Review of the fragrance I won on
madebyblog quizz.
Wetness is usually associated with freshness, morning dew-hyacinth, lily of the valley, rosy-peony notes, everything that is light-transparent almost Calone-Floralozone like and so popular in the 90's.
But the fragrance of Dominique Ropion explores the opposite side of the concept - the warm- human sexual, almost dirty idea. Imagine a wet-furry zibeline coat on a naked woman right after a summer storm. That's all about the fragrance: the sexual-sensual-musky feeling, the acidic sweaty skin on heat, the slightly dirty touch, the soft animalic (but light) fur, the clean-cold breeze in a cloud of sweet indulgence. If you know the controversial painting of Manet, "The beginning of the world" - that could fit quite well the idea of Wet. :)
The fragrance is built, in my opinion, on a similar shape to Musc Ravageur but with less cinnamon, slightly sweeter, and much more animalic. The differences are more noticeable in the top notes.
The main accord is constructed around musks, woods-sandalwood type (+ patchouli) and sweet notes.
The musky side represents, I would say, around 30 % or more of the formula and is mainly galaxolide, tonalide, exaltolide and something like musk Tonkin reconstitution. I suppose that there might be some muscone (the animalic side) or muscenone.
The sweet notes play an important role in the shape and are mainly vanilin / ethyl vanilin and coumarin the total representing around 15% of the formula.
The woody aspect represents the strong bones of the fragrance (25-30%). It's an accord built around synthetic sandalwood (Bacdanol?), cedar (IsoESuper), patchouly and maybe in touches other woods (guaiac, there is a M7 feeling). There is also in lower doses a woody-ambery note like Kephalis/Cashmeran/Karanal (I'm not sure on that) or just some ambroxan.:)
The animalic notes are brought by notes like castoreum, civet but also some phenylacetates and p-cresol esters.
There is also something soft-creamy-peachy, almost lactone like (decalactone g, undecalactone, octalactone g ???) with an osmanthus effect in traces (a small Narciso Rodriguez effect).
On this solid foundations the heart of the fragrance is very light - Hedione (around 10%) and something fresh rosy (geraniol?).
The top notes are fresh, peppery, slightly spicy: linalool, maybe rosewood, cinnamon (nutmeg?), slightly aromatic (juniper berry? or artemisia?), and something characteristic like carrot seed oil. There is also in small doses something fruity limonen/mandarine/mandarine aldehyde like with a candy effect. On the very top, besides the fresh spicy aspect there might be something liquor (isoamyl acetate-banana or rhum acetal) or it's just the contrast effect between the fresh top and sweet vanilla notes.
To summarize I would say that the main aspects of the fragrance are:
- fresh spicy-peppery top note + cinnamon
- very light jasmine rosy heart
- very woody sandalwood-cedar-patchouli
- sweet vanilla
- very musky
- additional aspects: honey like (sweet and sweat like), p-cresol like;
The fragrance fits perfectly the name "WET". I have no details about the brief/project or he intentions of the perfumer but for me it was a revelation. Though I expected (for the name) a different kind of smell, the fragrance surpassed all my expectations. Though I like Musc Ravageur… I appreciate more Wet. Surprisingly for an art project, the fragrance is 100% wearable and its original idea is more evident on the skin where the richness and the contrast between sweet-acidic-spicy notes are more noticeable.
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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art
