Parfum Sacré
Caron (1990)

Smooth indeed. This is a very physical perfume, which is maybe in contrast with its name.
The myrhh with cardamom, pepper and cynnamon make Parfum Sacré voluptuous, woody and almost spicy.

A warm body scent, like a temple for "matter" an sich.

Very similar to Diptyque's Eau Lente. Both are predominantly cinnamon and myrrh. If you own one, you could probably live without the other. Eau Lente has better sillage.

EDP formula... Beautiful! Milky spices. Perfumed spices. Spices that flow into swirling floral notes. The flowers are blended well. Not overly sweet nor cloying. They are somewhat powdery, dry. Even the carnation comes off as a powdery flower! I believe cardamom and cinnamon really add charm to these flowers.

The heart slowly sinks into a heavy base; a marvelous blend of resinous, sweet-wood, and musky notes. It seems creamier, too. Smoother. Vanilla and myrrh and amber are particularly alluring. Love it!

Cardamom, vanilla, and spice mixed with a white floral. Sweet without being too cloying, there is a soap smell blended with the green notes.

Opening smells like soft leather with cinnamon, but I believe I am really sniffing some musk and spices.

After the initial opening it turns to powder, leather and violets on me. The rose or pepper notes are hidden, but I suspect they are just well blended into the fragrance.

Four hours into this scent and I smell like dusty violets. It is nice, pleasant and safe, but I do not think I will replace my 2 ml sample. This is my second wearing.

The sillage is soft to moderate. The longevity is just okay at six hours or so then it is a skin scent. It did last longer, but close to skin and there 10 hours and still going strong.

I've got a real love-hate thing going on with Parfum Sacre. Straight out of the bottle it smells like a rather pungent version of Dioressence; this changes quickly and the fragrance softens, and a beautiful powdery violet note appears against a clove and vanilla background, with possibly a touch of cinnamon too. If this is the way Parfum Sacre remained on my skin, it would be one of my favourite perfumes ever: however, after about an hour the violets fade and are replaced by a slightly chocolate note, and the vanilla becomes a lot more prominent. Eventually the chocolate fades too, and all I can smell is sweet vanilla (not unpleasant, but not nothing special at all).

Now for the worst part: Parfum Sacre is extremely clingy, and smells very strong and stale on my skin the day after I've worn it. It's almost like a hang-over; stale Parfum Sacre is the first thing I smell when I wake up the next day! Even after several showers, it's still there (the only other fragrance to have done something similar on me is Alien - and that didn't become stale smelling; I just couldn't get rid of the damn stuff!).

All this said, I could enjoy Parfum Sacre very occasionally in cold weather, but it's definitely not a fragrance I would want to wear regularly; also the way it clings and goes stale is very off-putting. The Eau de Parfum is only available in 100ml now, and there is no way I would buy it in this quantity to use just a few times a year. The violet-clove stage of this fragrance is beautiful, so I'm going to give Parfum Sacre a neutral just for this; otherwise it would be getting a thumbs down. For a heavy cold weather Caron, I much prefer Tabac Blond.