Dark Chypre / Chypre Noir
Ava Luxe

Soapy is right! Chypre Noir opens green in an accord that I don't connect with the chypre category. It even gives me a soapy taste on the back of my tongue. The opening green and bergamot notes are attractive but are nothing that would lead me to think “noir.” And the movement away from the unexciting attractiveness to those wonderfully promising chypre notes in the base takes a long while. One can lose patience waiting. When the chypre notes – civet, castoreum, moss, sandalwood – eventually show up, they are of unsatisfying intensity. Chypre is my favorite category and I love deep, rich, chypre notes. But there's just not enough depth and darkness here. Caltha is spot on. Ava Luxe Chypre is not “noir,” it demands oakmoss, and it should lose the soapiness – or at least most of it. As chypres go, this disappoints me, but it's still an enjoyable scent.

A blast of bright soap dries down to a grassy green inhale of spring day. Almost like a men's cologne, it reminds me of something I can't quite place. Still a very cool, pleasing scent that makes me want to inhale endlessly. Not sure I can wear this myself, but I'd probably follow a guy down the street if he had this on.

Chypre-ish, but not quite a chypre like they used to make them... Instead of aldehydic topnotes, green heart notes with oakmoss, and an animalic, leathery base in perfect harmony there's more of a jumble of soapy sharp topnotes, green grass heartnotes and cumin-y basenotes. Not very noir, in my opinion, but I can smell the aspirations at noir. To be noir it needs oakmoss instead of grass, leather instead of cumin, more heft and body, less soapy sharpness. Potentially headache-inducing.