Borneo 1834 Serge Lutens for women and men

Borneo 1834 is just a very odd fragrance! I think choice of weather when I tested it had something to do with the success. The patchouli is dominant for me in the beginning, a very true to life, natural patchouli plant smell. Moist soil & all! A very damp, & "dank" smell that was beautifully emphasized by the wet, temperate, overcast day. The cocoa is very prominent also, and after time the sweetness starts to warm over the sharp medicinal opening of raw patchouli. All the while, the perfume stays very thick & dense perhaps with some added musk? An oiliness like the sheen on silk or fur, perhaps ambergris? Labdanum is a bit detectable as a superbly sweet & sticky accord that flits about but never lands strongly to push everyone around thank goodness! My skin tends to pull sweet notes, and as the composition wears on, it steadily gets sweeter & sweeter up to the point where I almost feel as if I'm wearing the Angel that left for Paris instead of the Gentlemen's club. (No offense to Angel lovers, just a personal preference!) I'm very glad the caramel & vanilla notes aren't here, as they go so sticky sideways on my skin! There, I will end my comparison.
The cocoa-patchouli dance is more sophisticated now, a dignified courtship, atop a dense base that lasts forever.. Even just a wax sample! The perfume must be a truly potent patch bomb! I picked this sample today, before my bath by a few hours, because I thought I wouldn't like it. Patchouli, chocolate, sweet... Much to my surprise, once again I find myself impressed by Mr Lutens. Full bottle? Perhaps.. I know I do need to test it again. There is something here that attracts me, even though it shouldn't!

On my skin I can smell fig and anise. What? Why? It opens with this not-actually-in-the-composition anise and patchouli, and later mellows into smoky ghost-fig and, I suppose, cacao, the one that, you know, is actually among the notes.

However - and the however is very great here - on clothes it retains the character antfarm and a few others describe. Heavy, dark, succulent and somewhat medicinal - a strange combination of adjectives, I know, but it works - dense and smoky.

I seem to be growing into my heavy scent love because I can very well predict myself wearing this at summer, projecting right into the neighboring country. Heady.

starts with smoked cacao, after few hours i can detect a hint of white flowers. warm and smokey fragrance suitable for cosy evenings, not for everyday use. sillage and longevity are rather disappointing though.

Most manly fragrance I've smelled from the Lutens Line.

It's not only manly, it's also distinguish (if a scent can be so..)

I picture a room of a exclusive british-like club when smelling this. Full of suits, cuban cigars, balloon glasses, big leather sofas, ladies with too much make up and rigid tuxedo waiters.

Patchuli, cacao and a spicy cocktail. I like it a lot.

Dark, bitter, and sexy. It smells like the bark of a deadly tree in a jungle that village children tell tall tales about.

The chocolate is not gourmand here, it's rooty, chalky, and deep like the scent of a cacao bean in nature. The patchouli is very prominent but not dirty--it's the sharper, almost furniture polish-like variety.

This is flat and linear on me and doesn't last long, but on my boyfriend's skin different facets come to the forefront and almost every note is detectable.

I adore Borneo. It can do no wrong in my book. It makes me feel stronger, more grounded, and delicious. It is linear which to me means I can count on the dry Patchouli, the bitter Cocoa and the well worn Leather all the way home. And I am trying just now, Borneo on my left arm, Coromandel on my right. Coromandel is Borneo's cute, goofy, cuddly, little Sister. Borneo seems almost the stern reproving big Brother giving up a little more chocolate in side by side comparison. Kinda fun wearing them both, but I lean way over to Borneo as my preference.

All Lutens me work like opening magnificent and disappointing development, or opening warm and love bomb later.
This is not either: opening very interesting development yet to smell, because I feel the discomfort of camphor .... however it is in the style of Lutens.
P.S. For me absolutely not like and do not remember ... Coromandel! alcohol have in common??

second review:
MASTERPIECE!
l'immagine e quella della sniffata di russell crowe nell'arena del gladiatore prima del combattimento...

patchouli da sballo!...eh' si' ....si' mr Lutens c'ha la robbabuona!!;-)))

Wasn't too thrilled by this. Musky (?) chocolate, I guess? I really dislike gourmands, so I'm probably biased. But even for a gourmand, it just seems a bit run-of-the-mill. I actually don't get much of the patchouli, but I can tell it's there.

Woah, is the longevity problematic in this? It's disappeared down to a skin scent already.

have you ever smelled something so good enough to eat and yet so inedible?? This is how it makes me feel. the same way i feel about fish flakes.

Bitter chocolate shavings in a bed of heady, earthy, mentholated patchouli with a dash of cinnamon and a sprinkling of cigarette ashes. Smells really really yummy! I'm starting to get confused about what i should and should not be eating :p

I remember the time when I dreamed about this fragrance)) Looking only at the pyramid and comments I was already sure that Borneo is perfect... And it is perfect!
I love the cacao scent, not the sugary and milky cacao-drink but bitter cacao-powder. And I really don't like sweet-food scents, things which you may call "delicious". Really, woman should not smell like confectionery or bakery))
Note of "inedible confectionery" is a contradiction, a paradox which I like so much in many fragrances of Serge Lutens. Borneo 1834 gave me this note in the form of bitter, dry and rich cacao-powder. Yes, I want to eat this scent... but only by my nose)) In addition to this fantastic cacao I get real intensive patchouli scent, very deep, dark and even oily, with overtones of soil. And that's not all. I feel ship's timber, so interesting and rare accord in perfumery, so distinct from all woody scents. Oh yeah, I forgot about camphor! So natural and so strange.
Well, Borneo 1834 is very Lutens' fragrance, completely in the style of the house. The accords of composition seems familiar but they "sounds " very unusual. And it's almost impossible to forget this fragrance or mistake it for something else.

patchouli kick, hugely sexy, sweet but not cloying..a first line scent

Outstanding like other SL fragrances, but this one here is very interesting.
Patchouli that gives a woddy and earthy tone and together with the mineral subtle labdanum dries the cacao predominant note, this all comes with a cloud camphorated scent.
Bring me the feeling of type white chocolate powder,
wondrously!

Thats a nice Lutens. Reminds me of Chanel Coromandel, but not as sweet and creamy. Borneo is more earthy and drier than Coromandel, also the lasting power and sillage are not as heavy as Coromandel's.
Borneo also reminds me of Montale's Patchouli Leaves, which in my opinion is even drier and more earthy patchouli. Borneo is quite linear: dry and fades dry. Thumbs up!

Warm, patchouli and cocoa scent. This is very comforting. One of the best wood scent, imo. This, by far, tops the list of best patchouli... next are Aromatics Elixir and Giorgio for Men.

Dry, earthy (but not dirty) leathery patchouli. While I can appreciate this scent as a patchouli lover, I don't like Borneo 1834 on my own skin due to the dry leather note. Looking at the notes, I don't know what's causing it! Also, the longevity was really poor for me.

Dry cold earth. Dense, villainous, unbothered. Cacao like a drug, not like a chocolatey treat, dominates at first but ultimately loses out to the elements; something primal and austere. Galbanum (just as the dark arts described it) and cardamom hum and seethe respectively around a heart that shakes off hippie in favor of chic freak.

Initially I was less than impressed with this acquisition in spite of being a classic patch-head. It took spilling nearly 25 ml of this for me to give it proper attention. Dirty, real patchouli, the last black key on the left side of the piano, pitched-down vocals. Coarse, not minerallac in any clean sense but a bit like moss on cooled volcanic rock.

Attics, basements, black mold. The story behind this: the silk road, patchouli used to keep the insects off the fabric, the ladies loved the smell of their soft new silks. Probably only because it was exotic, maybe only because it contrasted so perfectly with the weft of silk itself.

Rough-hewn peace and the grand, unsentimental love of mother nature.

Overall rating: for lovers of not-clean-patch: 9.5/10, in general: 8/10
Longevity: 3+ hours dabbed, 5+ hours sprayed, months if spilled or used as a high-cost room spray
Sillage: undulating. the opening is a bit close to the skin, but it drifts into arm's length radius.
Gender: tending toward masculine, certainly not at all girly, but the earthiness will work on androgynous, tough, or very natural-boheme earth mother types. (Read: this is goth and hippie at the same time, to indulge in convenient labels).
Occasion: chillout, reading poetry, graveyard strolls, secret midnight adventures.

Several months ago Ineke Ruhland ran a thought experiment asking people to suggest perfumes based on "weird" things that they liked to smell. No surprises in terms of mimeographed paper and crayons but the one that everyone thought was crazy was -- bandaids. Well here's the good news for bandaid lovers: it's already in a bottle called " Borneo 1834". Yes I can smell all the individual notes and tricks, but by golly, the ultimate effect is opening a brand new box of bandaids while wearing a tobacco note perfume. So we've got the trademark weird and interesting parlor trick but I just don't get this one. I'll write it off to chemistry since so many people whose tastes I respect like this but doesn't anyone else smell the medicine cabinet?

Projection: Reasonable, 1-2 ft
Duration: 2 hours and counting
Fabulosity: George of the Jungle
Value to Price Ratio: your call
4/10

This is a chocolate patchouli, but saying that can be a bit misleading - it makes you expect sweet chocolate and hippy patch. Instead, the chocolate is very dark and 'dry' and the patchouli is cool, broad, and deep - forest floor menthol. The combined effect is remarkable. It reminds me, in the best possible way, of an exclusive wine cellar. Restful, luxurious, compelling.

(As a postscript, here's an odd layering effect: take a good spritz of B1834 and spray over a dash of Demeter's 'Earthworm'. Can you guess the result? Truffles — black Piedmontese truffles — exactly. I think this may be the most bizarre gourmand ever.)

This is such an interesting scent! I was expecting a horrible overload of patchouli but instead it is simply noticeable. I smell the cacao to, i get a kind of chocolate covered raisins note but not to sweet, actually its oddly nice. There is also earthiness which makes me think of sunbaked earth, this works really well to sort of ground the other notes. I also get some green notes like when you snap a green twig, i think this must be the laubdanum.
I ususally like sweeter perfumes and am not normally a fan of patchouli but i have to say this is soo opposite to what i normally like that im finding it quite pleasant, sort of warm and cosy, a bit woody a bit creamy a bit earthy and and a bit green and a bit spicy. Id compare it when you open the spice cupboard and get that waft of savory sweet spicyness. I think this fragrance is a bit dirty too, i dont know if it could be worn for all occaacions but this is definately a masterpiece of the unusual and individual. Im writing this about the solid perfume sample so i hope the liquids just as good.

just received a sample of this one. i could only smell the cacao, nothing else. this is the 2nd serge lutens i sampled and i only get one or two of the notes from each. another one that is not for me.

camaleontico come tutti i profumi di Serge Lutens...dopo un avvio insolito di canfora all'apertura del tappo prendo coraggio e lo spruzzo su polsi, collo e gomiti..a tratti medicinale o meglio alcolico.nellle prime 2 ore penso al caffe' borghetti e un mini sigaro masticando liquirizia goleador....borneo 1834 e' uomo o comunque dark fino alla fine.
nel mentre...sento
terra secca al sole,
il patchouli e il cacao (in polvere) rendono tutto caldo leggero liscio ..,
quasi dolce,
resinoso secco,
misterioso,
afrodisiaco
rating 8,5-9/10
bravo Sergetto..:-)

I now have a new love affair and it is with Borneo. I have a habit of jumping right in with a fragrance and then end up with a huge bottle that I get bored with quickly and becomes a dust collector, so this time I ordered some decants.. I am a hugh patchouli fan and couldn't wait to smell this fragrance which seems to be one that either you love or just cannot do it.. My package arrived today and I just couldn't wait to open this bottle.. The first smell that came across to me was cacao/chocolate followed by patchouli. As time wore on, the patchouli grew stronger with a hint of tobacco and powder all in one.. the patchouli was very mellow to my standards and somehow all of these smells in the drydown seems to blend into one very smooth, velvety scent.

Agree with the most comment, one of my favorite Serge Lutens' fragrance too. The patchouli note is beautiful, dark, earthy, woody and sweet, and with the cocoa creates a lovely smell! Simply love it.

Warm, comforting patchouli. Different from the patchoulis I had tried before, I love to wear it on cold winter days, one of my favorite Lutens' fragrance.

Oops!
I forgot to add that I live in a tropical country. Would Borneo 1834 be cloying in the heat?
Thank you :)

I can't find a sample here in my country and I'm wondering if it's safe to buy it without testing it on my skin first because I found a really good deal on Serge Lutens perfumes here. But it's rather unfortunate that I can't find a sample of Borneo 1834 here. The only ones that I was able to test were Douce Amere, Chergui, Ambre Sultan, and Un Bois Vanille. I bought the first two because I liked how they smell on me. I was wondering if Borneo 1834 smells a bit like Ambre Sultan. If it does then I probably won't buy it because I hated Ambre Sultan on me. I looked at the notes in Borneo 1834 and I can't decide. I don't know what patchouli smells like but I think I will like the cacao.

I also want to try Feminite Du Bois but I can't find a sample. Please enlighten me. Thank you very much.

Wow, amazing fragrance. Smells like patchouli, sweet patchouli. It reminds me of my signature scent Patchouli by Reminiscence. It's practically the same. Mine has better lasting power and is less expensive but it comes close. Mmm love it!

I spent some days trying to define clearly this scent 'cause it is somewhat complicated. From the outset I can say that I enjoyed the hell out and Serge Lutens and Sheldrake are geniuses. This frag has its main focus on patchouli and is subsidized by the roasted cocoa.

Early on, it opens with a smell of camphor dissolved in a cocoa and patchouli basis, a little bit different, like some kind of root, like a bitter licorice. After a few minutes, camphor decreases and open space to patchouli, that "tones up" and becomes more leafy, yet bitter, but this patchouli is a totally different from how it was used by White Patchouli - TF. In Borneo it is opaque, dense, smoky, as ike the cocoa note, but it seems to be formed by dry leaves, not fresh ones.

Indeed, the more time passes, the more opaque is the scent, it gives the impression that you're in the middle of a dark rainforest, but close to a cocoa farm (who has been to Ilheus, here in Brazil, should know what I'm talking ). The scent reminds a lot this environment. This is because the dry down enter the galbanum and laudanum notes, leaving the frag resined and incensed.

But though opaque, cocoa becomes more pronounced, like a 70% chocolate but with a layer of dust on top of it, or as if it was a little moldy. You can not exactly feel like eating, but getting lost in the midst of the bushes and rushes out to smell the cocoa beans that are drying up. It has a very good sillage and fix.

Straight forward patchouli-cacao. Rich yet not too sweet, masterfully crafted but not incredibly original. After the camphoraceous/spicy opening it settles haflway between A*Men and Parfumerie Generale's Cozè. A beatuiful composition that you'll surely dig if you're into bold head-shop patchouli. Me? A bit too overpowering for my likes. I stick with the PG.

Rating: 7.5/10

In the vast field of patchouli fragrances, I love Borneo precisely because the cacao note makes the whole thing, to my nose, astoundingly raunchy. Unsweetened and inedible, this latter note really reminds me of open wounds and ripped-off bandaids. It's exciting to get something a little uncomfortable (ie the inside of some anonymous someone) slyly/unknowingly injected into such a reliably crafted and remarkably staid, for all its Orientalism, line.

Maybe too overpriced but a fantastic scent!

I tested it with a friend who is a perfume freak like me , and we had the same reaction at the same moment : a "baaaaaaaah" it smelled to me like nail polish remover O_o
Maybe it's the test bottle that had gone wrong ?

I was a little wary of trying this one as in my mind I had imagined Borneo 1834 to be big, heavy and demanding. What unfolded for me was a thick (but not oppresive) oriental not dissimilar to Chanel Coromandel, but without some of Coromandel's sweetness.

Maybe I'm getting too used to strong unisex fragrances that nudge the masculine line, but this sits very well on me (female) and I would certainly consider this full bottle worthy.

Thanks again to my dear friend Scorpiosheep for the sample :)

I agree with bhean_sidhe's review wholeheartedly; I am also a Scorpio and also prefer Borneo 1834 as a winter scent.

I can imagine an early explorer in a tropical jungle, with the steamy camphor smell all around, but then a trickling sluggish almost stagnant smelling creek right there, adding a pungent note. He settles down for a mug of hot chocolate (!) and there it is... the complete perfume.

You also have to be pretty confident to wear this, not a girly girl.

This will always be in my perfume collection.

Today was the first test run for this sample and I have to say that it was a pleasant surprise. The first thing that I noticed was a strong aura of patchouli floating all around, not where I had applied the perfume, but in the remote part of the sillage. I really hadn't read anything about the perfume, so was surprised by the patchouli, which was actually nice and light, not the head-shop kind that I try to avoid. Closer to the skin there were other things not at all related to patchouli, probably some flowers and coriander. The first couple of minutes were a little rough, but the scent quickly settled down into a pleasant spicy-flowery scent with the patchouli somewhere off in another dimension. As the patchouli and flowers subsided, they were gradually replaced by a powerful, sweet vanilla note intensified by the cacao that I now see is supposed to be in the mix. About 8 hours later the drydown has pretty much come back to a nice, muted slightly floral patchouli. I like this scent a lot, even if it doesn't transport me to the wilds of Borneo. It has a lot of complexity and surprising whiffs of different things appearing in the sillage, almost as if they're drifting in from some remote location. Maybe the best image would be standing on the deck of a ship out at sea, with breezes from the land bringing hints of all the different fragrant things that are on an island somewhere just over the horizon. Borneo will get another wearing before too long.

An interesting journey. It goes on my skin as a blast of alcohol and patchouli, that immediately fades to patchouli and cocoa. The patchouli, which I generally abhore, is soft and sweet and woody, not oily and sour, and the cocoa is dry instead of sweet. It never smells like chocolate on me, only dry cocoa. As the scent warms, cardamom creeps in in the faintest of whiffs, softening the woody cocoa still further into what is almost but not quite a gourmand scent. Galbanum makes a brief appearance as wet wood or green forest floor, but it fades fairly quickly, which is good for me as galbanum can be abrasive and sharp on my skin. At about 45 minutes, a faint but distinct plastic note shows up,generally the sign of a synthetic smoke scent on me. Still, it isn't so intrusive to ruin the fragrance completely. Overall, this is warm woods, sweet patchouli in it's best Sunday clothes and dry, ground cocoa bean. Lovely.

I was given this with a comment "please wear only in winter, better never". But now I wear it every day (it's winter though) and I can't get enough of it. I feel that is suits me perfectly and that no other perfume reflects my personality as well as this one. Btw, I think it's the best fragrance for a Scorpio you could ever think of.

At fist it's really sharp, almost like a fist in your face, straightforward so and so. Then it settles down, gets close to to the skin and you start feeling the cocoa. It reminds me of our house in the countriside in August - the smell of the earth, wood. You're wearing a warm jumper and eating a chocolate bar. Somehow many Lutens fragrances bring back childhood memories.

Well, I'm too damn beaten down by life right now for the usual clowning around and weekly biography (lost another job for NO GOOD DAMN REASON)so I'll stick with the juice. Borneo 1834 is an acceptable substitute for my forbidden alcohol abuse, as it smells like something really really expensive that I'd like to drink instead of something really really expensive that I love to wear. Sort of reminds me of Annick Goutal's SABLES -is there immortelle in there?- opens up with a head clearing blast of patchouli, cigar tobacco, utterly bitter chocolate, and goes on fron there. Seems almost like a lateral scent to me - I don't notice a lot of change or evolution- but my head is so fucked up lateley my sensory perceptions may be a bit out of whack. Whatever. This is GREAT. I can't really see a woman wearing this....but the woman with the personality and style to pull it off would be pretty damn attractive to me - like a woman who looks goo in a Tuxedo...I guess it's the whole Helmut Newton thing, after all, I did sexually come of age in the 1970's ya know. Anyway, it's one of those Lutens that doesn't clobber you over the head with his trademark cedarwood accord - not that I'm knocking that, but in some of his stuff (Cedre and Chypre Rouge, and a few others), it's just, well, almost nauseating. In the case of Cedre, it IS just plain nauseating...the staff at Barney's agree with me. I can't say enough nice things about the perfume staff at Barney's in Boston - when Lutens released Muscs Koublai Khan in the USA, I stopped in at the store (didn't know it was out yet) and the manager had one with my name on it and was distressed because she didn't have my phone number. (Jeanette, if you ever read this, YOU can have my number - or anything else you want - ANY TIME) I also find that this smells great if you spray on the timiest bit of Muscs koublai Khan afterwards - although I usually refrain from mixing my perfumes because the result is usually an unmitigated, hard to wash off disaster.
By the way...I'm willing to be friends with any of you out there that do the FACEBOOK thing...just look for the guy with the monocle. (I'm not really a big FACEBOOK kind of guy, but most of my friends who do it are old rock and roll buddies, so a few perfume foolks would be a welcome change...)

I premise that it will be a negative review or at any rate not a positive one.
My first impression about Borneo was: "Oh, my, this is the clone of Le Baiser du Dragon by Cartier!" (at least on my skin) There is the same dirty, wet, earthy type of pathouli in both of them in common, which does not seem the most refined and wearable at all. The patchouli is very dominant (and so is the cocoa in the Borneo - which, by the way, made me discover that I do not like cocoa bean as a perfume note) and I find it difficult to harmonize with my own personal style or mood.
I have to admit that I admire both fragrances but mostly as something valuables for their contribution to the olfactory discourse rather than to my personal scentrobe.

I'm really impressed,it's funny to wear it but, for me this is more a scent for men.It smells so hot/smoky and like inscense but not the chemical stuff in some standard fragrances this smells real!
It smells like you're in the church(the inscense smells are different because every priest use other Balm for it,and this is a other one i think it's the galbanum)and it smells dry(patchoulie) and woody/spicy(cardamom).
This is definitive a unique and special scent with love made.And the scent is deep and mysterious.
The Bottle and the colour of the liquid fits really really good to the scent, and also the name it's like Borneo,itself.
This fragrance is good for the nighttime,and for colder day's and it last very long,it's a elixir.

Wow. My introduction to Serge Lutens and I find myself in Borneo. Straight out of the bottle the top notes welcome with the most delicious melange of warm spices and a chord of rum and raisin running through, this is an astonishing perfume; 1834? Well yes, I can feel it. We are 19th Century explorers; I'm the girl dressed as a boy, pith helmet at the ready; we traded spices from Zanzibar via Madagascar to Mandalay, and now we have come to a land of heavy scented woods, of jungles and mysteries and strange flowers, of beasts and beings unknown, a land time forgot. I half expected to see a pterodactyl circling above Harrods.

Borneo 1834 has impressive longevity, I put it on at 5 in the afternoon and could still smell it on me at 2 in the morning, albeit witout the delectable top notes. What remains is a fascinating and rather dry condensation of spices. My criticism? I think it is too masculine for my skin. It lacks a certain kind of sexiness, and I like my perfumes to beguile. But a very interesting perfume indeed.