Noir Patchouli Histoires de Parfums for women and men

My first encounter with patchouli was when I bought a patchouli plant for my garden years ago. If you've never crushed a patchouli leaf in your fingers, you really haven't smelled and appreciated the deep fragrance that is patchouli.

This is the first perfume I've found that really captures that freshly-crushed scent. I can understand why Le Nez decided to call this 'Black' because it is a deep and velvety scent. Alfarom and Sherapop give excellent reviews of the scent (yes I also agree it has chypre AND leather elements to it...). I'd only add that you can really 'feel' the juniper and coriander here - warm and really delicious.

My favorite part of Patchouli Noir is the dry down... oooh, this matures like a fine wine... such a gentle but potent trail of floral and (what appears to be) orris root.

This is a unisex fragrance; I think it's right on that edge of masculine and feminine, almost tipping into the feminine. Personally I wouldn't like to go more floral than this, but the dry down is very deep and masculine, so I think it works well for us guys, too.

Ironically, patchouli lovers might not really 'feel' the patchouli in this, and patchouli haters could REALLY love this... Histoires has done something wonderful by using patchouli as a catalyst for something great and iconic.

A different take on a overused theme. Noir Patchouli opens with an hypnotizing spices and patchouli combo that serves as a fantastic example of how to treat patchouli leaves avoiding the "head-shop" effect. Floral patterns add a "classic" vibe and some complexity while a slight dose of vanilla works as a perfect refinement. As the fragrance evolves a remarkable chypre structure emerges from the back leading this composition to a dark, leathery/woody drydown that's at the same time misterious and extremely wearable.

Once again Histoires De Parfums confirms its status as one of the best outfits in modern/contemporary perfumery while Noir Patchouli jumps directly at the top of its genre with no esitation. Great!

Rating: 8.5/10

A triple threat of patchouli—featured among the top notes, the heart, and the base notes—in Histoires de Parfum NOIR PATCHOULI makes this a patchouli-lovers-only perfume. Serving to intensify the patchouli madness is a fairly hefty dose of leather, making this a rather hard-hitting composition to my nose. Although the house lists “Bouquet Floral” among the heart notes, I must say that I have difficulty detecting any florals whatsoever, drowned out as they are by the patchouli and the leather.

As NOIR PATCHOULI dries down, its noir aspect begins to dominate to the point where I'd classify this more as a leather than an oriental perfume. I would recommend this to hard-core leather lovers, but they obviously must also enjoy patchouli in order to wear this Easy Rider elixir...

My reference for patchouli always goes back to being in junior high school on the Upper Westside of Manhattan where all the cool hippie guys and gals sported the head-shop bought oils. And because I lived above the 96th street divide, I would also smell my uptown brothers wearing--what I'm sure was the same head-shop oil. The difference was the junior high school kids smelled like unwashed bodies with a week's worth of patchuoli oil. While my neighborhood fellas smelled of a concoction of many other essences on top of the patchouli. So Patchouli Noir is trying to style itself to the later.

So I spray some on a cotton cloth and some on my wrist. And then that's when the Upper Westside starts fighting with the above 96th street crowd. The fight was on like Donkey-Kong! A fast fists-to-cuffs explosion. First up: spice and soap. Then, soap fell flat and spice and citrus were at it. Citrus stumbled and metallic-static- electricity popped up briefly for a victory shout but was quickly over taken by a little poopie smell. Finally everyone calmed down and decided to get along to sit and listen to some old vinyls in someone's slightly rank bedroom.