Nuit Noire Mona di Orio for women

First of all, I have to confess that for me there is no "dirty" smell. It all just smells, especially in perfumes. That might be a by-product of me working in the health sector and got to smell the the most vile things you could ever imagine. Perfumes smell nice. Believe me. Even the smelly ones.

I'm not a particular niche fan, by the way. Nuit Noire is on me very dark, the opening tuberose quickly fades (thanks...) and lefts me a spicy, soapy leather musk. It smells clean and dirty at the same time. I'm not anosmic to musk, but maybe to indolics? I get, if a perfumer amputate the indoles from their origin - the white flowers (boring....), but if they're there, they're there. I never feel offended by them.

Nuit Noire is the best "floral woody musk" I can think of (a category, which, I think, is mostly obsolete). If you want musk, why not use a real dose of musk? Look no further. Here it is. This is feminine with balls. Sillage A+. I also can see, why not everyone would agree on that. But on the other hand, think MKK, for heaven's sake! Everybody loves it (but it lacks the soap, maybe it's not the skank, but the soap, everybody hates in Nuit Noire?).

In a (strange?) way Nuit Noire reminds me of Covet: If Covet is green and strange viby, Nuit Noire is blue and the same strange viby and much more concentrated. Does this make sense?

I suspect the damning of Nuit Noire began, when Luca Turin labeled it as "civet fart". This is the most disrespectful thing I have ever heard. The moment I've read that, he lost his reputation for me. How can anybody be that nasty on a perfumer, someone who would call himself a "perfume connoisseur", who could never be that connoisseur without perfumers? This shows how uncultivated he is, imho. You can disagree on taste, but you should respect the taste of others by all means. You should always behave and write like you'd do.

But, for me the price tag always was a don't-buy argument, I agree on that. It was over-priced (or over-concentrated: In EdT or even EdC it might be mass saleable?).

This may be a classic example of "what is so right for one person can be incredibly wrong for another"...I adore this perfume. On me, it starts out a sweet and spicy floral, with the orange blossom and tuberose especially noticeable, then the spices begin to warm up. Cardamom and cinnamon come to the front for a bit before settling into the full dry-down with its sandalwood and musk, with perhaps a hint of amber. The florals never fade away; they just get folded into a fabulous, rich, honeyed composition that is seriously sexy. I don't get the dirty or heavily animalic note at all, not even transiently, despite what seems like a good amount of musk going on.
I have the type of chemistry that profoundly changes many perfumes, always in the direction of making them sweeter, which is the likely explanation for why this perfume smells lovely to me, completely unlike the experiences reported by other reviewers. This is a rare case where I feel quite happy about my eccentric chemistry; normally I am disappointed when the fragrance that smells so wonderful on others or in the tester ends up smelling like candy-floss on me in 5 minutes. But this time, it enabled me to find one of my all-time favorite fragrances and perhaps, to make it my own in a way. Nuit Noire is all I had hoped that other opulent Orientals would be for me, such as Lutens' Arabie, which I cannot wear as it promptly turns to plum pudding on me. Nuit Noire is, apparently, my jewel hidden in a dung-heap...noxious to some, but amazing if it happens to match your body chemistry.

This sounded like my dream fragrance. I loved it for about twenty minutes,then was sick . I had to scrub it off . I don't understand because I can't see any ingredient that I have never come into contact with before. The flowery notes are gorgeous but the "dirty" element really is vile .

When sampling Nuit Noire, I didn't really know what to expect, but took the precaution of waiting until I was home alone in case I needed to scrub/and or air out the house. It turned out not to be that bad after all. NN starts out with a big blast of civet along with some sort of hyper-indolic floral that could be orange blossom, gardenia, or both. After a while the ginger comes in and unifies it all into a greenish, glassine-envelope like smell that I don't find at all "oriental", but that I've smelled before in mainstream commercial perfumes. This note persisted until I went to bed, accompanied by occasional whiffs of indole. When I woke up this morning I had a headache, but of course I don't know whether it was from the perfume or some other cause. No trace of the scent was present when I woke up, so the longevity is moderate. My curiosity has been satisfied, and the sample will be stashed away for possible further testing in a distant future when I've tried everything else on my list.

I agree with Migotka that niche does not necessarily equal exquisite. Nuit Noire's promise of Tunis souks & hams lured my senses into a false expectancy of an unashamedly erotic, dark fragrance opening to night in a blurred opulent intensity. Unfortunately, it's top notes seem dominated by a pungent shock of musky bases which swirl through immediately, splitting into discernible, unfinished layers duelling for attention. After an hour the heady leather & amber undertones overpower & soon give way to a soapy headache-inducing climax. Disappointing.

Well, Nuit Noire is for me yet (unfortunately) another proof, that a 'niche' does not always translate as 'extrordinary'.
There has been a lot of talking about how fabulous niche fragrances are, and how much better than what you can find in regular perfume shops, which however is not so true...
Nuit Noire does not even start good. I hoped for an air of Orient, mystery, something distinctive and seductive. My nose could detect some very heavy ginger and unidentified flowery notes. My beloved cinnamon and tuberose did not even make a brief appearance.
The worst was yet to come though. Slowly, slowly Nuit Noire transformed into one note I have known since the day my parents brought me home from hospital after me being born. A note of soap. An old type of soap one used to buy in early 90's, not one of those nice smelling soapies you can get in stores now. A heavy smell of regular, grey soap.
For this price I can only say it is a huge misunderstanding.