Hedonist by Viktoria Minya: What's in a Word

It's been interesting, as early reviews of Hedonist have come in, to see what people make of the word. I had no idea it had quite the reputation it does - you'd think, from some of these reactions, it were a synonym for harlot, trollop, or worse - and I wonder what Viktoria Minya, the perfumer behind the scent, thinks about all this, because to my nose the fragrance is more in keeping with the actual definition of hedonist than with these apparently somewhat popular connotations, and I imagine she must have been thinking of the bigger picture too.

Strictly speaking, hedonism has to do with the pursuit of pleasure - as in, first and foremost - which would make a hedonist, I guess, on the one hand a pleasure seeker and on the other averse to anything which veers in the opposite direction. Nothing in that definition privileges carnal pleasure, though the physical would obviously be included in any bullet list of what floats the boat. That bullet list might also include fine cuisine, silk clothing, spring days, comfortable furniture, and feathers, depending on your taste. It probably wouldn't include okra. Regardless, Hedonist doesn't make any effort to claim one pleasure at the expense of others - and when I smell the perfume it's far more expansive in tone than the "merely" sexual, if those two words can be used together.

Minya, who is based in Paris, has mentioned in the literature for Hedonist that it harkens back to classic perfumery, and it does feel classical, even grand. There's a retrospective quality to the fragrance that nods back to early twentieth century perfumery, certainly - but again, I think the scent sees a bigger picture in its references as well. Some reviewers have compared its wonderful peachy facets to Mitsouko (a reference point I can get behind, as long as I'm not stuck there). For me, one of the fragrance's biggest bonuses, not to mention pleasant surprises - and there are many - is how strongly it relates to some of my favorite eighties fragrances.

That's where some of you will stop reading, I suspect, whereas some will now have perked right up. Hedonist certainly has the iconic sensual boldness that characterizes some of my favorites from that era - Poison, say, or Diva - but without their take no prisoners bombast. I see an 80's connection, I guess, mainly because that decade was the last great period for this kind of sumptuousness, a time when a fragrance was meant to be smelled rather than merely perceived, to register not as a whisper but as a declaration - of elegance, of personality, of intent. Poison, Diva, Paris, and, say, Giorgio, are the no-brainer 80's benchmarks, but Hedonist reminds me more of lesser known favorites from that era; particularly, a fantastic earlier Krizia fragrance, Moods.

Like Moods, and some of the other 80's fragrances I'm thinking of - the once wonderful Creations by Ted Lapidus, for instance, Houbigant's Demi-Jour, or the reformulated Shocking de Schiaparelli - Hedonist is maximally honeyed. It has a green-tinged vanillic sweetness to it I remember from Moods as well. It's a fully saturated fragrance but plays off the skin in a very contemporary, radiantly diffusive way. I imagine people will notice its sillage, without feeling victim to it, and in that way, among others, it updates some of its influences.

Honey-faceted fragrances often have a slightly animalic quality to them, to put it diplomatically. While its aura is lush and dramatic, Hedonist has a sweeter, cleaner disposition. I get a tea note, a very nice tobacco storyline going on, orange blossom, and that honey, primarily. It's a fascinating combination, which lasts well and conjures any number of nostalgically pleasurable mental and emotional sensations. One Fragrantica reviewer characterized the overall effect as "really golden...[reminding her of] honey and ambrosia with a glass of Alsatian Gewurztraminer." I've never had gewurztraminer, but I like the sound of all that. Hedonist feels strangely familiar at various points during its lifespan, maybe because in some way it catalyzes little memories of comfort like this. It's familiar the way remembered pleasures can be. The dry down does interesting, even subtly unusual, things with its osmanthus/peach/tobacco combo, opening it up rather than narrowing it down. The fragrance is heady but bright, surrounding rather than suffocating the way fragrances this opulent can tend to do.

I miss some of those eighties honeyed fragrances, so Hedonist has been a welcome surprise. They don't make them much like this anymore. In most ways the perfume landscape, commercially and otherwise, is starting to seem pretty spare and minimalistic, kind of anemic in the pleasures it affords. Hedonist would be a welcome change at half the fragrance it is. Fortunately, its pleasures pay off in dividends. In the few weeks I've been wearing it I've grown to like it more and more, and I keep noticing different things - like, I think, some cedar in the mix, and a presiding creamy warmth I hadn't singled out for a while because I kept focusing on the peach and the tobacco specifically.

Fragrantica calls it a woody chypre. For me, it has more affinities with the floriental. I hope Minya does more but Hedonist already feels like an old favorite, and I'll take a new line with a single fantastic scent over one with ten mediocre fragrances any day. Luckyscent sells the fragrance, which comes in an appropriately luxurious bottle (pictured above) and box. Already, with this perfume, Hedonist has a new connotation for me.

Miss Habanita: Dark in Broad Daylight

If you've only smelled the reformulation of Molinard's Miss Habanita and been led to believe it has little or no connection to its reason for being, good old smoky Habanita, it's perfectly understandable - and I feel sorry for you. Here's a good, if kind of tragic, example of a careless reformulation, where everything interesting and even remotely complicated has been altogether removed from the fragrance as initially conceived. And for what? It's hard to imagine the current version of Miss Habanita selling any better in the present marketplace than what it replaced might have.

Released in 1994, over 70 years after the release of Habanita, original Miss Habanita is one of my favorites, and the two relate to each other in fascinating ways. Miss Habanita, these days, is a densely sugared white musk affair, chokingly sweet, depressingly banal for something so relentlessly perky. Its fruits are neon jammy, and the neon is right up in your grille. Fruits have been done better, frankly, and original Miss Habanita is still around here and there on Ebay to prove it.

Classified as a fruity chypre, its take on fruit recalls Nina Ricci's Deci Dela, by Jean Guichard, which was released the same year. Deci Dela and Miss Habanita are very similar in their use of steeped fruits over a drier than dry base of oakmoss. This isn't cheery, life affirming succulence. It's darker than that; more earthy. While we're all waxing poetic over our romantic ideas about oakmoss, let's remind ourselves how the Egyptians viewed it. As Edwin T. Morris mentions in Fragrance: The Story of Perfume from Cleopatra to Chanel, it was once an essential part of the embalming process. Egyptians stuffed the cavities of eviscerated corpses with it, preparing for burial and the afterlife. Then as now, it was a good fixative; its antimicrobial properties "serving admirably in the mummifying process". When some people smell oakmoss and say it reminds them of something damp and musty, they're not too far off the mark.

Pretty elemental stuff - as opposed to, say, something slightly smooth and sweet which used to be in a lot of fragrances in much larger quantities. Vis a vis Miss Habanita, let's put it another way: someone took the peach off Mattisse's table, where it fit in with the contrived color scheme, and threw it out in the yard, where time's gotten to it and reminded you that a painting, like mummification, freezes things into a lie. The fragrance sits comfortably somewhere between compote and compost. Original Miss Habanita was a late stage reminder that at one point perfumery had as much to do with the unknown and the unsettling as smelling fancy or clean. Miss Habanita has a little weirdness and mystique in it, mixing the beautiful with the ever so slightly macabre. Listen, don't get me wrong. Miss Habanita isn't that dark. But we've gotten so used to FRUITY FLORAL meaning something much brighter and perkier and airheaded that a recalibration might be necessary before approaching what that used to mean.

Miss Habanita distinguishes itself from Deci Dela further by faithfulness to its source, a composition which itself plumbed the depths of the darker side. I wouldn't say that Miss Habanita is perfect for those who find Habanita a little much, obviously. For one thing, a Miss can get in just as much trouble as a Mrs., if not more. Ideally, appreciating one means appreciating the other. Miss Habanita isn't a refinement or a series of improvements but a way of contrasting certain aspects of the original in refreshing ways.

The moss - and some vanilla - speak to the creamy tobacco of vintage Habanita. Everything anyone might find questionable, if not entirely objectionable, is still there - the leather, the tobacco, the dirtied amber, the palest hint of decayed floralcy - and maybe even amplified in some way by bringing a certain amount of translucence into the equation. I can just as easily imagine Miss Habanita being used to scent cigarettes, as Habanita once was, and Habanita is such a dense proposition that it's easy to forget it also contained peach and orange blossom and plenty else besides, much of which reappears in its progeny to more emphatic effect.

Miss Habanita reminds me of Habanita with the lights suddenly turned up. Everybody's still doing what they were doing in the dark. They haven't had a chance to pretend otherwise yet. It lasts amazingly well, always surprising me by its persistence. It's a wonderful fragrance, full of quiet melancholy. Other than Habanita, there's really nothing quite like it.

I suggest looking for it on Ebay. I've seen it through e-tailers but the bottle you receive is not always the bottle pictured, and a simple exchange of emails with an Ebay seller will reassure you of getting what you pay for. The original formula came in two bottles, one frosted mustard, the other translucent amber. One of these is simpler in design; my favorite of the two, the amber glass, looks exactly like the famous Lalique Habanita bottle graced with water nymphs and has a glittery metallic bronze cap.

Agent Provocateur Strip

Brian surprised me with AP Strip as a gift.  I had never heard of it and had no idea what the notes were or how it was described in the ad copy.  I love blind smells like this.

Strip launched in 2007 as a limited edition.  The limited edition part is what is so unfortunate.  Many consider the original Agent Provocateur to be their best fragrance but I think Strip is easily the best from this brand.  After I read the notes list I started to smell Strip quite differently.  See how marketing shapes our impressions…how that little notes list makes you smell things you never might have smelled before?  Anyway, the listed notes are Ylang Ylang, Iris Bud, Geranium Bourbon, with Amber, Vetiver, Exotic Woods and Musks.  It’s so interesting, how clearly I smell geranium…and ylang ylang at the start after knowing the notes list.  But now that I’ve been smelling Strip so closely, it’s become a real kaleidoscope of a scent for me.  Now I smell a boozy not-especially-sweet vanilla atop fresh loose tobacco.  What I originally thought was a nice and likeable powdery amber has become a fascinating floral amber tobacco.

For some inexplicable reason, I’ve been having difficulty with all my ambery orientals lately.  I have a ton of ambers and suddenly they all smell so awfuly musty I can’t wear them.  Histoires de Parfums Ambre 114 is musty.  Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier Ambre Precieux is musty.  Annick Goutal Ambre Fetiche is musty.  Dior Ambre Nuit is musty, musty, musty.  This is driving me crazy and I’m hoping it’s a phase which will pass quickly!  But, thankfully, Agent Provocateur Strip isn’t musty and I’ve been able to wear it, with pleasure.

Agent Provocateur Strip has a decent amount of sillage and its longevity is good, about 6 hours on me.  Since I never saw the ad copy from Agent Provocateur I’ve made up my own image of what this scent is all about.  Strip isn’t some sleazy, overly sweet stripper body spray.  In its first 20 minutes Strip unfolds with citrusy geranium, ylang ylang and boozy vanillic rum.  Once Strip dries down a fresh tobacco accord emerges atop a non-musty and dry woody amber base.  Strip has a wonderful quality of being a bit boozy and a touch sweet yet stays an overall dry fragrance.  Strip is really wonderful.  Sometimes, mostly when I’m smelling it from afar or the next day on my clothes, I smell the powdery amber-patchouli scent I smelled the very first day I opened it from the box.   But most of the time, when it’s freshly applied or when I’m sniffing it up close I smell a dry boozy tobacco-wood-amber scent that is just fantastic.  Agent Provocateur Strip is both cozy and interesting.  Brian done good.

Three Faces of Habanita

On Valentine's, Josephine over at Notes from Josephine posted an ode to Habanita.  It went:

Wood Stain

Just Lit Cigarette

ATV Exhaust

Root Beer with Dry Ice

Board Meeting

Fresh Laundry

Divinity

It's getting complicated with these older perfumes.  There are now several versions out there.  Sometimes several means many.  I own three versions of Habanita--and each smells quite different.  They're clearly the same fragrance.  I wouldn't say by any stretch that Habanita has been vandalized beyond recognition.  But the earliest version I own is a slightly different conversation than the latest.  So when I read Josephine's ode, I wondered which she was talking about.

One of the easiest ways to make distinctions between versions is to describe the packaging.  In the event the packaging hasn't changed (I don't believe Habanita's has--much, if at all), the list of ingredients is instructive.  My earliest bottle of Habanita lists only aqua, parfum, and alcohol.  Let's call that Version 1.  Version 2 has a longer list, and that list includes oakmoss.  I take this to be a more recent version, but not maybe as recent as the parfum formulation Molinard released a few years ago.  That's Version 3.

Etat Libre D'Orange: Divin' Enfant

I've worn and appreciated it for months, but current events brought me back to Divin' Enfant for a closer look. Hearing raves about another orange blossom fragrance, Maison Francis Kurkdjian's APOM, I took the first available opportunity to smell it, and was, to use Nathan Branch's phrase, woefully underwhelmed. While APOM has good longevity, it seems fairly weak in every other respect. There's no THERE there. It surprised me all day, wafting up from my arm. It seemed to have said everything it had to say. What was the point of sticking around?

I thought of APOM again this week, when Etat Libre D'Orange announced the upcoming release of a scent inspired by Tilda Swinton. What a perfect match, I thought. Swinton has always worked with smaller directors on compellingly oddball projects. By choosing her, Etat Libre D'Orange has advanced a celebrity sensibility they initiated with Rossy Di Palma: one that celebrates the unique rather than capitalize on the cliched. I pulled out my bottle of Divin' Enfant, forgotten behind more recent purchases. In contrast to APOM, it seemed even better than I remembered, so lush and dense and full of things to admire.

Listen, don't look at me. I can't smell the alleged marshmallow in Divin'. It doesn't even smell particularly sugary to me, no sweeter than orange blossom itself. People who discuss it on the web tend to engage in a debate about how much of an infant Enfant is. There's supposed to be a tantrum in there, so which dominates: the precious little thing or the monster child? I'm not sure I see the point of that, though I'm guessing this is an argument having to do with how sweet it seems to some. I'm not sure I smell rose, amber, leather, or musk, either, but it's all very well blended, emphasizing the orange blossom without dominating it. I've never thought of orange blossom as particularly innocent. I do smell a nicely judged addition of tobacco, and an interesting counterpoint of mocha, anyway.

Where APOM is rather flat and inert on my skin, Divin'Enfant sings. It has personality, a lot of presence. Whether that presence is adult or juvenile isn't something I've wasted much time pondering. I wear the hell out of it. Enfant has what I'm starting to recognize is a trademark Etat quality: it feels rich and playful without making these things seem like polar opposites. The line merges high and low in fascinating ways, and I think Etat is ultimately far more populist than Maison Kurkdjian, which seems to think that people who can't afford their perfumes but can afford their cleaning liquids will see this as a real bargain and an aspirational gateway. Etat makes one size for all. Aside from the celebrity fragrances, everything is priced the same.

At a time when a small bottle of Chanel costs you between sixty and eighty, seventy five for a niche perfume is about as close to a bargain as you can expect for a luxury item. What you are promised for this is, more often than not, a damn good bottle of perfume. Funny how people dismiss Etat's sense of humor; inappropriate, they say. In bad taste. Out to shock for shock's sake. What could be more ridiculously inappropriate than offering someone who can't afford your perfume a bottle of overpriced cleaning solvent. Only the well off can smell good, by this logic. The rest of us are offered a lovely bucket of mop water. Surely this is more offensive than a cartoon penis. Etat's "sense of humor" makes a practice of poking fun at such B.S., and I can't thank them enough.

I think people are mistaken in viewing this as shock value. Let's be honest. These days, shocking is a great bottle of perfume, as good as its hype.

Sonoma Scent Studio Tabac Aurea

A while back, Abigail raved about this little wonder, and I made a mental note to check it out. I don't know what's going on with Sonoma's website--the till is down, so you can look, essentially, but you can't touch--and some of you are going to be frustrated after reading this review, because I have high praise for the fragrance, but look at the bright side: you can't possibly know how truly wonderful Tabac Aurea is, and what you're missing, until you get your hands on it, and even then the exact nature of its powerful appeal will elude you.

For Abigail, Tabac recalls vintage fragrances--their complexity, attention to detail through depth and drama, the rich, dovetailing stories they tell. Her presiding image for the fragrance was Bette Davis. Funny how things work, because I'm picturing Robert Mitchum, whose sharp-angled cheekbones are trying to make something feminine out of what is clearly butch-saturated stock. Clearly, Tabac Aurea is unisex, gender-friendly, but in a sea of bland, interchangeable, unimaginative masculines, I'm apt to claim it as one for the boys. Then too, Tabac recalls some of my favorites: Histoires de Parfums 1740, Parfum d'Empire Fougere Bengale, Annick Goutal Sables. In all of these, immortelle plays a big role, and though there's no indication that Tabac Aurea even contains immortelle, the argument could be made that I simply love the kind of fragrance Tabac resembles.

That isn't giving what I'd include in my list of the top ten masculines of the last decade much credit, now is it? And yes, Tabac is that good. It's certainly the best tobacco fragrance I've ever smelled, but it's more than that, possessing the kind of magic words fail. Looking at the facts alone--persistence, projection, quality of materials--it blows Sables off the table. Sables is gorgeous, if you have something on hand to apply thirty minutes later, to console you once it has vanished. Tabac Aurea lasts all day on my skin, has the kind of diffusion that makes my presence beg questions from those I come into contact with (what...is that? Are you...is that...cologne? Where did you get that? What is that called? Will you have sex with me? Would you mind doing it right here? Let's get married--just for the next ten minutes? Actually, can I just have that smell, so we can have sex alone?) and it is abundantly clear, from the moment you first smell it, that Tabac's creator refined and refined again in her effort to achieve such a careful, unlikely balance.

While it falls within the olfactory range of 1740 and Fougere Bengale, Tabac distinguishes itself enough that it's worth having all three--if, like me, you're that obsessively inclined, and worried about redundancy. Tabac speaks to those fragrances the way one smoky-voiced singer speaks to another, through tone and texture, but the music and personality are unique. The vetiver in Tabac imbues it with qualities neither 1740 nor Bengale possess, moving it farther away from the insular combustion immortelle gives the former, the sense that 1740 has a lot on its mind, is troubled and needs some time to think about it. 1740 harbors things, relishing its drama. To 1740, Tabac says, Hey, lighten up; it might never happen.

Which isn't to say Tabac is happy-go-lucky; just that it doesn't brood. Like Fougere Bengale, which uses lavender in a similar way, as if to clear its head, Tabac loosens up with vetiver. Unlike Bengale, which comes on like the most intoxicating (or, okay, I'll give some of you this: nauseating) spice cabinet this side of reality, Tabac has a persistent but subtle tangy aspect, a barely there fruit accord which operates similarly to the cassis bud in Iris Bleu Gris, subverting what might otherwise be an austere, stand-offish disposition. Tabac is foody, but more savory than sweet. It has woodsy undertones to it. Clove, tonka, labdanum, leather. Need I say more? If you're into this sort of thing, I'm guessing not.

I've resorted to comparison in an effort to convey an inexplciable mystery. Shame on me. Stupid, I know--but to do otherwise I would need a vocabulary which hasn't been invented yet. I love this stuff.

Sonoma Scent Studio Tabac Aurea: A Review and a Free Sample Drawing!

Tabac Aurea makes me feel like Bette Davis, devastatingly confident, bold and sultry, lounging on a velvet sofa, head tossed playfully back in enthusiastic laughter.

The soundtrack in my head are the lyrics to Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes -
Her hair is Harlow gold
Her lips sweet surprise
Her hands are never cold
She's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll turn the music on you
You won't have to think twice
She's pure as New York snow
She's got Bette Davis eyes

Tabac Aurea is a drop dead gorgeous tobacco fragrance. I think I’m transported to a Bette Davis’ frame of mind because Tabac Aurea is so well done it feels as if it’s vintage, from a time and place when there weren’t unnecessary restrictions on perfume ingredients, when fragrances were created slowly with utmost attention to detail, each one a work of art, each one crafted as if to stand the test of time, each bottle a small luxury to be treasured on a woman’s dresser.

And she'll tease you
She'll unease you
All the better just to please you
She's precocious
and she knows just
what it takes to make a pro blush
She's got Greta Garbo stand-off sighs
She's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll let you take her home (it whets her appetite)
She'll lay you on the throne
She's got Bette Davis eyes

“Aurea” is a latin word translating to mean “golden” in English. Tabac Aurea is a smooth blonde pipe tobacco scent blended with woods, refreshing earthy textures, amber, labdanum, leather, tonka and a smidge of vanilla knitting it all together. Some say they smell leather prominently but I don’t, this is all woody tobacco perfection for me. I find the quality of Sonoma Scent Studio fragrances easily on par with Serge Lutens. Yes, I’m serious. Particularly her woody notes, definitely remind me of the Lutens Bois series. Tabac Aurea is not smoky; this is fresh, unsmoked pipe tobacco, it is smooth, clean and refined. Laurie Erickson, the perfumer, treats the tobacco note as if it was a flower; a gorgeous golden tobacco flower unfurling atop a stem and leaves which are actually a cherry wood pipe.

She'll take a tumble on you
Roll you like you were dice
until you come up blue
She's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll expose you
when she snows you
off your feet with the crumbs she throws you
She's ferocious and she knows just what it takes to make a pro blush
All the boys think she's a spy
She's got Bette Davis eyes

Tabac Aurea is not solely a masculine – it’s effortlessly unisex. I’ve tried Tabac Aurea first as a sample – dabbed it on from a glass vial, then later, sprayed from the bottle. I was impressed with the fragrance from the vial but once sprayed it became apparent that the scent is over the top gorgeous. When sprayed, Tabac Aurea exhibits more of its cherry pipe tobacco quality and the ambery, spicy notes emerge more predominantly. The slight fruity notes are subtle but linger throughout. Ms. Erickson describes the perfume as having some sweetness and an overall golden aura and I definitely see that. Especially the golden nature, the aroma of Tabac Aurea wraps around me and recalls sitting outside on a warm, dry afternoon watching the sunset across a freshly hayed field.

And she'll tease you
She'll unease you
All the better just to please you
She's precocious and she knows just what it takes to make a pro blush
All the boys think she's a spy
She's got Bette Davis eyes

Important note! There will be a drawing for free samples of Sonoma Scent Studio Tabac Aurea. Please leave a comment with your email address to be entered into the drawing by Monday night (April 5th). I will randomly choose 2 lucky winners. I have carded samples directly from Sonoma Scent Studio but because I enjoyed spraying the scent so much I will also include a spray samples.

Please visit Sonoma Scent Studio online by clicking here

Notes: amber, woods, spices, tobacco, leather, tonka, labdanum, patchouli, and vanilla.

Two or Three Scents I've Put in Heavy Rotation Lately

Jil Sander: Scent 79 Woman/Man

Not so distantly related to Chanel No. 19, Scent 79 Woman is a marvel on the skin, balancing fruit (cranberry, peach) and what smells like galbanum against may rose, jasmine, and iris in perfect proportion.  The fragrance lasts forever, not just on the skin but in the 4.2 oz, Noguchi-like bottle, a white, bifurcated block of glass.  Everything about Scent 79 Woman is

 great.  Even the box is unusual, oversized and imposing, a real treat to open up.  The bottle rests inside like a Matryoshka doll.  Scent 79 is quite different, but recalls, for me, Krizia Moods, too.  Moods seems to use linden against fruity elements in a similar way, though animalic notes weigh it down, anchoring it in darker territory, whereas Scent 79 Woman is bright and cheerful, on the surface at least.  It has an interesting, edgy tension.

Scent 79 Man stays much closer to the skin but lasts just as impressively as its sister.  Again, there's a wonderfully unlikely balance, from bottom to top.  The literature on Scent 79 Man implies much development.  I don't experience it, but the balance itself is plenty complicated.  It's an unusual structure, closest I think to Chanel Antaeus, though, again, not animalic in the slightest.  Tobacco, faint hints of leather, angelika, clary sage and frankincense are the things I notice first.  Spending more time with the fragrance, I get the jasmine, violet and iris.  The perfumer behind Man is Marc Buxton. 79 Man is EDP and also 4.2 oz, the bottle black to Woman's white.  Both are available at Neiman Marcus and well worth the 90 bucks. 

Paloma Picasso: Tentations

Months back, I took home a 5 ml sample of Tentations from the local Korean-owned discount fragrance store.  They had many discontinued items but Tentations wasn't one of them.  The sample smelled somewhat off to me and at first I didn't like it.  I felt I should have it, because it's discontinued and it's Sophia Grojsman, whom I love, but doubted I'd buy a full bottle even if one were available.  I couldn't really see any similarities between Tentations and Grojsman's more widely known work, like Paris, or even her more relatively obscure scents, like, say, Yvresse.  A few days ago, I visited the Russian-owned perfume kiosk at the mall and discovered two bottles of Tentations.  Smelling it, I knew instantly that I'd been right about the sample, but it wasn't as far off as I'd imagined it must be.  Truth is, Tentations opens on a weird little medley of notes including peach, pepper, and orange blossom.  Under that you can smell, most immediately, carnation and cinnamon.  The combination of peach and pepper is odd and intriguing, lovelier than you think it could be.  The addition of cinnamon is weirder still.  Carnation only makes things more peppery.  I love Tentations, its rich but subtle spices and the way it plays out quietly on the skin, and I'm baffled why it didn't thrive, where other Grojsman scents, much louder, have demonstrated remarkable longevity in the marketplace.  Tentations, I also realized, is distinctly in keeping with Grosjman's other work.  The peach recalls Yvresse.  The carnation, Elizabeth Taylor's Diamonds and Rubies.  The spices put it right alongside Spellbound, which seems in some ways like Tentations jacked up on steroids.  Like the majority of Grojsman's scents, Tentations lasts well.