Les Eaux Delà : Tumultu : L'Eau Trouble
Liquides Imaginaires (2013)

Started out interesting to my nose with a blast of what smelled like an animalic minty black licorice...This quickly transitioned to a grapefruit that was straining to capture the avant-garde type found in Sulfur or Lampblack...then it winds down to your typical semi-generic wooden base found on the shelves of Sephora/Ulta...meh...

I love the color of the perfume, but the love stops there. This is running on a stock synthetic sandalwood (a lot of it, which means its going to be on you for a while) over a lactonic, cedar-and-citrus kind of effect. It's obviously supposed to seem milky, but it's doing too many things at the outset to carry the effect well. It does settle after a few minutes into something more pleasingly delicate, but it's lacking solidity overall – it smells like ebanol and Iso E and that's about it. Like others in the line, this scent comes across as rushed, cheap, and cartoonish – which is a shame, as the basic concept (a milky skin musk) seems like it has legs.

Frankly I don't completely dislike Tumultu and tend to "embrace" it as a partially interesting (but just temporarily achieved) "liquid" (aromachemicals centered of course) cedarwood/sandalwood rendition. Of course I have to agree who with underlines the utterly synthetic approach quite far to be source of any form of "experimental abstractness". The liquid beautiful freshness lasts unfortunately just for a limited time while endly the woody aroma turns down towards something basically soapy and warm (that makes of this scent such an olfactory hybrid). The main woody note is quite dominant of course (it seems to catch cedarwood more than sandalwood) but the Les Liquides Imaginaires's performer manages to tame the typical (too much straightforward for many) cedarwood/saldalwood "woodiness" due to en excellent (and well calibrated) coconut's implementation providing a sort of almost edible rounding balminess (enveloping the woodiness). All this coconutty woodiness is since the beginning "splashed" by a clever usage of synthetic pomelo providing a sort of citric-gingery-watermelony (ostensibly rhubarbish/cardamomish) lingering fluidity. Unfortunately the general effect is too much heavy on aromachemicals and the performer fails in order to provide the woods with that (a tad more) realistic splash of (more durable) freshness as better realized in scents a la Mark Buxton Devil In Disguise or Ungaro Man (for instance). The dry down (not so distant from the LLI Fortis's dry down) is an intense (and may be overly "warm") coconutty/vanillic-musky sandalwood/cedarwood combo really penetrating, sultry and somewhat "cosmetical" in vibe. Barely neutral my rating, anyway, you can smell worst stuff around.

Possibly the least “tumultuous” fragrance I've ever tried. A quite simple cedar-sandalwood scent stuffed with Iso E Super and at least another woody-ambery aromachemical, with a hint of tart citrus notes on head, a general overall feel of sweet glossy grayness with a slight creamy substance. All artificial, but not enough to carry some “abstractness” or whatever creative meaning for me – just more plain boring. Plus, it quickly loses the few barely interesting facets (notably the initial “invigorating” clash between citrus notes and woods) becoming an endless straight line of Iso E sweetened by a pale debris of sandalwood, and hint of vanilla perhaps. For hours. Not stinky, but cheap, unsubstantial, uncreative and pretentious; surely unworth being considered “niche”, if the term still has some meaning and value – which apparently has not anymore (I'd give this a higher rate if it was a 20 EUR mainstream scent; but it's not).

4,5-5/10

Tumultu opens with a fresh citrusy, vaguely fruity accord to then quickly turn into a dry patch / cedarwood combo which feels too accomplished to be considered bad but, at the same time, really too common to justify the hefty price tag they ask for.

Not exactly bad but absolutely forgettable if you ask me.