WHAT I SMELL: Dries Van Noten opens with a tangy citrus opening that quickly moves into sweet gaiac wood. It’s slightly sugary with some vanilla undertones. At the same time it radiates some comforting warmth through a layered honey. The sandalwood comes to the surface bringing a more woody essence. After about 10 minutes the saffron begins to reveal itself and there is a slight sourness that is revealed which is a good as it softens the sweetness of the vanilla. In the end, Dries Van Noten becomes a very light and subtle comfort scent.
Dries Van Noten Notes: sandalwood, guaiac wood, tonka bean, vanilla, saffron, jasmine, musk, bergamot, lemon, nutmeg, cloves, patchouli, woody notes and peru balsam
WHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME: Seduction
THREE ADJECTIVES THAT DESCRIBE DRIES VAN NOTEN: sexy, sweetened, warm
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT DRIES VAN NOTEN: Cafe Makeup, Kafkaesque, Adventures of Barbarella
BOTTOM LINE: Dries Van Noten is a nice perfume, and for a Fredric Malle fragrance, it’s very understated. In its essence, it’s like the birth child of M. Micallef’s Gaiac (in the beginning) and Guerlain’s Samsara (in the end) both of which I like very much. As such, I don’t feel the need to run out and buy this for myself.
- Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 possible bones
- Scent: Oriental Woody
- Nose: Bruno Jovanovic
- Classification: Unisex
- Expense: $185 for 50ml EdP
The Scented Hound 
June 30, 2013 at 2:04 pm
I feel En Passant is a skin scent on me, so this bombastic Malle feeling isn’t one I know 🙂 but it’s so interesting that they wear so differently. This one has been much talked about so your review is very helpful!
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June 30, 2013 at 3:18 pm
Thanks for stopping by Deanna! I have not tried En Passant, but Lipstick Rose and Musc Ravageur are power bombs…to me, this is OK, but after I wrote my review I put on some Samsara which to me is heaven. Whey go for anything but heaven??!! 🙂
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June 30, 2013 at 3:37 pm
Despite the notes being uber-appealing to me…the combination did not work out for me and I banished my sample to a bad-dog doghouse to be swapped or given away. I really tried to like it…wore it 3x (and this is a lot given my very limited skin time) and each time it wore me (to the point of almost being suffocated) rather than me wearing it.
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June 30, 2013 at 5:49 pm
That’s so funny (weird that is) because I found this to really be a skin scent and can’t imagine that it would overpower. Very odd indeed my dear Hajusuuri!
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June 30, 2013 at 4:21 pm
Dearest Hound
You sound a great deal more content with this one than either myself or some others have seemed to be.
I wonder whether there’s a skin issue here… for on me this was tapioca bland and very fleeting?
That said, it’s always telling when something’s ‘nice’ but doesn’t inspire that all to easily kindled fire of desire to buy.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
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June 30, 2013 at 5:50 pm
My dear Dandy – I can see that you can see through my “nice” comment. I did like it but it didn’t wow me. But that’s OK… I’ll just move on to the next discovery!!!
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June 30, 2013 at 6:05 pm
Indeed Dear Hound… life’s to short to waste on mere ‘nice’ when there are ‘wonderfuls’ out there!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
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June 30, 2013 at 11:15 pm
Well, it sounds better on you than the endless, cloying snickerdoodles (with a touch of yeasty dough) scent that it was on me. To use a certain person’s recent (and favorite) descriptor, “meh”…. 😉 😛
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July 1, 2013 at 5:41 am
Yes, I didnt’ quite get the snickerdoodle aspect of this, but I did get a waffle cone effect for maybe 10 minutes. I guess that’s pretty close to snickerdoodle!
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July 1, 2013 at 3:03 am
Now that you mentioned it, it does smell like unhurried seduction. 🙂
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July 1, 2013 at 5:43 am
Ines, I struggled with the seduction descriptor, but I had just put a little on the night before and I was seducing myself with the tease of the scent. It kept calling to me. My second choice was going to be waffle cone because I got that for a bit….seduction is more fun though 🙂
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July 1, 2013 at 5:40 am
Looks like it was much better for you than for me, or for Hajusuuri
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July 1, 2013 at 5:20 pm
Well, as your scent twin, I’m not surprised by the fact that if it didn’t work for Hausuuri it didn’t work for you either 🙂
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July 1, 2013 at 10:51 pm
I quite liked this one a lot. I was worried, given what I had read, that it would have lousy projection and longevity on me, but to my surprise, it created a nice cloud of snickery doodley-ness around me. The woods kept it from being too sweet and I am actually eyeing it to be my fall/winter fragrance splurge. Great review as always! I love the photo of the bottle too. Did you take that?
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July 2, 2013 at 7:09 pm
Dear BB – alas, I am not that good of a photographer. It is from another source found from Google pics. I’m glad you like this like I do. It seems that so many others got very different results from this… maybe we’re just snickerdoodely 🙂
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July 3, 2013 at 10:45 pm
It appears so 🙂
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July 2, 2013 at 2:12 am
On paper this one smelled nice but not enticing enough to put it on my skin at a store. And I do not like the departure from the original idea of putting a spotlight on the perfumer and his/her creativity. So Imight try it eventually… or not.
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July 2, 2013 at 7:10 pm
U – I don’t really care where the inspiration comes from a fragrance as long as it’s a good one. I like this, but it’s not a “run out and must try” scent.
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