Long-Courrier
Pierre Guillaume (2015)

Beaches and daydreams of them are the stuff of marketing copy – but their scents are nothing like this: a powdery vanilla with some eiderdown musk thrown in for good measure. This is more the scent of the imagined nursery, with the light dusting of cocoa providing for the milk-n-cookies scene setting. Soft, comforting and cute, a perfume to regress into. The projection, as usual, is light – or should that be slight?

From November, 2015:

I'm editing my original review which may have given this scent a little too much credit, or in depth analysis. Long Courier goes on with a flash of anisic mandarin that creates a sort of aquatic, sea water note and then quickly develops into a very light, albeit warm and radiant vanilla-caramel woods a la Bois d'Argent. It has a similar billowy, ethereal cloud-like density but Long Courrier pushes further into gourmand territory than Bois d'Argent and doesn't feel as refined. Interestingly, it has a a 'salty' flavor to it, and I think this is where its most aquatic aspect resides. The flash of seawater at the beginning, while very enjoyable, is also very brief, and never really significant enough to play any kind of central role in the composition. It would be nice if this aspect lasted longer, as it might be the most interesting part of the fragrance, particularly how it plays with the warmer, gourmand-like base. But it's only a flash.

Once resting comfortably in its warm and salty dusty caramel heart, Long Courrier doesn't change much and sort of lives out its duration with a quiet fade. Longevity is about 6 hours. Projection is close to the skin unless you apply a lot (which I do, about 6 to 8 sprays). How is it overall? Pleasant but really not that interesting. PG's Aomassai has a similar caramelic accord in the base (and of course much much more going on) and ultimately that's what Long Courrier feels like to me; a simple stripped down accord that I've smelled before as elements of more interesting, complex fragrances. The bottle's pretty and the scent's not bad, but it's not worth the price, in my opinion. I wore it three times for testing purposes and have a bottle sitting right here on my shelf, but I haven't felt compelled to wear it since.

It's masculine, and generic. I get much wood and spices. I can't smell the vanilla or cocoa. It's just alright.

Edit from neutral to positive: I can now smell a beautiful salty vanilla. It's not sweet. Very subtle, happy fragrance.

Upon first application, I had that “been here before” reaction, and in this case, that's not a bad thing. This is a very appealing, maybe crowd wise, woodsy scent. The scent is not original, but you can tell the ingredients are of high quality. Decent, but a pass.

Long Courrier bears a strikingly resemblance to some lens wipes I have. It has a milky feel that's crossed with Windex – a sort of witch hazel kind of aroma. I personally don't mind the smell of witch hazel, and truthfully, Long Courrier is the easiest to get along with from the line as it doesn't have quite as much brine or white musk as the others. It's ephemeral, but while it's there, it's pleasant enough. It's a sort of woody vanilla with a slight powder effect and a dab of cocoa. But after 30 minutes, it's pure ethyl vanillin and a light cocoa. While all four of these scents are surprisingly synthetic, this one takes the abrasiveness down a notch but it ends up smelling cheap.

Easily the nicest scent for me among these four new offerings of “La Collection Croisière” by Guillaume, together with Jangala. For three main reasons: it smells nice, quality, and creative. Basically Long Courrier is a really peculiar sort of talc-powdery “fresh” gourmand with a salty-aquatic texture, which manages to blend brilliantly all the nicest features of all these diverse inspirations; the dusty, nutty and masterfully tamed down sweetness of a gourmand (mostly cacao here) which bears also a really light sort of boozy-almondy note, then an evocative and totally compelling watery-aquatic feel, and cozy talc-amber-floral powderiness which connects Long Courrier to the great tradition of Oriental powdery scents, from Villoresi's Teint de Neige to Kenzo Jungle l'Elephant, with a subtle “guerlinade” underneath providing an elegant touch of classicism to the overall laid-back “sunny exoticism” of this scent. Now imagine this, with a truly remarkable watery texture that is basically limited to an aqueous-salty-musky note, subtle but more than enough to change the entire mood and bring in a “seaside” feel, pleasantly refreshing the musky-powdery-gourmand side. And giving it a truly unique look. The whole blend smells really classy, much distinctive and cleverly composed, and it also shows a really nice evolution which slowly brings Long Courrier to a woodier, drier territory. The sillage is quite discreet, which is good, but the persistence seems a bit too short for me. Still overpriced for me even taking into account it is a nice scent, but bottle-worthy in case of (massive) discounts.

7,5/10