Perfume Pen Pals: Nasomatto Pardon and Parfums de Nicolai L'Eau Chic



Katie,

Just read a description of Nasomatto Pardon. Notes include oud...and magnolia! Ick. That seems like an awful combination.


When we were kids, we used to play a game in which we'd take turns mixing three secret ingredients onto a spoon and making each other eat it blindfolded. Kool-Aid powder, pickle juice and mustard, that sort of thing. Nasomatto Pardon sounds like the perfume equivalent of the gross-food game.

Dan



Dan,

That's a funny name. "Pardon? I didn't quite catch that. You're saying oud...and magnolia?"

Or "Pardon! I accidentally just mixed oud with magnolia. My apologies."

Katie



Katie,

Revisiting our Nasomatto Pardon conversation, I'm fit to be tied. Fit to be tied! I'm wearing it tonight and I smell horribly! It's an overpowering dirty oud layered with an overpowering white floral and it somehow sucks more than that description indicates.

Does anybody have any extra pickle juice for my Pardon?

The only positive thing I can say about this monstrosity, this blot on the world of perfume, is combining oud and magnolia is sort of artistically brave. But that's a rather broad category, including everything from Patti Smith to the Jackass guys putting their balls in a vise. Pardon is more vise than Horses.

We both agree Nasomatto is hit or miss, but it's more wildly hit or miss than any other line. And the badness of its misses is compounded by the loudness of its formulas. BofM = LofF. Got it?

Seriously, if you could smell me right now, you'd think I was insane. I smell like I rolled around in poo and sprayed on Grandma's Glade to cover it up. I smell that badly, KP, and I'm fit to be tied!

At the opposite end of the spectrum is L'Eau Chic by Parfums de Nicolai. This smells so good! I know lots of people say Parfums de Nicolai have been playing it safe lately, and they'll surely say this one smells soapy, but it's also good. Good safe, good soapy, it's an optimistic geranium, ideal for the first day of summer.


This is what Princess what's-her-name should've worn on her wedding day instead of that blank-slate White Gardenia Petals. L'eau Chic doesn't have much personality either, but it's a better choice if you're looking for something that doesn't say much more than, "Great day!" It smells like a great day, KP, and we all need something like that in our collection.

And yet I'm still guessing you'll hate it.

Dan



Dan,

I'm cracking up that despite having such a visceral "ick" reaction to the very idea of Pardon, you still bought it and wore it. You're the kind of customer who ruins market research.

Katie

16 comments:

  1. I had to look up 'fit to be tied'

    So much less interesting than it sounds.

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  2. I love that phrase! It makes Dan morph into an old-timey southern belle. No wonder something with magnolia appealed to him.

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  3. Dan, you gave me my first loud and very pleasurable guffaw this morning! Thanks! Poo and Glade did it, I think.

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  4. Thanks Nora: now I get it! The explanations on internet were much more prosaic, and gave no indication of the melodrama with which it is to be be said, but now I know it has illicited for you the image of Dan wearing a crinoline, it's exactly as interesting as I wanted it to be.

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  5. We say "fit to be tied" here! It is a close relative of "I didn't know where to put myself" and a more distant one of "I came over all unnecessary".

    Seems to me that when the perfumer had the artistically brave bu completely unnecessary idea to combine oud and magnolia, his hands should have been tied, so that this apologetic abomination never saw the light of day... : - )

    And we don't want customers ruining market research, thank you very much. Either that, or we may have to aim off for masochists at the far end of the bell curve.

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    1. Thanks for reminding me of "I came over all unnecessary" - I love that one. But I think "fit to be tied" is different to those expressions you named. It's more: "I'm crazed and frothing and need to be restrained." A self-sectioning kind of cry for help, if you will.

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    2. Pray tell, what does "I cam over all unnecessary" mean? I have never heard that in my life!

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  6. Vanessa, Defending myself (and my respect for market research), I didn't buy Pardon, I merely sampled it. (KP's assumption surely comes from my many prior acts of perfume recklessness.) If I've learned anything about perfume, it's that you never, never blind-buy Nasomatto. Sadly, that's about all I've learned.

    And Anonymous, I'd sooner wear crinoline than spray on Pardon again. I'm a 48R in case you have anything specific in mind.

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  7. Sounds about as disgusting as Octavian's description of the new Serge Lutens Eau Froide "low quality detergent infused with a fishy marine note"

    Mary

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  8. The only Nasomatto that works for me is China White. For the promotional photo for Pardon, Alessandro(Nasomatto)Gualtieri dressed up as 19th century dandy - Count Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac.I find it quite amusing to imagine the effete monsieur de Montesquiou-Fezensac strutting around in this cack handed creaton.

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    1. Hey, I didn't realize that was Mr. Crazy Nose in the promo shot. He seems fun!

      I love China White! That's in my high-rotation pack of my top 12 or so perfumes. I think Hindu Grass and Nuda are swell, too.

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  9. Yes Katie, china white is a gem, it's powdery, opulent and enigmatic. I think it would have been much better suited to 19th century decadent imagery than pardon. I have tried hindu grass, but my sense of smell was wiped out after trying duro first.At least he's trying to do something different from the usual department store dreck and the bottles are fab.

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  10. The bottles remind me of table-lamps from a 1970's swingers' party.

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    1. I love Pardon....it kind of reminds me of Jubilation xxv
      China White is a good one too but the rest of the Nasomattos leave me cold, but not nearly as cold as poo & Glade!

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  11. like coffee, scent is so personal. I adore this scent. and it develops into a soft milk chocolate, dry cinnamon after a while. And yes there is a sour milk edge there. But Hmmm, if you aren't able to engage with that flavour. then I think you should gve up on your critique-ability. Cause sour is so important in our palate. that to dismiss it seems impaired

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