Hello Stink Monkeys!!

This fragrance I’ve had a decant sitting in my cupboard for a while. I often see it for a good price and read reviews but it has never reached my skin until recently. To be truthful I was a little Ho Hum about it and wasn’t sure that it would be my thing. Honey, hay, dust, sweet tobacco and balmy amber, hang on, that sounds exactly what a fragrance should be made up of…

Chergui by Serge Lutens 2001

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords in one line:
Tobacco leaf, honey, iris, sandalwood, amber, musk, incense, rose and hay

I love the entrance to Chergui, the super honeyed tobacco and amber rise up softly and gracefully on my skin. It is sweet and dusty at the same time, like an old forgotten second hand bookstore in the desert at dusk. The smell of wood and paper and earth and that chill as the daylight leaves. I only get the merest hint of hay, though there is something like it hiding behind the honey/tobacco sweetness which is amplified on my skin. Has anyone else had the honey/tobacco take over during the first hour or so?

Photo Stolen TripAdvisor

Once the sweetness burns off for me the whole fragrance becomes more dessicated and interesting, like dried out greenery snapped or crumbled in your hands with a very cool smoky incense, before you light it, and here I get a little spicy rose and a whisper of something that smells like orchid.

For some reason I had it in my head that Chergui was a difficult fragrance but I find it pretty and wearable. Not too strong, not too outrageous in the cool of Sydney late Autumn and definitely wearable by both sexes. On my skin this is reminiscent of some of the best vintage women’s fragrances and some of the 1990s excellent mens, all of which have been discontinued or reformulated out of even a whisper of themselves.

I wish I had taken my decant of Chergui to LA with me because I think it will bloom even more beautifully in the warmth. As it is I’m getting moderate life of about 4-5 hours and moderate sillage. This is only my second wear though, I can’t wait to wear Chergui to work and see if people love it.

Photo Stolen DailyTelegraph

Further reading Olfactoria’sTravels and Kafkaesque
FragranceNet has $97/50ml and with the oft available 15% discount that’s around $83!!
SurrenderToChance starts at $4/.5ml

How did Chergui live on your skin? Was there a note that really stood out and was surprising? Did you have a similar experience to most others?
Please join the conversation, I love it when people tell us how a fragrance affected them,
Portia xx