Perfume Pen Pals: Aramis 900

Katie,

I ended up using your Fume Finder to purchase a whole bunch of perfume, and it turns out that one's mainstream dollar goes a lot further than one's niche dollar. I don't know most of them and you make everything sound so good. (And, yes, I have a problem.)

Among my choices is your beloved Aramis 900, which is such a reach for me because I bought the original Aramis at a young age and I'm still traumatized by the experience.

Dan

Dan,

Thank you for being a valued customer!

Katie

Katie,

My FragranceNet order arrived today and, anxious to try everything at once, I started spraying wildly into the air. Except I don't have a Frédéric Malle cylindrical fan system, so the living room now smells like a French brothel. And also like the elevator at my dentist's office. Thank goodness brothels don't have elevators. The smell would be bad enough, but who'd want to touch the buttons?

French brothels: no elevators, but no dentists, either.

Because of your repeated endorsements over the past few months, I first tried Aramis 900 on my skin and found it almost startlingly big and bitter. The smell wasn't reminiscent of the original Aramis (thankfully), but the fear it elicited in me was. Still, I hung in there, cognizant of my constant complaining over all the sleazy sweet generic masculines, a category in which Aramis 900 definitely didn't belong. In fact, if you told me it was a feminine chypre from the 1930s, I wouldn't call you a liar.

At first I did wish for more floral notes, especially when all the herbs and spices were blasting through my nose. I even started singing a verse from "Where Have All The Flowers Gone," the first verse, of course, otherwise it wouldn't have made any sense. ("Dan doesn't like his cologne and now he's singing about missing soldiers?")



All of this took place in the first minute and if you were here, you would've said, "Stop singing, get your wrist out of your nose and pipe down!" (I think not having someone to tell me to pipe down is at the core of many of my shortcomings.) Because, as you already know, Aramis 900 soon settles into a nice spicy floral, one of those rich old masculines that could just as easily be a rich old feminine. Most current formulations of rich old feminines supposedly don't smell as rich as they once did. Have you read anything about Aramis 900 losing some of its zip over the years? Can there be a market for vintage Aramis 900? I'll check. Right after I look up "cylindrical fans." Dan

Dan, The word on the street is that older Aramis 900 (pinstriped box/bottle) is the preferred version. I've smelled both, but can't detect a real difference. Aramis 900 has a wonderful drydown, reminiscent of Clinique Aromatics Elixir. They both start off huge and bitter, and then soften into a dirt/rooty/floral/rose loveliness. Predictably, I enjoy wearing the body lotion version of Aromatics Elixir. Maybe you're now seeing the appeal of ancillary products? Or at least of not spraying wildly into the air? Because Aramis 900 is pretty sturdy stuff. Katie

Katie, I always get the word on the street late. Could it be because I'm not spending enough time on the street? Dan

Aramis 900 is available from FragranceX.com, Perfume.com and FragranceNet.com, starting at $48 for 100 ml

"Salon at the Rue des Moulins" by Toulouse-Lautrec