Pétroleum
Histoires de Parfums (2011)

I find this wearable and easy going despite the oudh being rather obvious, and there is an animalic side to it. The fresh and aldehydic notes work great combined with these more low pitched notes, even tho the whole thing sometimes smells odd I still think it mostly manages to deliver a unified experience that to me is very unique.

Fresh but savory, is perhaps how I'd describe this fragrance in short. Random things that come to mind right now are smoked paprika powder, rose, and perhaps fried steak and freshly ground black pepper. Previously I was reminded of the abandoned mine where I live, but perhaps with some fresh plants. I don't think it smells very much like a greasy mechanic's toolbox as someone have already said, although that certainly is a possible association.

This is the best of all HdP line, wearable but definitely try before you buy, if you like avant garde scents like Comme des Garcones type, you will enjoy this one.

Petroleum by Histoires de Parfums opens with citrus rubber band-aid and then morphs into WWIII as all the petrol fields in the world start smoking at once. WWIII simmers down and to expose that trademark old books and furniture accord that HdP does so well. Now I'm getting a touch of carpet infused with cigarette smoke. The carpet (and maybe the couch) is probably on fire because burning plastic is in there somewhere too. This probably sounds terrible, and to some it probably will be, but there is an elegance to the whole mess that makes it seem, well, wearable. Under all of the madness a dignified, soapy leather is screaming for help. It's definitely one of the strangest fragrances I've ever tried.

I'm not going to wear it, but someone should.

4/5

like a cdg version of 1740, there is still a good slug of immortelle and leather, but everything has been given a sort of astringent tar brush that actually energizes the composition. this stuff is strident and potent but remarkably wearable at the same time and is indeed the pick of the generally impressive editions rare trio. another impressive and groundbreaking creation by maestro ghislain. 8.5/10

I needn't have approached Petroleum with trepidation as I did – this one's a pussycat. Sure, it is strange, but as the sillage is quite modest it doesn't really unsettle.
It transitions rapidly in the opening seconds from a balmy, ambery and invitingly rosy air towards dry leather and baby powder on to its ultimate destination on my skin – cigarette ash ringed with a light, musky, rosy glow.
It remains polite throughout, and I was about to write it off as one of those perfumes that are of interest from the point of view of their novel effects and juxtapositions but do not really have the volume to inspire true love or hatred.
However, in the later stages (a few hours in) this ashtray rose achieved an extrait-quality tenderness of expression that made it much more appealing, so one must not be too quick to judge.

Petroleum opens with a strong accord of aldehydes, amber, benzoin, a luscious, sticky animalic/musky note with almost a rancid/urine side, perhaps also olibanum or frankincense, leather, and a weird, luring and somehow morbid breeze comprising flavours or anise, honey, rose, talcum, white musks. The juxtaposition between this and the animalic-metallic accord is quite gloomy and ghastly, and I find this halfway Secretions Magnifiques and some aspects of O'Driù's work. It's also quite hard to "dissect" the notes, the blend is thick and compact, smelling fairly unique (but at the same time, easily and terribly good). Basically it's a dense, bizarre, contemporary chemical-gassy-airy potion with a terpenic-sticky vein incredibly well-blended with some totally different facets – that abovementioned silky-floral-sweet breeze, for example. I honestly don't get much "petrol" instead, meaning that I do not detect anything particularly oily, but there is indeed a subtle, dark, sticky and black base note, halfway benzoin (with its dry, oriental, camphoraceous mysterious personality) and dark rubbery woods (I thought of birch, there's agar wood). Fascinating indeed, I thought of several scents, apart from ELd'O and O'Driù I also recalled Dalì pour Homme for a while, just for the general "mood" and gloomy "weirdness". Despite being quite unique and daring, it's totally wearable and pleasant, slightly ambiguous in a totally harmonic, versatile and sexy way. Finally the drydown comprises mostly a dusty leather note à la Knize Ten with amber and rose, always with a nondescript and peculiar "airiness" given – I guess – by aldehydes. An interesting experiment, quite well made and surely worth a try.

8/10