Sacre Coeur by Ego Facto

doctormod

As a child in Catholic school, I had problematic aesthetic and metaphysical relationships with religious iconography. The image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus--his heart on the outside of his clothes, bleeding and wrapped in thorns, with a flame shooting out of the top--alternately fascinated, frightened, and repulsed me. At times I studied it with morbid interest and it times would shut my eyes to avoid seeing it.

Old quirks die hard. I got a sample pack of Ego Facto fragrances from LuckyScent, and I approached Sacre Coeur cautiously, with fascination and fear--and the cynicism I lacked as a child. Having tested it, I can confirm the following:

It opens as a very pleasant but not particularly unique citrus eau-de-cologne sort of scent (but this is an Eau de Parfum!) Like an EdC, it faded rapidly--very rapidly. Whatever bright or sparkling quality it had started to disappear within two minutes. The fruity/citrus notes were immediately replaced by leather and tobacco, not as one might smell in an old-fashioned gent's club but rather grimy leather and cheap tobacco. That took about ten minutes to pass. After that it just smelled non-specifically dirty--but that, too, was short-lived.

Thus far my experience with the whole lot of Ego Facto fragrances has suggested that these are overpriced and over-hyped, short-lived and not terribly interesting fragrances that fail to live up to their daring or cheeky names. I've honestly wondered if Ego Facto isn't some perverse joke on someone's part that got lost in translation. At any rate, I have come to regard the whole line as fragrances for naked emperors and empresses.

(Even so, Sacre Coeur is the best of the Ego Facto fragrances I've tested so far.)

I still can't fathom the connection between the name and the fragrance--nothing sacred or remotely religious about a scent so earthbound, so lacking in anything that would inspire fear or awe. Nothing sacred--but does it have a heart? Not any that I noticed.

Was this, perhaps, a lame juvenile attempt at quasi-blasphemy? I don't know, but I seriously doubt that Jesus is going to issue an official endorsement of this un-holy water anytime soon.

Ego Facto Sacre Coeur:
DON'T EXPECT MIRACLES.