HS3

I gave a quick first impression of Odin Nomad long ago, but have finally had a chance to give it, along with the other two samples I had, some more attention.

Odin 03 Century – Beautifully blended. For the initiated, you won’t think it’s anything new and certainly relatively. For what it is though, it’s really quite nice. The cypress peeks through nicely, and the musk and amber in the base sweeten it just enough. It does have some unique elements here and there, but ultimately, you’ve got a mild-mannered woody amber with a hint of patchouli to give it some punch. Century is not in-your-face, but seems to have pretty surprising longevity.

*UPDATE* Century has killer longevity – 12 hours and a shower later and I can still smell the musk aromachemicals on my hand!

Odin 01 Nomad – This one holds my interest a bit more than Century. The initial blast has a cleaning supply vibe, but not in a bad way; it’s probably the juniper in the head. That passes within a minute or two and it turns into a tart, creamy cedar. It settles quickly into another variation of the sweetened woody base, this time with tonka instead of amber. The bright tartness (perhaps the bergamot?) hangs around for a while giving a bit of interest. There’s something floral to me as well, but I might just imagining it. Nomad doesn’t have much more tenacity than Century.

Odin 02 Owari – A blast of mandarin with a realistic grapefruit right out of the gate. It’s not the kind of grapefruit I usually loathe, but like freshly torn peel and tart spray. It fades into the heart soon after and a great neroli plays center stage. It’s supported by a slightly sweet base (seems to be a trend here). I can see some resemblance at times to Diptyque’s Eau de Neroli.

Owari seems like something I’d love in warmer months, but I’ve got a stockpile of great neroli scents, so it would have to blow me away to get my wallet out. Century would be nice for someone looking for a safe, woody amber who doesn’t have any of the genre. Nomad is the only of the three that I could imagine for me – it’s nothing daring, but it’s a great, close-wearing scent with decent longevity that would be perfect for office wear. The bergamot, juniper, and sandalwood are a really pleasing combination.

Comme des Garcons has some really quirky packaging. From the plastic dummy bottles in the Guerrilla series to the unfolding metallic box in the LUXE series, their packaging (though not the most luxurious, is definitely some of the most original. Comme des Garcons EDP, released in 1994, is no exception. It comes in a simple white card stock box with plain black printing on it. Open the box and the bottle is presented in something you might expect to save meat in the freezer with. The “as-seen-on-TV” style pouch seems to cover all the bottles of the same shape from CdG that I’ve tried. I’m still not completely sold on the bottle shape – though it serves its purpose quite well, it has a hard time sitting next to others in a collection. It ends up just being plunked there in the front.

As for the scent, it can certainly hold its own. This 1994 EDP is a melange of spices, loaded with clove and hot cinnamon. It advertises itself to work like a medicine and behave like a drug – though I don’t find the opening quite as medicinal as some, it is undoubtedly intense and slightly medicinal, perhaps due to the camphorous notes that you’ll find in the top. I find a good bit of rose throughout, but it’s never overly floral – merely a supporting note. It settles nicely into a smoother cedar and sandalwood-rich scent with the black pepper present through most of the day. Longevity on me is superb, which is not a surprise with its nearly 20% concentration. Sillage is above average for me on this one – I wore it yesterday and felt at times that I was leaving a trail a bit more tenacious than I usually like to. 12 hours into it, the GF (wife in a month – woo!) had her interest piqued and pressed her face into my neck to exclaim how good it smelled.

From what I gather, this scent was reformulated and the new version is now made in Spain. Some reviews point to the reformulated version as being lighter and less intense, but I’ve only tried this version (French made version), so I can’t compare. There don’t seem to be many good pictures of it online, but the ones that I have seen of the newer one (on Luckyscent and Dover Street Market sites) look considerably lighter in color. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily always point to a noticeable shift in ingredients.

I recently got a sample of this in the mail (thanks Nathan!) and finally got a chance to give it attention. It’s made by natural perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and is an oil. It is from 2002 as a holiday release. Here are the notes and description from her site:

An ancient aroma of sacred incense…the Holy Smoke of the Midnight Mass rises with a blessing for the coming year.
Top notes: Bergamot
Middle notes: Mastic, Oppopanax, Sandalwood
Base notes: Brown Oakmoss, Frankincense (Olibanum), True Arabian Myrrh

I really thought it would be a dry, churchy thing, but what I got was a warm, enveloping scent that opened with the tartness of bergamot and warmth of oppopanax and slowly developed over the entire day. If you’ve ever had a hot toddy, that’s exactly what this reminded me of for most of the morning. It develops well throughout its life, with pops of frankincense taking turns with a sweet sandalwood. A full 12 hours later, it was still quite detectable but evolved fully from what it had started out as in the morning. That’s incredible with it being a natural perfume. I’d highly recommend giving this a try if you’re looking for an introspective, warm fragrance – I can totally see this as a perfect scent by a fire at Christmas (and any other time of the year, for that matter).

I’d never heard of Odin before, being from small-town Washington, DC and Orlando as of late. Apparently, it looks to be a trendy store in NYC that stocks emerging designers, along with various other high-end stuff and also a newly released EDT line. It goes to show how far a good marketing plan can go for you when a small clothing retailer can release a set of EDTs and get them carried by stores like luckyscent and the like.

The bottles and packaging look gorgeous, though I haven’t actually seen one in person. I recently got the three of them as samples from luckyscent, and have been sampling them from time to time. Nomad is the one I’m sampling right now, and I really do like it. It opens a bit more “perfumey” than you’d expect, probably from a number of synthetic musks and florals. It settles into a creamy, sweetened heliotrope, with a sandalwood/vanilla undertone and the ever-present synthetic musk ringing along.

I could see myself owning and wearing this one though. It seems like a perfume scent that wouldn’t offend, but wouldn’t be boring or run of the mill either.

*UPDATE* I finally got a chance to give it some more attention, along with the other two samples I had from Odin. You can read those Odin reviews here.