made. Some say it reminds also wet stones in the said cathedral - may be but it is definitely a masterpiece!

Comme des Garçons AVIGNON is an incredibly beautiful incense perfume. I am very pleasantly surprised, having been somewhat disappointed by a couple of the other members of this series I've tried. Why is this one so much better to my nose? I suppose because it's a full-fledged, complex perfumic composition, as opposed to a solution of finely ground incense...

"Several kinds of incense, chamomile, vanilla, patchouli, rosewood and ambrette"...

Small wonder I'm smitten! Ambrette probably puts this over the top from like to love for me. Who knew that a relatively linear incense perfume could be a serious wrist sniffer? For the record, this does not smell like a musty old Catholic church to me. No, on the contrary, AVIGNON smells like something which clearly belongs on my wish list: a gorgeous oriental woody perfume!

The ultimate fragrance. Could never find a better incense. Hits all the right spots. The Chanel 5 of the niche world, imho.

The smell of my high school's chapel and my former church's old stone walls from those years. Sounds rather somber and unpleasant - I know, especially if one has had bad experiences with Catholicism. However, to me, it's a very grounding fragrance more than one I would wear to complete a look or for a night out. Like most incense, it's very meditative and helps me with inner peace as frankincense is such an ancient aroma - probably tied deep into many humans' ancient memories over thousands of years.

It's odd, definitely polarizing and always gets a reaction from those who smell it on me, good or bad. I know I'll always have a bottle in my collection simply because it makes me feel serene.

All the talk of the mysterious sense of smell, the visceral sense of smell. The sense of the emotions, therefore with the least association with reason. I really don’t get that. Yes, the sense of smell is discussed incorrectly or at least poorly. We have a strikingly lacking practical vocabulary for how we employ smell and how we use it to create meaning for ourselves. I include myself here. It’s a hole in our collective ability to talk to each other.

But I do love the associative capacity of the sense of smell. It is specific and evocative, but for me doesn’t have the luggage of weighty emotional cathexis. It’s the small stuff, not the big “Rosebud” moment.

To Avignon. I smell it and it takes me right back to a very specific moment of my alter-boy youth. It’s the memory of the sensation of crunching through the snow to my parish church in the dark on winter mornings to serve the early daily mass, opening the back door to the church and smelling the lingering scent of the incense we used. That very moment. I loved it as a boy. It’s not the huge and the sweeping. It’s the small and specific. It allows me to remember myself as that young boy.

Got my big bottle today and I'm so loving this! I'm at Mass - I'm back at work in the church ordering supplies - I'm back in my life two years! Not too well to get to mass now - and TBH I'm kind of over that stage of my life - but I always loved the scent of church and this perfume recreates it completely!

If you have never been to a Roman Catholic high Mass and have no intention of going but wondered what it would smell like - this is the scent for you.....!!!!

Frankincense and Myrrh - the scent of Jesus??? Well maybe just the scent of the Mass! But I do love this - I'm getting concerned as well as I have sprayed so much on me that I might be morphing into the Mass itself LOL....!!! Or just running out of my bottle in one day???

This is so unusual and individual - I'd defy anyone to think this is not what the 15th century smelt like in England?

This is NOT - romantic, sexy, floral, run of the mill - it IS distinct, unusual, special, rare!

If you do take the plunge - then enjoy to your hearts content! This is one complex perfume - you need to say 10 Hail Mary's and 2 Our Fathers to repent for smelling tooooo good...!!!!

BTW - I also purchased the incense, and you may think of doing the same based on the fragrance - don't it is too dry and dusty and isn't as good as the fragrance!

This fragrance to me is a masterpiece. Beautifully done! But it have a problem attached to it.

The problem is that this fragrance to me is a church in a bottle. Smells exactly the same as the myrrh used in masses. A very well done fragrance that lacks versatility.

In conclusion, it is very hard to pull this off, but it is a marvelous fragrance that must take part in the closet of every collector.

Perhaps the most intense of the incense series which is why i love it. Its has a wonderful sweet creamy undertone that the other incense fragrances don't have and reminds me of creme brule over burning incense.

I’m definitely not a fruity floral gal, but I have to say that I was slightly surprised to fall head over heels to this old church smell. The opening is a massive, panoramic olfactory view over an old catholic church (just can’t be thinking of St. Peter’s in Vatican, having just been there) — the incense, the cool, moist minerals of old stone building, ancient wood. The scent is so evocative, so real that I bet that people grown in catholic culture might find it even too… …representing — but for me… …well, my few visits in places like that don’t really emotionally wire to anything — and I can enjoy the pure beauty of it.

But the scent is not just about this trippy realness of the opening — it starts to evolve instantly to something more wearable: a beautiful arrangement of woody and aromatic notes around incredibly smoky incense note with hint of spices. I get some earthy patchouli, hint of vanilla, myrrh, cedar, maybe some other woods. The overall impression is dry — as opposite of sweet — this scent definitely has somehow moist feel in it. It’s very dimensional, beautifully aromatic, sort of clean without being a bit soapy (should I say pure?), slightly mineral, deep without being heavy. Very calming without actually being cool at all. I can imagine wearing this both in summer and winter. It’s also my best bet on the question "what would Madonna wear on the Like a Prayer video"…

Avignon is HUGE! One of my favourite scents of all times. The opening is absolutely distinctive with an intense explosion of severe frankincense and myrrh, almost harshing but incredibly fascinating. The catholic church effect is pushed to the limit and persists during the drydown while camomille provides an extra dose of mystery and warmness smoothing the general harshness. Cedarwood and Iso E Super are clearly remarkable throughout but they're never overdone. A meditative scent that surrounds you with its intense warmness and deep resinous allure. As a trendsetter, Avignon became one of the most imitated straight forward incenses of the last 10 years (Heeley's Cardinal, Mark Buxton's Around Midnight, Biehl's MB3, Montale's Full Incense). Another Bertrand Duchafour's masterpiece!



Note: Avignon has a wonderful sillage and an amazing lasting power!

Rating: 9/10

If I have to be honest, this is one of the most depressing fragrances I have ever smelled.

I dont know how other scents from the series compare to the religions they refer to. But Avignon is a Catholic church, and the most traditional one. I have been to Catholic churches outside my country, none had the exact same ambience and smell as at home. The texture if very cold stone the smell of old, wooden benches soaked up in the incense they have been 'breathing in' for many years.

I am not saying that I dont like going to the church. BUT this scent is just too real for me to wear. Maybe people in the UK would not have the same association (with so many not even going to the church at all), and will not be able identify what Avignon smells of. But I am just not that keen of smelling like Sunday mass. And it is definitely not something Id enjoy on anyone around. The scent is a msterpiece in itself, recreating an atmosphere of a church must have been a tough one, but some things are better off left as they are. If I want to smell a hcurch, Id just go to one.

This is the first time a fragrance has ever kept me awake! It's 2.15 a.m., I applied Avignon before bedtime, having worn Zagorsk all day, and I can't get enough of this in my nose. I want to hyperventilate so I can get more!! I put it on each wrist and have been lying on my side in a praying position (!) so I can get the juice from each wrist into each nostril, and I love it so much I don't want to drift off. I have to blow the budget on a big bottle because this has just usurped Jicky as my No 1. (Zagorsk is not far behind.) Dare I try the other 3 in the Incense series? (Yes, q.v.) Pure bliss.

Edit: I got my beloved FB. Zagorsk is next. A good and inexpensive substitute if you can't afford CDG is Matthew Williamson Incense which IMO is quite similar but just not so long-lasting.

This scent is like being in a beautiful catholic cathedral, gothic, mid-evil cathedral during midnight mass on Christmas eve.

Although my catholic upbringing wasnt always happy. (thats another story). I find this scent incredibly sacred and sprititual. Its not sexy, romantic, or any other cliches related to perfume. It is truly a scent to be worn when you want to feel peace, and be transported. Your not gonna turn anyones head with this, but you may get people wanting your sage worthy counsel.

I would love to own a bottle of this scent, just for the purpose of the feeling it evokes. But I dont know how often I would wear it. I would only want to wear it alone.

Sweet frankincense, myrhh, and beautiful smoky incence. Im making peace with my catholic past.

A nice frankenscence and myyrh scent. If that your cup of tea, you will enjoy this incense scent. I however, find it to be unpleasant for my taste.

It opens so GORGEOUS! I'm not fun of incense scents as I usually find them unwearable, but this is so awesome that I'm not able to keep my nose off my wrist. Well, ok, I must agree with catbiscuit that I can't imagine myself wearing this, but the scent is so touching, warm and comfortable. I have never been religious, but I've been studying history and I'm on my way to getting Bachelor's and I'm very fund of the history of art and architecture and therefore been to many churches and Catholic together with the Ortodox are my favourite churches, because of the comfort feeling - the feeling that there is someone more powerful than you and the smell of the incense and the wooden benches. So Comme des Garcons takes me to trip back to many small catholic churches I've been to and inhaled their beauty and power with a little bit of fear, but a huge interest. Thank you, Comme des Garcons.

My encounter with Avignon is a result of my tentative exploration outside my beloved floral comfort zone. This usually leads to a perfume 'experience' as opposed to finding the scented love of my life. And so it is here.

Beginning with a bang, I find Avignon to settle into a warm, dry, woody, comforting, deep scent. It makes me feel safe and relaxed, probaly a result of centuries of familiarity to the human experience. It is however a little 'sterotypical' as an incense, so I suppose CdG has been successful in its aim to churchify us all.

While a beautiful creation, for my purposes I would infinately prefer this scenting my home as opposed to my person. I just cannot see myself announcing my arrival with a swing of the thurible so to speak.

Note: I will not be using 'cathedral', 'church' or 'catholic' in my review.

But I will be using the word 'breast'.

Last week my friend was in town for business and stayed the weekend so i could take her to wine country. At the last minute she asked if a friend could join us, who was in the U.S. for the first time. No problem, i said.

I asked this friend where was he from, and he replied "Avignon." This is why I can't use churchy references in my review.

My gregarious guest spent the weekend telling jokes with big hand gestures, heartily slurping his wine in the tasting room, and joyfully asking women if their husbands were married. At the beach he wondered if "women were allowed here to put their breasts out?" (i.e, go topless)

So how to I interpret Avignon, the fragrance, after this? Not without fond memories, i'm afraid. The scent itself is dry, warm and resinous, with a pitch perfect incense note that i just love. Like my friend's visit it doesn't last as long as I'd like, but when it's around it keeps me interested throughout.

I love Avignon, and recommend it as fragrance you could step out in at any time.

Perfectly captures the frankincense-myrrh of old-fashioned Catholic church incense. Unfortunately completely one-note--no depth, no nuance, no other note or flavor. If you really like incense you may be as well off becoming an altar boy.

Oh Robert you did make me laugh. You really should get Armani's Bois D'Encens candle to burn in those romantic moments ! I love Avignon as it reminds me of Midnight masses of childhood . I wasn't Catholic but went to mass with a friend. The whole service was in Polish so I just enjoyed the theatricality . I prefer plain worship but got hooked on incense .

I LOVE this fragrance. I have no Catholic baggage or associations, so I appreciate the scent for its olfactory qualities alone. It's a linear, monolithic incense, the European incense archetype. When I smell this incense I understand why people went to church back in the middle ages. This incense is truly capable of being the opiate of the masses (pun intended).

I'm going to add another review. This is one of my absolute FAVORITES. If you like incense perfumes, you MUST own this, along with Aedes de Venustes and Jubliation XXV by Amouage.

First, I love catholic churches incence. BUT on me it gave me headache, and after 5 minutes it was nauseated... I feel sorry because it's a good fragrance. Bit linear and and lack in deepness but good.
For it's uniqueness (remind me Heeley's Cardinal)I like it. I give this a

edit: I love it now, even the little headache.

9,5/10

this scent for me is phantastic ;-))))). it reminds about deep old sacred times , about old italian, spain and french cities, about church space, wchich smells of myra, arabian resin .....

The biggest church I´ve visit is St Paul´s Cathedral in London. What on earth does St Paul´s Cathedral has to do with CdG´s Avignon? A lot actually, but the one thing I really think of is the space they have in common.

Even a small countryside church can have the ability to making me feel little. Little in a pleasant way tough.

CdG´s Avignon has that very space in it. It is the smell of a catholic church during mass, says the one´s who knows. I don´t. Well, maybe all kind of churches and big holy buildings has that space in common? I am curious to find out.

Avignon is the smell of the big space in a somewhat cold and old stone building. Avignon is the smell of a building where thousands and thousands of candles has been burned trough the years. Avignon is the smell of incense, insence so often used in the building that if we carry the benches out in the sun, they would still smell of the incense for a long time. Avignon is the smell of golden covered wooden carvings and brass chandelers.

Yes, I do love Avignon. I am so happy I´ve finally tried it. But, I´m not sure I want a bottle of it. I am not sure if I really want to go around smelling like all that big emptiness and corrupted holyness. I think it could make me feel like I am walking around like some kind of heretic. Maybe some days that would make me feel cool, some days sad.

Avignon could be the worlds No 1 emo-perfume...

Try it? Of course.

I keep forgetting to sign in. To copypaste the review I just committed without doing so:
Goes on like bayberry and beeswax then fades down into a churchy incense, but there's a musty note that doesn't go away, like the inside of an old deserted house. I love incense fragrances and most of this one is great, but that musty note is a deal breaker.

Goes on like bayberry and beeswax then fades down into a churchy incense, but there's a musty note that doesn't go away, like the inside of an old deserted house. I love incense fragrances and most of this one is great, but that musty note is a deal breaker.

Oh, man is this stuff good...I like incense fragrances (got Aedes de Venustes for my beloved, and I REALLY want Amouage Jubilation XXV)...and this is one of the BEST. Reminds me of this time in 1987 when I stole a case of Champagne (Veuve Cliquot, my fave)and me and a bunch of my punk rocker friends broke into a Catholic church in Chelsea, Massachusetts...drank the wine, smoked hash, and I had sex with a beautiful dreadlocked black punk girl on the altar...sorry if that offends anybody, but it's probably the best use that that place has ever been put to...we cleaned the place up afterwards, too.

A little goes a long way with this scent. Through out the day, you will be transported to a cathedral during high mass. The smokiness of the frankincense and patchouli may through some of you back to the 70's. The dry down will leave you wondering if you have repent enough over the over indulges of how sinfully the vanilla notes keep enticing you.

I received this as an gift. This is my second fragrance from this CdG Serries #3 (the 1st being Kyoto). At first it is intense but warms up beautifully. This scent brought back many memories of my days being an alter boy. The next one in line for me is Quarzazate. I recommend these CdG Series for anyone who is looking for that unique fragrance.