Paname Keiko Mecheri for women and men

Another rather faint, thin on the ground, and too discreet for its own good fragrance.
What a shame!
I would have thought, with a name like Paname, which, by the way, is the French slang name for Paris, that it would be a vibrant and exciting perfume, one seriously sexy concoction with a tinge of raunchiness.

Nope, nada, rien ... It’s all very polite, proper, and dainty.

I understand the use of absinthe (also called grande wormwood) at its heart since this was the drink of predilection of such bohemian luminaries as Beaudelaire, Rimbaud, and Toulouse-Lautrec, the latter spending most of his life hanging around the Moulin Rouge cabaret and nearby brothels of the late 19th century.

So, full mark for the inspiration, but the final outcome is too cute, subdued, and lacking.
Would have been better to call it “Joli Paris”.

On me the opening of Paname is powerful, intense, bittersweet and almost sharp, but with an air of easy luxury, that Keiko Mecheri's creations seem to often possess. It softens virtually immediately into effortless, kindly, earthy sweetness, watery vanilla (could it be? :-)), woody/green, a tiny bit aromatic notes and almost soapy cleanliness...
I have applied this sample before reading the notes and reviews and trying to figure out what is this scent made of, I could not pick any particular note, but something in this potion almost touched my heart :-), a distant memory perhaps...but I still can't point out what it is... Something in this makes me feel nostalgic and child-like happy...

The sweetness in Paname is raw, rooty, almost organic and gentle and reminds me quite a bit of Sugarwood by Costamor. On me it is truly feminine and yet - there is this deliciously sweet masculine hint, I can't quite explain it, as I don't generally find "masculine notes" sweet in other fragrances, but this is how I feel with this one.

Wearing this on a pleasant sunny morning, I was thinking that this must be very weather-versatile :-). Sort of mood brightening on any occasion I would say.

Lovely fragrance, but doesn't last on me!

The opening of Keiko Mecheri PANAME seemed a bit sugary and suggested that this might be a vanilla oriental woody perfume intended for women. However, within about a minute the absinthe appears most prominently to aromaticize the composition, turning this into a somewhat less but still fairly feminine scent. I'd say that this closer to Bvlgari JASMIN NOIR than ABSOLUMENT ABSINTHE, probably because of the tonka/vanilla which makes the wormwood smell more like black licorice than the woody absinthe of the more masculine absinthe perfumes I've tried.

PANAME smells delightful, but unfortunately the longevity is not that good, so for now I'll continue to reach for JASMIN NOIR for my black licorice fix. Oriental lovers with a sweetish licorice bent would surely like this creation, which is not nearly so sweet as LOLITA LEMPICKA but definitely sweeter than I've come to expect from fragrances marketed as unisex.

Looking at the notes, this sounded bold and brooding, but I forgot to factor in KM's heavy censorship of sillage, which instead makes this composition rather mysterious at best.

The green top notes are detectable only for the split second when you first open the bottle (or maybe I imagined them!). On my skin, the dark and oh-so-smooth "absinthe" note immediately dominates - which, in this case, translates into a bittersweet combination of anise and licorice, unlike the hoard of absinthe-wannabes out there that smell like herbal tea. (Yes, I'm thinking of you too, Absolument Absinthe!)

After that seductive but restrained burst of darkness, which demands only the best whiskey and a cigar, but not necessarily a man to enjoy them, I cannot help but feel let down by what follows. For one, there is barely anything left to smell after an hour or so. And what remains stabs the dark opening in the back and sweetens considerably, with the woods, which you'd expect to provide the backbone of this fragrance, crumbling into nothingness. The precise composition of what's left is hard to untangle - a combination of the scent's short leash but also (let's give credit to KM!) of it being well-blended - but the overall impression is of high quality spiced brown sugar. Not enough for my cup of tea, but that won't stop me from enjoying the hour of darkness in the few drops I have left.