Sucre d'Ebène
Pierre Guillaume (2011)

Sucre d'Ebène's opening is singed by rubbing alcohol but fortunately it fades in seconds. Then, a weak orange blossom sings its quivering little song behind a rain of sugar. The notes may say it's brown sugar but it has that glassy, almost numb scent profile of the white variety to my nose – a curious perfumer's trick that has a certain novelty value. As indeed does the slightly fruity (think bananas) shade it seems to throw on the orange blossom for a while. Initially I thought this suffered, as many other PG creations do, from excessive modesty – but that's not quite true; it leaves a trail in a room and lasts the entire day. Sadly, though, the later stages are dominated by the spun sugar aromachemical that is the basis of so many of these sweet gourmands these days although the orange blossom does get truer.

It opens with slightly caramelized sugar (like light brown syrup cooking) and quickly evolves into cardamom and orange blossom. It's delicious. Strong. Bold. I love it.

The opening of Sucre d'Ebène is a sharp, rich, and I guess totally involuntary tribute to Milan's most renowned traditional cake – the “panettone”, which is basically something like a fluffier, tastier and more buttery sponge-cake we use to eat here around Christmas and on New Year's Eve. Sucre d'Ebène instantly reminded me of its sweet brownish crust, and more specifically when you take the cake home and reheat it the oven, the crust getting even more “burnt”. Which is nice, just I wouldn't want to go to the cinema smelling like that. In April, for instance, or mid-July. Anyway, Sucre d'Ebène basically a sort of “autumnal” dry and shady gourmand, all played on aromatic, earthy, woody and sweet notes of “caramelised” dry resins and sugar, coffee, nutty notes, roots, woods, dry resins, with a bolder, darker woody aftertaste and something salty and sweaty underneath (I guess due to that “roasted” feature). Nuclear power, and endless linearity. To some extent it is undoubtedly fascinating, a peculiar melancholic and “forest” gourmand all played on brownish tones – woods, coffee, caramelised sugar, cake crust... but in my opinion it is also sadly a bit too heavy, fairly boring after a while, and frankly just too oppressive to wear.

6,5/10

Totally disagree with the only other reviewer.

Not about this being uber sweet, which it is, but the cloying, rotting comparison.

I find it a rather beautiful sweetness and very easy to live with.

The first few hours actually remind me of a 'masculine' version of those women's power fragrances prevalent in the eighties. Odd but true. An amazing juice for sure.

I have no idea whether, technically, this is a good or bad perfume. What I can say, most definitely, is that it is not one I will be trying again. The clue is in the title, I know, but this is so overwhelmingly, cloyingly sweet that I could barely stand 20 mins before having to try and scrub it off.

Sweet in the way that something rotting is sweet, with the witch hazel adding a weird, plastic note. Headache inducing in the extreme, I simply do not want to smell of this.