Mon Parfum Chéri, par Camille
Goutal (2011)

Faint suede-like accord. Dark, woody patchouli vibe. Dusty iris. Violet is slightly green and powdery floral, at the same time. Annick Goutal fragrances and I rarely get along - this one, makes me smile.

Still has a suede smell later, mixed with powdery, purple flowers. Light. Delicate. Femme. A perfume for warmer months. I like how this one developed.

Stardate 20170728:

Iris Leather.
That is what this is. Leather note overpowers everything else.
If you ever wonder about the original Burberry for Men - get this. Cheaper and easily available.

This does have the feel of an orris root fragrance, with quite a bit more going on. I suppose it's mostly the patchouli. It gives my nose the impression of peppery leather. I think it doesn't quite pass the litmus test of something I would wear from time to time, although the iris opening is promising, and it's an interesting, complex fragrance.

This review is purely subjective.
I had great expectations about this fragrance, having been described to me as a nice take on nu-chypres.
I have no doubt about its beauty, but unfortunately the chemistry of my skin refuses stubbornly to collaborate with fruity notes: Mon Parfum Chéri Par Camille on me is a sour plum liqueur and the combo with patchouli conjures up the image of booze spilled on an old wood tavern table full of scratches and scribbles whom texture is imbued with ages and ages of spilled wine and alcoholic drinks. That sounds quite an evocative tale, but on me this story is a disaster and the moral is: I shall not mess with fruity notes.
My neutral rating is referred to this bad reaction, not to the perfume itself: I like its dark personality, I keep the paper cup where it has been sprayed and the smell wafts highly pleasantly in the air, I like the whole concept of Annick Goutal's house... but my relationship with Mon Parfum Chéri Par Camille will be platonic.

Maybe I've simply missed it, though I haven't seen mentioned the connection between this fragrance and a long discontinued Goutal from the 1980s, Parfum de Femme.

To my young nose, Parfum de Femme was a strange scent like nothing I'd previously experienced - on the one hand, there was the delicate, dewy, naturalistic character I'd know as a Goutal, and on the other, an earthy dried fruit smell that even leaned a little bit...Band-Aid. The I. Magnin SA took an interest in me when I bought a bottle, because apparently hardly anyone did. I remember her telling me that its main accord - osmanthus - can smell like apricots.

About 20 years later I came into a bottle of Rochas Femme parfum from the middle of the last century. Its strange dusty fruity accord was very, very much like the old Goutal! And now I know that it was actually the Goutal that smelled like the old Rochas.

Mon Parfum Cheri, par Camille is perhaps even more like the vintage Rochas in its dusty, dusky, mellowness - it's a good way towards 180 degrees from being a perky garden-fresh scent. The Rochas bottle I used to have was so old that whatever top notes the juice had once had were long gone, and it was a little flat; Mon Parfum Cheri is what I'd imagined vintage Femme would smell like if it were fresh, and it is simply divine! I actually wear it for daytime and don't find it too strong or too formal or too any of the things I've heard said about it by people who respected it, but maybe didn't "feel" it. I think one's history and context especially matter with a distinctive fragrance like this one, because it IS sort of odd. I've now had decades to get used to what I believe must be the chemical known as Prunol, so it smells pleasant and familiar to me now.

I have the EDT, and have yet to smell the EDP.

Annick Goutal (as well as underlined by Colin Maillard) strikes often us for its fairy and poetic delicacy, for its magistrally rendered oneiric or romantic style (for instance think at Ninfeo Mio, Nuit Etoilee, Le Muguet, La Violette, Vent de Folie etc, etc). Mon Parfum Cheri Par Camille strikes specifically (at least for a long part of its transition) for its more classically rendered gorgeous fruity-floral-spicy-earthy side which effectively arises by soon an almost vintage, gloomy, thick, dark, aristocratic plummy-leathery twist. A mysterious and eccentric old french madame seems to leave a magic musky silky wake permeated (anyway in the background) by old style "complicated" french grandeur. The aroma, although classic and initially earthy-spicy-floral (in an almost massive way) preserves anyway a certain level of modernity with its final "cleaner" soft powdery muskyness (iris-musk) and its velvety violet. The plummy vibe, initially impenetrable (almost stuffy-fat) seems finally softer, muskier, talkier, dusty-eliotropic and well modulated. Anyway the association of violet, plums and iris elicits a deeply "berrish-like" romantic (deep, gloomy and melancholic) feel of "Enchanted Forest". I detect a vague resemblance with the woodsy muskyness of the The vagabond Prince's fragrance (which smells finally more banally ambery, warm and resinous) and also the great Feminite du Bois jumps more than vaguely on mind. The eliotropic vibe, combined with a woodsy-musky fruity floral depth, enhances that "enchanted forest" effect in my imagination. The spicy patchouli holds on anyway to be vintage, rooty, decadent and old-school (massive chypre like) and it keeps the link with a classic-vintage tradition. I detect a final leathery-powdery velvety effect absolutely refined, gloomy (plummy-berrish-violet/iris centered) and subtle. Gorgeous and mysterious as the glaring fairy of the woods.