Well I guess I am not immune to marketing after all. In my FacePlace feed the other day an ad for a new Etat Libre scent popped up. A woman’s high heel crushing a white bloom. Very Brian DePalma circa 1984. For a new Etat Libre scent that’s supposed to have something to do with the Marquis de Sade.
How. Very. Daring.
I actually read some de Sade when I was a grumpy teen and had the reaction I did when looking at this ad as a grumpy senior: half “seek therapy” and half “oh shut up.” Marketing a fragrance (of all things) to his name elicits a reaction that is far more the latter than the former, but of course I had to run out and pay to try it, and three others to make up that $26.50 with shipping sample set.
Marketing triumphed.
Now, I did choose the other three by name and without looking anything up so this is a total crapshoot. Will I roll Yo-leven or Snake Eyes? Read on..
Frustration has a lot of marketing blurb that I am just going to link to, since I don’t think it’s going to force you to pop $275 for a bottle. But you never know. The first thing I get off it is a big hit of vanillin and a big slug of vodka. Then something like hazelnuts and another big slug of cumin which makes it seem like the hazelnuts have gone over. After a while the promised rum and bourbon showed up, which just made me think “don’t put this on and roll through a stop sign in front of a cop.” Because trying to explain to the officer that you aren’t swozzled, you’re just wearing your Frustration is not going to go well. My frustration was waiting for it to become something I’d wear.
Experimentum Crucis however tells us it’s a chypre. Now I don’t pretend to be an expert on these things but if it is one I am not at all sure Mr. Coty would be sitting back and going “oh yeah, that’s it!” On me it opens bright with citrus and something that teeters interestingly between actual green apple and fake green apple. They make a big deal about this being what would happen if a big rose hit Newton on the head instead of an apple, but I don’t really get to the rose, nor the promised jasmine. At least not in “conk you on the head” quantities. And I think they used up most of the listed cumin in Frustration, and for that I thank them. Pretty, but I don’t need it. But I will say it’s one of the nicest and most wearable of the line.
Until I got to..
Yes I do is apparently (from the packaging) a sequel of sorts to Don’t Get Me Wrong Baby I Don’t Swallow, a scent that looking back I pretty much ignored except to nominate it for dippiest name of the year back in the day on PST. I believe that Don’t.. was one of the initial offerings from Etat Libre and I am not sure how I missed it, but miss it I did. I didn’t realize the connection until I looked at the box. The description threatens marshmallow, which is something that can become as all consuming and strangling as those evil Bubble things from the old “Prisoner” TV series. Luckily it seems to be here only to fluff up the LotV and jasmine, like layers of tulle poofing out a skirt. The perfect amount of Aldehydes add sparkle and just enough patch and musk come in to add just a touch of, er, humanity in there. Best of all this one is $180 for 100 ML or $125 for 50, making it not only better, but a bargain.
Now on to the main event.
I have to admit I was kind of gunning for Attaquer Le Soleil Marquis de Sade, if only for the name. Now I wrote off as a teen the Marquis as a pervy old poop who needed therapy and perhaps Lithium, but I was a snarky teen who grew into a snarky adult. Now secure as a snarky senior how would I find this?
It’s really good, darn it. In the blurb the perfumer admits to not caring for cistus and I know for some it can be overpowering. It’s kind of musky, but not in that animalic way, more like it is in CB I Hate Perfume Musk Reinvention. Naughty sexy berries. They aren’t listing notes on this one but I am also getting a lot of cedarwood and a fair bit of leather. Better even it’s $190 for 100 ML which makes it a relative bargain and you can shave off some of that at discounters. I did.
So all of these are available at their website, where I purchased my samples. Check out Surrender to Chance for samples of ELdO’s other scents (and I am sure more to come) If you’ve tried any of these or something like them please chime in on the comments. We love chatting amongst ourselves..
Images: My iPhone, Pexels, Wikimedia Commons
I wish they weren’t … trying so hard? To be hip? The concept is ageing more like milk than fine wine. Having said all that, I’m deeply in love with Remarkable People (my only fb.) Your review is hilarious as usual, but I’m not running out to get samples, unlike Juste Filthy hehe.
Well, we love out filth..
Trying too hard is it all right. Sad thing is that some of these (like the de Sade one) are good enough to make the sill hype unnecessary..
I agree with you and March – something about the whole ‘concept’ makes me want to NOT try the line… but then you mentioned ‘layers of tulle’…
Some of them are really quite good. If the could just pull back on the Putain de Puerility bit we’d all be better off
I always say that ELO’s marketing department is run by teenage boys.
Pretty much..
I used up a large sample of ELdO Rossy de Palma in the distant past. It’s a fresh spicy rose with ginger and geranium. Very nice and not at all weird. Haven’t tried any of the ones you sampled in this post, Tom. As cinnamon said, your writing is the real treat here.
I liked the Rossy de Palma one a lot. Just not enough to add it to the extensive rose collection..
I got sort of bored by ELDO. I still have Like This & Hotel Whore but everything passed me by after these.
You had me chuckling though. Snarky Senior, nah not yet, in 30 years maybe. I look forward to the snark then
in 30 years I’ll be thatclose to catty centenarian..
We are the same generation & have around 20 years before any remaining filters come off. Will we even realise just how snarky we are?
IDK- I’ve had friends remind me of comments I’ve made and I just cringe..
I enjoyed this more for your writing and impressions than for ‘maybe I should sample these’.
I can never decide if ELdO is silly and self-absorbed or just having a laugh and a bit of fun. Every once in a while they throw something out that’s wonderful (Spice whatever it’s called, Rien). But I have always tended to buy based on name since those early releases and not pay attention to notes lists.
In thinking about it I’ve never kept any of my samples after the initial testing. They’ve either gone to friends or into the bag for the charity shop. I did once have a bottle of Rien which I think I finished …
Thank you!
I think they think it’s the latter but the end result a lot of the time is the former.
Rien was a winner. But it was so much like a couple of others I know and love I didn’t reorder when my little bottle was done.
LOVE ELdO! there’s a whole box of them here and a huge Discovery Set. As yet only Yes I Do is FB from your post Tom BUT I love the idea of Attaquer Le Soleil Marquis de Sade. It sounds fabulous.
Portia xx
Yes I Do was a FB until I got to Le Soleil. And while it’s terrible of me I got it from one of the PerJomaFragNet places. Cheap and snarky. How does he stay single?
It’s a question for the ages.
Both of you, STOP IT! It’s late and you need to GET OFF MY LAWN so I can stop cackling!!!
Nope!
That it is!
I tried two ELdO fragrances and didn’t care for them. I just don’t have much interest in the house. They also play the silly name game that TF started doing too.
It’s the witching season now and I’m more interested in trying noir and gothic style perfumes, like Villa Erbatium Dracula – main note, black rose.
The name game is tiresome and in the end counter-productive. But it’s their schtick, so..
I am going to look up Dracula. Reads yummy..