Bibliothèque
Byredo (2017)

Sugared red berries overtaken by syrupy sweet and harsh leather. Not like a library at all, more like headache central.

The floral opening sports mainly a fairly ripe plum with a peachy undertone, but they are a bit anaemic and not very impressive.

The drydown adds a bit of crispness by the addition of a violet that, however, never exudes any harshness or sharpness.

The base changes tack: it is smoother, adds a - somewhat weak - vanilla impression, touches of caramel and a level of richness hitherto missing in the development of this creation.

I get moderate sillage, good projection - especially in the base - and a splendid thirteen hours of longevity on my skin.

Initially this spring scent is disappointingly generic and full of synthetic tedium; whilst the base - the best part - at least tries to show some intensity and passion. Overall not convincing, but with some good features after all. 2.75/5

The only thing I can smell in this is the overly sweet syrupy peach + plum and vanilla. This smells like a whole lot of perfumes I've smelled before, all mainstream designer. LVEB, Marc Jacobs Decadence, My Burberry Black, Dahlia Divin... the list goes on. It carries a sweet syrupy note that all of those have and it does so at a much higher price point. I would make a trip to your local Ulta/Sephora and ask to smell their top 5 “sexy night time” fragrances and I guarantee you'll get something that smells pretty much identical to this. I get no leather or florals. Stewed peaches in simple syrup. That's all the potential this reaches on me. I wouldn't recommend this and I'd never desire to wear it. Just thought I would warn someone who hears the hype train surrounding this brand.

There are many scents from this house that have been accused of smelling exactly like some other mainstream designer releases. I'm beginning to think the perfumer or owner of this house is running a sham and intentionally ripping off customers who buy into the trendy minimalist aesthetic of their packaging/marketing.

May test something else from them in the future but I have no motivation or desire to do so.

Sweets and not much else? Even a few hours later I just get feminine peach body spray. Was hoping for so much more...

I can do little more to add to Buzzlepuff's excellent overview of this scent, so I'll just reiterate that this is a lovely, approachable, unisex leather with just a hint of plum sweetness to smooth out what could have otherwise been rougher edges. Unfortunately, I'm testing it on my right wrist while simultaneously testing Pulp (also from Byredo) on my left wrist, and the fresh fruitiness of Pulp is completely overpowering the more subdued Bibliothèque. I plan on testing Bibliothèque alone at another time to give it the attention it deserves, but for now I'll just have to keep it a bit closer to my nose.

I put the same amount of each juice on my wrists, so I can safely say that Bibliothèque is closer to a skin scent on me than Pulp (my skin eats many scents, so take that for what it's worth). If Bibliothèque is a wise, classy grandparent enjoying some quiet time in the study, then Pulp is the rambunctious granddaughter who accidentally spills a Capri Sun on the authentic Persian rug. Luckily, she's adorable and no one seems to mind.

Bibliotheque has been a very popular candle for Byredo and so this dreamy nostalgic aroma of old books and polished wood and leather is now introduced as a new unisex fragrance. It is a worthy addition. Biblioteque is atmospheric and brings a historical old world reference of smells emerging from a far away and distant past. From a few feet, the smell is warm spiced plums and dried fruit infused polished woods and old leather fragrance which does in fact smell like a trove of leather bound books resting in a highly polished wooden cabinet - a "biblioteque". When you put nose to skin the plums and dried fruit is a bittersweet covering over old leather bound ancient and well used pages. This balsamic fruit leather has a well worn patina of ancient civilizations as opposed to the raspberry freshness of a Tuscan Leather type of fragrance. Byredo has been exploring various tones of leather in their recent fragrance offerings and it is rumored they are preparing to launch into the leather goods business. So this leather fragrance flurry of new intriguing Byredo leathers mixed with varying combinations of dried fruits, indolic florals, tobacco, leather, deep woods has resulted in a concentration of new products from Byredo. Biblioteque is a very bottle worthy resident in the group of new leather interpretations that includes: Rodeo, La Botte, Cuir Obscur, Reine de Nuit, Le Gant, La Selle and Biblioteque. Each is very well done interesting view of Byredo's discovery of new dimensions in leather. This one - Biblioteque - represents the hard to define umami of well used and experienced surfaces - new from the Byredo catalog of fragrance.