Rummaging in the sample draw, I was hoping to come up with the new Felanilla, but Luckyscent just sent me Drama Nuui, another new introduction from PG.
I’ve not really kept up with PG recently – it all got so confusing on their website with private scents having only numbers, and it was like you had to twitch your nose three times and do a behind the back handshake just to order a perfume.
These two new ones, sounded interesting, so… let’s see if they are! Notes of petit grain, absinthe, jasmine, spices, guaiac wood, sandalwood, musk make up Drama Nuui. It opens heavy on the jasmine, rolling indolic, but the green, wood and spice notes keep it from dropping in the crapper, fecally speaking. Are we sure there’s not Lotv in this? Probably not. It’s got a nice compositional feel to it, fresh and a little smutty at the same time. The jasmine goes in the direction of sweet, like Montale’s Jasmin Full, but pulls back short of it and sort of smolders. Again, I swear there’s some lotv in there or at least it feels that way, reminding me a bit of Ellie’s greenness. It’s well done and a nice angle on the jasmine. The drydown is really soft and beautiful, not a harsh, jarring note anywhere to be found.
Since I have it, let’s take a sniff of Lucienne too. Notes of Bay rose, Bulgarian rose, leafy green, ginger, lemon, bergamot, Indian jasmine, rose maroc, gardenia, orris, green tulip, lily of the valley, musk, heliotrope, vanilla, gray amber, sandalwood, cedarwood. Okay, let’s not and say we did. The open is all just… a mess of green and floral and… booze? No, not really, maybe like ginger beer. It’s trying to be too many things to too many noses and just seems scattered and erratic. It’s like my spice cabinet and vegetable bin — is that celery? But none of those notes are listed, so how can that be? It does slowly lose that and turn more into a floral, but I’m must not feeling it. Just no.
Anyone gotten their hands on the Felanilla (must be careful when I type that!) yet? If so, what do you think?
After it’s initial rush of horse liniment, Fela settled down into a really lovely skin scent on me. There is just the faintest tinge of incense smoke, as though I’d walked past the priest swinging a censer at high mass but most of what I get is a quiet blend of iris and savory (not sweet) vanilla. I’d expected a tiger and got a purring kitten. But that’s not such a bad thing. I’ve got lots of ‘fierce’ in my fragrance wardrobe. 😉
Drama Nuui is absolutely full bottle worthy for me. When PG is good, they are very very good and I do happen to love my jasmines a little bit on the green and sluttish side…..:”> There is absolutely some lily lurking around in here, but I don’t think it’s LOTV. I’d be more inclined to think it’s one of the larger lily varieties, some of which can also be quite green.
My experience is the same as Elle’s about pure florals – they smell nice, then they sit in the closet unworn. Thus I’ve stopped purchasing them.
As for Felanilla, it smelled like Iris Silver Mist layered over L’Artisan Vanilia. Drydown is basically identical to Vanilia on me. Drama Nuui was not indolic, just a pleasant jasmine on me, but I’m not a jasmine fan so I sampled it just out of idle curiosity. Neither one was FBW for me. Much prefer L’Ombre Fauve.
Saffron sl*t that I am, I’m really enjoying Felanilla and will definitely be getting a full bottle. It’s one of the first PGs I’ve enjoyed in quite a while. I’m still trying to decide if I need a FB of Drama Nuui or not. I quite like it, but just don’t know if it’s a scent I will wear enough of to merit getting more than a decant or large sample. I find that as much as I enjoy them when I try them, my pure floral scents rarely get any attention from me after they arrive at our doorstep. They’re beautiful, but they don’t seem to work for me to balance out or enhance moods. I’m looking for work horse scents these days.
I know I got a sample of Lucienne from a friend in Europe a couple of years ago, but I can’t remember exactly what it was like. I do know, though, that I wasn’t impressed enough to try to get a bottle and I’m wondering if it was because I picked up on the celery you mentioned. Am going to have to see if I can find that sample or get another.
I’ve got Fella right here … hmmmmmm. It’s early yet but it doesn’t smell a thing like vanilla on me. Fairly masculine — incense, smoke, definite animalic note. I’m good with it but I could see other people saying it smells like pee. Woods. Sharp-ish. Crapload of iris on me. Where’s my vanilla? :-w
Wait…it should be there as it dries down…
Funny….I got the vanilla first, then the Tiger Balm, which blew the vanilla right out…now it’s back to a caramelish vanilla which is fine, though it’s way low on my list of Notes I Love. No incense, no smoke….dang.
xo>-)
I’ve got samples of both and find them both at least decant-worthy :d
Didn’t like the opening of Drama Nuui too very much because it seemed very sharp (absinthe and petit grain? don’t know), but as soon as the top notes faded, the dry down was a lovely smooth jasmine/sandalwood mix.
My experience with Felanilla apparently is nothing like anyone else’s. At first there’s the vanilla and something sort of aromatic and tingly. I have no idea what banana wood smells like, but since Luckyscent describes it as resinous, I just decided that’s what it was :”> And then it’s iris and nothing but iris for the rest of the day. The next morning I could smell the saffron wafting up from the cleavage. Iris isn’t really my thing, but my daughter wants this one badly.
I’ve tried both PG’s…a landmark in my perfume path!! Mind you, these impressions are based on one trial only.
To me, Felanilla seemed like a nicely composed entry into a zone PG also covers with L’Ombre Fauve, especially when you get to the drydown. The opening has hay and…saffron??…and so has a sharper, and honestly, more “of this moment in perfume” feel. Hint of smoke. (I’m also thinking Chergui lingers in the same corner of types here.) But when it finishes it’s intro, and settles into the steady pace for the day, it’s the same warm, smooth vanilla-y PG I get from L’oFauve.
(Which means no complaints, and I really like it, but if one is exercising fiscal responsibility, having one might trump needing the other.)
Drama Nuui was the surprise…I really, really liked the sharp green embrace of that white floral jasmine. That’s what saves it for me, in fact; the jasmine note is beautiful, but would be too intense and ultimately screechy as a daylong companion on its own. Plus, the green is what holds through the drydown.
Funny, I must be reallly slow, ’cause I only thought of Feline Vanilla….both the PGs sound like Not My Thing, especially the LOTV in Drama Nuui. Just can’t wear any LOTV at all.
F-van might just work, but given how the fall releases are going for me, I’m not going to build up hopes. I think PG has done some lovely scents (Bois Blond, Crime Exotique, Bois de Copaiba, L’Ombre Fauve, Cadjmere), but the ones that miss, miss really far IMO #-o
Tabitha – these sound like they’re not for me, and I can’t wiggle my nose anyway. Is the felanilla reference what I think it is? It kinda blows as a name…. Call me slow this morning.
Lee, Felanilla *sounds* like a reference to tootin’ the flute, but is actually “feline + vanilla”… I said what I thought of it in my Grain de Musc review (http://graindemusc.blogspot.com/2008/11/felanilla-louche-vanilla-parfumerie.html): I like it very much indeed, it’s just edgy enough to make it an interesting vanilla, but that Parfumerie Générale website sometimes makes me want to boycott the brand entirely…
See, it doesn’t make me think of wetting the whistle, but more of some muscle bound (fella) cross-dressing (nilla) clown from something like the Rocky Horror Picture show…:-?
I’ve been pretty curious to try Drama Nuui because I was hoping it would be green and woody enough to tone down the jasmine sweetness (I’m not exactly the kind of guy who could pull off Carnal Flower in the office). After your review, I’m still curious.
Joe, you could pull this off, easy! It’s pretty but not flat-out ‘girly’ and the green notes are not razor-sharp but they keep it out of SweetLand. To my mind it has a lot of a Frederic Malle-ish thing going – maybe En Passant (I think that’s what I’m smelling here). I missed the indolic jasmine but I’m really stuffed up so it might be only the greens and LOTV that are coming through right now – but it’s a gorgeous, nicely complex scent. I’m not sure that I would go FB on this, though – it has aspects of too many other scents, including Diorissimo (but just a bit). We’ll see on subsequent testings.
On the Felanilla (which I keep thinking of as Vanilla for Fellas) it’s is a nice, bready-woody vanilla (again, bear in mind my broken sniffer) with just a hint of that TigerBalm accord that jackie_daniels mentioned. I’m not a huge vanilla fan so the TB accord actually intrigues me. Ijust gave it one hit on a wrist – will try it anon, when I can smell more.
Felanilla was awful on me:o Maybe my nose was temporarily broken but during testing but I got a quite weird medicinal note similar of Tiger Balm or some kind of new age tooth paste. I appreciate weirdness in a perfume but in Felanilla it was not doing anything good[-(
I tried Felanilla for the first time yesterday (I´ve got the big samplepack from Luckyscent with 11 samples) and it was pretty much love at first sniff. It is adorable, beutiful, glowing, animalic yet tender and in my opinion not even hard to wear, I think a lot of people actually could apreciate it.
I was going to wish a bottle of Aomassai in Christmas present, but no I think I maybe have to wish for Felanilla instead.
Lol about Felanilla, you sly thing, you! I do have my hands on it, but have not tested it yet.
A kind perfume friend sent me Drama Nuui, and you are right…it does have that Ellie D thing going. That’s got to be lotv.
Hugs!