Estee Lauder Sensuous Noir

From Estee Lauder: Intensely rich. Mysteriously seductive. Fragrance type: woody, floral chypre

Sensuous Noir becomes Estee Lauder’s flanker to the original Sensuous (2008). I liked the original Sensuous and I also like Sensuous Noir, but Sensuous Noir is entirely forgettable to me, and while I like it “ok”, it’s just not something I will wear or what I was hoping it would be. While I like both fragrances I find Sensuous Noir to be more derivative and ‘samey’ as other fragrances on the market already.

Sensuous 2008 was the more original launch for a mainstream brand. Sensuous Noir is that sort of typical woody floriental with a clean patchouli base that one can find anywhere. Estee Lauder categorizes Sensuous Noir as a “woody, floral chypre” and I’m so tired of this completely off base description. Sensuous Noir is not a chypre. If Sensuous Noir is a chypre, then so are Flowerbomb, Dior Midnight Poison and Bond No. 9 Lexington Avenue and Success is a Job in New York.

It’s no accident I just listed off the four fragrances above. Sensuous Noir reminds me strongly of Dior’s Midnight Poison, it also reminds me a bit of Flowerbomb in its candy woody sweetness and there’s some similarity with both Bond No. 9’s except that I think the Bond’s are much better. I did a side-by-side comparison of Midnight Poison and Sensuous Noir in which a household member couldn’t detect much difference. I can tell them apart, easily, but they are quite similar overall.

I’m actually annoyed because I expect more from Estee Lauder. I think Estee Lauder is a fabulous company. Almost every fragrance from Estee Lauder usually brings us good quality and oftentimes well above average fragrances completely deserving of adoration and fans. I have immensely enjoyed everything from their Private Collection. From my youth I enjoyed White Linen, and it turns out the White Linen flankers are pretty good. Pleasures, Knowing, Cinnabar, Youth Dew, Alliage, Azuree and many others are excellent fragrances which stand the test of time. Sensuous Noir, to me, is just a derivative mass market launch, adding nothing to a sea of sweet woody patchy orientals.

In Sensuous Noir I also smell this “cheap, plastic, sweet synthetic musk” which in my head I call “cheap-o synth musk” that I can’t get past. Oddly enough, the other perfume brand in which I always smell this cheap-o synth musk is Ormonde Jayne. I have no idea if this note is, in fact, musk, it could be the scrubbed clean patchouli, but, nevertheless, I hate it.

Of course I still think Estee Lauder is a fabulous company. It’s possible I’m being too hard on Sensuous Noir. After all, Estee Lauder IS a mass market company and Sensuous Noir IS intended for the Flowerbomb-Midnight Poison wearing crowd. I suppose Estee Lauder needed to jump into this particular market, they needed a sweet, woody, floriental in their arsenal. I guess my only consolation here is that I like Sensuous Noir better than Flowerbomb and Midnight Poison. There’s a nicer and stronger woody note flowing through Sensuous Noir that eventually, upon dry down, cuts through the cheap-o synth musk note.

I usually think of Estee Lauder as a leader and not a follower. I’m reacting to the fact that Sensuous Noir is definitely a follower among the mass market launches with Sensuous Noir. If, perhaps, you want to wear something along the lines of Flowerbomb or Midnight Poison, but can’t wear either, then maybe you should check out Sensuous Noir, because it is better than both, even though it’s similar.

Good points: the 30 ml / 1 oz bottle is terrific. The bottle itself is cool. I liked the beige Sensuous (2008) bottle, too, but this purple one is nice.

Notes: Crème noir, spiced lily, molten woods, purple rose, black pepper, honey, amber and patchouli.

PS: It's possible this will be a huge seller for Estee Lauder. It closely follows current trends/tastes and yet it's a notch above the rest.

This Week at the Perfume Counter: In which your roving I Smell Therefore I Am reporter makes the marketplace rounds, nostrils flared

I keep going back to the Estee Lauder counter. Do I want Sensuous? I can't decide. I do and I don't and I might and maybe, don't pressure me. Everyone says it smells great for an Estee Lauder fragrance, but I tend to scratch my head at that, and not because it itches. I continue to be surprised at the House of Lauder: this week, by Beautiful. What an incredible, gooey, tobacco rose. Try to convince me otherwise. The more I smell Bernard Chant's work, the more astonished I am. Azuree, Aliage--even Estee, which many consider some kind of mistake. Is it because I grew up smelling the Lauder line that I love the fragrances so much? My mother had a half-empty/half-full bottle of Youth Dew on her dresser. It still might be there. I loved the gold bow affixed to the elastic band. I loved the smell, which seemed so dated it had pushed back into the future going in the opposite direction. I can't remember who had Estee on her dresser; possibly my paternal grandmother. I stood before her bureau smelling from the open bottle, which she displayed on a gilt, mirrored tray. It smelled fantastic then and smells even better now, with an emotional pull to it from accumulated memories. A brighter, more startling cousin to Chanel 5 and Arpege. Its silver cap seemed perfectly apt to me at the time. There was something chilly about it, like iced flowers.

Friday at the mall, the Lauder counter was unattended. A pretty blond came over to help but didn't know whether they stocked Tuberose Gardenia. She did price Sensuous for me, and told me, as they all do, how fantastic it smells, as if, being a guy, I can't smell a difference between, say, Joy and Ajax. Yes, yes, I said, fantastic, fantastic. After pricing Sensuous for me, she left, explaining that whoever usually worked Lauder was, like, in the bathroom maybe and would be back later, presumably in case I needed someone to tell me how good something else smelled. I left and went across the hall to Perfumania, which sometimes requires a great deal of patience. The staff there works on commission and, I'm told by someone who migrated to Macy's, are encouraged to sell, sell, sell. It isn't enough that you buy a bottle of Posion. You must also buy Ralph Lauren Pure Turquoise, and lotion, and here, what about this, and this other thing, and--hello, where'd you go? Someone at corporate believes there's no hope of a return customer at Perfumania--the client walks in, crazed, buys on impulse, then leaves, forever--so why bother with subtlety?

I'd just smelled Cinnabar and wanted to compare it to Opium. I also wanted to know the difference between the three Opium flankers Perfumania stocks, but I've been down that dead end road before. They have no idea. Better luck on the website, which has no pictures for these and offers no clearer an idea. My favorite saleswoman was there (I call her Gladys). She knows I have a problem and need zero encouragement. I'll be back no matter what happens, again and again and again, often several days in a row. If the whole city evaporated in a strange toxic cloud overnight I would still drive over, out of habit, exiting my car, walking directly to the location of Perfumania, without noticing its conspicuous absence, until I stood on its once-hallowed ground or whatever and looked up and was like, oops, oh yeah, that apocalypse thing. Gladys has her tester strips ready in one hand as I approach, a pen in the other. Hello, Brian, she says. What are you buying today? When I leave, Gladys doesn't say good-bye or come see us again. She says, see you tomorrow.

I couldn't tell the difference between Opium and Cinnabar and figured I'd allowed sufficient time for a bathroom break, so I returned to the Lauder counter. It was still unattended, and the blond was gone now, too, but a rather dour young lady approached me, or rather, waited for me to approach her. Did I imagine a tone of impatience in her voice? I wanted to price Private Collection. My sister used to wear it and it smells so-

Yeah yeah, hold on a second, her demeanor said. She was back there reaching around in the display case like a blind woman, and I thought, dare I guide her? She didn't seem like the type who wanted the raft at her drowning moment, unless she could be made to feel she'd found it and inflated it herself. It's right there, I started to say. Yeah, I know, she snapped. I'm just trying to blah blah blah, as if I'd interrupted a delicate procedure and now she'd have to start all over. Hmm, she practically yawned, once she'd extracted the Private Collection. "We have one pocket size and one larger but the larger is a spray and the pocket is a roll-on so your best bet is to go with the larger." I could plainly see, reading the boxes, that both were spray bottles, but didn't point this out. And how much is the Estee, I asked, once she'd priced the PC. Very cheap, it turned out, as the Lauders usually are. I took one of each. Ringing me up, she entered 3333 instead of 33, and was suddenly humble, as if I might run to the bathroom and report her mistake to the Lauder rep.

Other purchases this week included: Michael for men, Romeo Gigli Sud Est, Magie Noire (the old one), and ENjoy. I should point out that of all the perfume counters I've been to in the last few weeks, with the exception of Memphis Fragrance (which is always friendly), Walgreens was the most helpful. Imagine that.

This Week at the Perfume Counter: In which your roving I Smell Therefore I Am reporter makes the marketplace rounds, nostrils flared

Earlier this week, I dropped in at Sephora, which has become something of a pit stop for me, though it’s well out of my way and nothing in the store or about the sales staff bothers to encourage these return visits. I enter eagerly, as ever, defiantly naïve. Logic tells me there won’t be anything new on the shelves. Reason tells me the staff will again ask me to repeat the word Guerlain. Even so: I persist in the hope that something I haven’t heard of yet or have forgotten to await impatiently will be featured among the brightly lit banks of veritable has-beens.

I’d never thought about it before, but with their black outfits and their headsets and the miniature microphones the personnel at Sephora do resemble the shadowy CIA figures in conspiracy movies. You approach the perfume wall alone, with that furtive anticipation unique to the perfume-obsessed, and when you turn around, there they are, forced smiles on their faces, taking glib pleasure in having startled you. If like me you’re at Sephora frequently, the CIA agents regard you knowingly, creating the impression, along with their deportment and dress, that all the available dirt on you is filed away in a secret manila folder behind the scenes. Bought two bottles of Black Orchid three weeks ago, someone pipes into her headset from the central control room. One at this location. One across town. Returned one. Returns often. Looks suspicious. Watch him carefully.

Welcome to Sephora, they sing; can they help you? Before you can answer, they’re whispering into their microphones. Whatever they hear by way of response causes them to snicker, or causes you to suspect they’re trying not to.

Invariably, they cannot help you, and here’s why:

The odds are, they have no abiding passion for perfume. They work for minimum wage: do you expect them to chat about the difference between the various vetivers indefinitely? For most, this is a temporary job. Perhaps they’re putting themselves through school. The average employee at Kinko’s has no passion for Xerox paper, to be sure, but he is trained to operate the machinery, if not to care. Sephora probably trains to some degree. You don’t just throw a headset at someone and expect them to figure it out. You must at least show them how to untangle the chord, the existence of which, on a so-called wireless, might surprise and confuse them. Some facility with communication by headset is an asset in such an environment for several reasons:

When a customer asks whether the new Guerlain Aqua Allegoria has come in, and he seems to be speaking French, and you assume he’s a foreigner, you can simply address another CIA agent by microphone, asking her if she’s ever heard of—what was it again? When someone points out that you have no more Black Orchid left, only the Voile de Fleur, which is packaged similarly but is totally different, and yet you only have a tester for Black Orchid displayed, so that people buying Voile de Fleur will think they’re buying Black Orchid, you can call discreetly for security to have this Frenchman removed from the store. When the same man stands at the counter, spraying Fresh Index Cannabis Rose on his arm, though you’ve informed him this scent is for women, and he continues to enjoy the scent, and even sprays more, and you can’t make him stop, and it frightens you, you can whisper into your microphone, and someone from central headquarters will appear to give the guy a mean, creepy, shaming look.

This week, I was pleasantly surprised, if only slightly. The location I visited had the new Kenzo Peace, and the CIA agent I spoke to knew at least enough about the product to recognize it wasn't there the last time she looked. Surely this is progress.

I continue to be fascinated by the approach saleswomen take when selling perfume to men. Invariably, they assume I’m buying for a girlfriend or a wife, or a mistress, or my mother, or my aunt, or my grandmother, or my best friend’s dying first grade teacher, still a spinster. Anyone but myself. They converge on me like hawks because, being a guy, I must be an easy target. Like other guys, I will have zero idea what a woman wants to smell like, and will be ambivalent myself about what she should or might smell like, and will want to get this over with as soon as possible, and will buy a bottle of liquid soap if they tell me “she” would want nothing more.

When I reject the scent cards they shove my way, and tell them, just to make them stop talking, that I know what I’m looking for, I’m looking for Guerlain, and they stare at me with a bewildered look on their faces, as if I’ve just addressed them in Greek, and I explain, as if I’ve worked there myself, that Guerlain is a cosmetics line which sells fragrances as well and will typically be located somewhere not too far away, and their faces light up with recognition as if to say, Why didn’t you say that in the first place, they will insist on “escorting” me to the counter in question, and once there will not allow me to simply peruse on my own.

Once there, my escort will advise, Shalimar is very nice, as if she’s woken from a dream and suddenly knows precisely what language I’m speaking, and the woman behind the counter, resentful of the escort’s intrusion upon her sales territory, will interject, Shalimar is nice—for middle-aged women, at which point the escort, a middle-aged woman, will make her mouth very tight, and from this thin, straight line another word will not be issued.

When I visit the Estee Lauder counter, hoping to see Sensuous there but expecting not to, because I’ve called three days before and was told it won’t be in stores until the middle of July, and (behold!) there it is, I ask the henna-haired saleslady when it arrived, and she immediately launches into her sales pitch. If I make a purchase today, she says (and her tone indicates that I should, if I know what’s good for me) I will get a gift worth sixty-five dollars, and she points to a bag at the end of the counter, some tote thing, and tells me I get everything in it, reminding me again that I get everything for free, essentially, this sixty-five dollar value.

What exactly do I have to buy, I ask, suspicious. You have to buy 30 dollars worth from me, she coos. And I get a bag full of crap? I reiterate, just to make sure I’m hearing right. And just to make sure she’s hearing right, she says, “Did I just hear C-R-A-P?” I could have said shit, I point out, and she makes a tight little line out of her mouth, because, I assume, it’s hard to sell fragrance when someone brings fecal into the equation, though as my friend Bard often points out, many fragrances have the slightest whiff of tinkle. Why so surprised? If you're going to treat a man as if he just emerged from the cave, without bothering to wash his loincloth, shouldn't you expect him to talk like one?

The safest place for me is the Korean-owned shop (two locations) and the kiosk run by Russians at the mall. The Russians are blunt, and laugh when I approach, and, while we're speaking of tinkle, will pee on my leg and tell me it's raining, but I appreciate the fact that they at least pretend to know what they’re talking about. Like the Korean owner of the fragrance stores, who inherited the shop from his parents and has run it for years, the Russians have rent to pay. They want to make a sale and know the difference between a sale and a commission, the difference between finesse and a foghorn. When the Korean doesn't understand a word I'm saying, at least it's because he truly doesn't speak my language.

Will Estee Lauder turn the tide with Sensuous?

I bought a bottle of Sensuous last week. I had no choice. All the perfume blogs were giving Sensuous high marks and describing the fragrance as (paraphrasing here) a “warm, fluid river of wood”….it sounded right up my alley.

So, as I mentioned, I bought it, unsniffed. Sensuous is nice. It’s by no means a “warm, fluid river of wood,” though. I’d describe it as a smooth vanillic fragrance with an ever-so-subtle hint of wood that wears close to the skin. Sensuous smells good, rather more sweet than I expected but it’s a decent fragrance.

What does excite me about Sensuous and also makes me proud of Estee Lauder is that Sensuous is a departure from the now reigning fruity florals (think Del Monte mixed fruit cocktail with syrup in a can) that have dominated the perfume industry for the past decade.

I think Sensuous will be a hit, and I also think it will turn the tide and create loads of copycats churning out their versions of “fluid rivers of wood.” Sensuous could be similar to Thierry Mugler’s Angel, which created a whole new scent category and many copycats. Whether you love or hate Angel, you must admit that it was a phenomenally bold and fascinating fragrance with tremendous success. Everyone knows someone who wears Angel.

So, I applaud Estee Lauder for creating Sensuous. It’s a mainstream, inexpensive fragrance that even perfume snobs might admit to liking. Now for me, I’ll be waiting for Estee Lauder to launch “Sensuous Extreme” or “Sensuous Night,” something less sweet and drier with a lot more wood.

What are you thoughts? Agree, disagree? Do tell....

Update: 10 minutes after posting this it dawned on me what I was expecting Sensuous to smell like. Jo Malone's Dark Amber & Ginger Lily. For Jo Malone, I think Dark Amber is a rather brave departure, too. I've found that I really like it. Given that it's 3:10 AM I think I'll give Jo Malone's Dark Amber a spritz and head to bed. ;-)