By Thomas
Rose-based scents don’t tend to work for me: they’re too pretty, too delicate, too…Laura Ashley for my (ahem) manly sensibilities. Just as I tend to forbid (or sharply limit) the floral motifs on the walls of our house, I likewise shy away from pretty florals.
Good thing this isn’t a pretty rose.
For some reason I also have a bottle of Ungaro III (hey, I heard it was good) and wore it a bit, and it never really took. VdR is a lot like Ungaro III: an earthy, damp, rooty rose-based scent. But where Ungaro III is rough around the edges (more Frankenstein than Dracula), VdR is more Dracula at his most suave.
Voleur de Roses opens with rose and roots and dirt, maybe a little bergamot hidden away to keep this one from crashing at liftoff, but for the most part it’s an autumn/early winter scent.
Development isn’t really all that dramatic. This is roses and more roses, and all the development revolves around the rose note. It’s a fine rose note: not quite the real thing, but better than most offerings.
Towards the end, we have a damp woody rose, maybe a hit of patchouli, but the focus never shifts from the rose. It’s a rough, dirty rose hidden in a damp forest at autumn twilight. I like it, but probably won’t spring for the full bottle – not irresistible.
Now, speaking of irresistible…I got samples of VdR and Mechant Loup at the same time, decanted into spray vials, and forgot to label them. The dumb, it is strong with Thomas. But so is the luck: to differentiate them I put one on each wrist and sought out the rose note, which wasn’t all that hard. But then they started mingling, this earthy rose and the cedar molasses/anise from Mechant Loup – and it was compelling. After I felt comfortable reviewing each individually, I started wearing them together. I love this combination: the anise gives a similar effect to Kingdom, without the dreaded BO/burrito accord. A sneering buzz-saw rose, or a formal, high-collared licorice; either way a weird beauty. If you have both, try them together sometime. Wonder if L’Artisan would cut me a package deal.
Year: 1993
Perfumer: Michel Almairac
Notes: Rose, Patchouli
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