Pasha Noir Absolu
Cartier (2023)

Burnt hot cocoa and wood smoke, set against a charcoal-colored industrial backdrop.

It reads like a dark, cozy, dystopian gourmand and balances on a razor’s edge between comforting and unsettling.

It’s absolutely brilliant. One of my favorite designer releases of the past decade.

While officially uncredited, the going assumption is that Noir Absolu is a Mathilde Laurent creation, and given that that's pretty likely, I'll operate on that assumption until I'm told otherwise.

Laurent's spicy, boozy synth-sandalwood Pasha Parfum seems to have done very well for Cartier (better than L'Envol, it seems), so more attention to the line was likely. That said, Noir Absolu feels so out of bounds for a Pasha scent that I suspect Noir Absolu was originally created to be a new Santos flanker, but Cartier ultimately decided against going through the effort of reestablishing the Santos brand.

Noir Absolu is a very abstract-futuristic, dry, smoky scent. The official release lists only two notes--charred wood and caramelized sugar--so it's a bit of a Rorschach blot. There's certainly more going on.

I detect a decent amount of the nutty aromachem that is sometimes used in oud accords (and also shows up in Laurent's Oud Absolu), but instead of skewing towards oud, with the burning wood tones here, it gives Noir Absolu a roasted pistachio element.

Varanis Ridari correctly notes that there's also something floral here (which has been misidentified by a number of YouTube reviewers as "lavender" - it sure isn't that). There seems to be a labdanum-y component in the mix, too, and the resulting floral accord is almost like if labdanum were blended with an abstract white floral, if you can imagine that. With the interplay between the florals and the nutty tones, this almost feels like it could have been inspired by the more approachable Tom Ford Noir Extreme.

Indeed, there's a slightly Tom Ford-y posture to Noir Absolu in general, with a bunch of tightly blended synthsmoke, synthwoods, and spices. The opening is short-lived, but wild: a kind of acrid, burnt smell that settles into spicy smoke atop the sweet-floral base. To the extent there's caramel in the mix, it's like caramel that sat on the stove too long and is starting to burn.

That acrid facet becomes more subdued, but it never really goes away, and my brain has trouble reconciling itself to it. I'm not sure I like this, but it's interesting.

I can't see it surviving in this unforgiving market for long, so check it out while you can.

Just tried this, and oh my goodness is it good. For me - and my milieu is basically designer - this is the most interesting, original and best release since Sauvage Elixer. It’s dark and elegant. It’s ashey, with a deep, smoky sweetness that is reminiscent of an Amouage or Roja without the fanfare. Or price tag.

I get cherry pipe tobacco that is lit, allowed to burn, and once turned to ash is blended with rich hot chocolate. Or a baking chocolate. Maybe “charred” baking chocolate. The charred description fits, but so does an ashtray, but only in the very best way possible. God’s ashtray. LOL.

There are shades of Mancera Red tobacco here, as well as Montale’s Chocolate Greedy. But make no mistake, this is its own thing and there’s nothing artificial about it.

Pasha Noir Absolu by Cartier (2023) is a particular kind of fragrance that smells a bit like Cartier is encroaching on territory usually reserved by Tom Ford or Comme des Garçons, in that they trek down a rich, smoke-filled space that has never really been Cartier's cup of tea. Nonetheless, they make this particularly heady and head-turning style of perfume their own, or rather Mathilde Laurent does, borrowing from her experience making the oud range Les Heures Voyageuses. What's perhaps most puzzling about Pasha Noire Absolu, is how so very little it has to do with either Pasha de Cartier (1992) or Pasha de Cartier Edition Noire (2013), even if it presents itself as the parfum iteration of it opposite to Pasha de Cartier Parfum (2019) With just two notes in the market copy, a perfume like this also helps weed out the real reviewers from the lazy-mode shills-in-disguise that like to read off the note pyramid while sniffing in their flashy YouTube videos full of royalty-free music and Windows Movie Maker quick cuts. All joking aside, I don't smell the caramel, but I do smell the sugar, plus a whole lot of things that may be real, or well-done artifice.

With only caramelized sugar and charred wood listed, the real whole of Pasha Noire Absolu will vary person to person; but for my nose, there is a lot of nuance that suggests and interplay of vetiver, clove, and birch all creating the smoke accord. Under that, we get a floral component I can best describe as the floral notes of sugared satya flowers like those found in the "Superhit" incense made by Shrinivas Sugandhalaya, followed by the usual suspects in the woody base. Despite there being some woody-amber notes here, they are downplayed by a sheer musk profile that at once reminds me of twenty years prior, when things like Caron L'Anarchiste (2000) and Bvlgari Black (1998) started playing with rubbery and metallic musk accords. The big difference between this and them of course is the fact that Pasha Noire Absolu is sweetened in an entirely different way than the Caron, and has more smoke than the Bvlgari, with no tea or other such notes. In the final drydown, it becomes more about the incense flowers (really does remind me of Superhit a lot late in the wear), with the smoke and thicker elements subsiding. This stuff lasts for a dog's age, too.

The floral incense nature of Pasha Noire Absolu really does have me thinking this could be a fragrance from Amouage or Montale too, even as it tries to go toe-to-toe with CdG or TF in this "dark mysterious man wearing perfume" sort of way that they often do. Comme des Garçons Black (2013) and Tom Ford Noir Anthracite (2017) this is not, and they are both much harsher in their execution of smoke, woods, and mineralic elements than this, purely on virtue of the sugared floral element found here. Nope, what Cartier has instead given us is definitely not quite that, and I'm actually glad. Not normally one to say 'more sweetness please: in my fragrances, but I feel we have enough sharp and bracing woods things in the legacy/vintage sector anyway; so if I wanted to smell like that, I'd just dig out some old Italian pine colognes or something like Jacomo de Jacomo by Jacomo (1980) and possibly Open by Roger & Gallet (1985). Here, we have the smokehouse with a bouquet of sweet flowers and incense sitting on the windowsill outside, adding a touch of artistry and good temperament to what would otherwise without it be another pizza wheel fragrance that's all edge and no point. Thumbs up

Just got a bottle. Top quality as always .
Mathilde Laurent always comes out with amazing creations .