The Scented Hound

Perfume blog with abbreviated perfume reviews & fragrance reviews.

Tag Archives: 3 bones


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NEW RELEASE: UOMO by VALENTINO

Valentino UomoWHAT I SMELL:  Uomo opens with a spicy bergamot and then quickly in comes a sweet cocoa.  It’s lightly warm to the smell, but very zesty and tingly on the skin.  I feel like this could become very shrill, but it reins in the overly gourmand cocoa sweetness and instead leaves this lighter sheen of nutty goodness riding off of your skin.  After around 20 minutes or so, the cedar slowly makes it way in, bringing a fresh woodiness to the fragrance, but at the same time there is a bit of sour that creeps in, but only for a short time.  Uomo doesn’t change much past this point and in the end it’s relatively light and understated which is where it needs to be.  Don’t get me wrong, Uomo offers a long life and pretty good projection as well.

Valentino Uomo notes:

Top: Italian bergamot, myrtle liquor.
Middle: crema de gianduia.
Base: leather, cedarwood.

ItalianBoulevardWHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME:  An Italian boulevard flanked by cedar trees where the smell of coffee, chocolate and other gourmand offerings from the cafes fill the air.

THREE ADJECTIVES THAT DESCRIBE UOMO: semi-gourmand, semi-sweet, semi-nutty

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT UOMO: The Candy Perfume Boy via Escentual.com, The Grooming Guru, I Scent You a Day

BOTTOM LINE:  A very nice, easy to wear offering from Valentino.  As much as I like the fragrance, I can’t say the same for the bottle.  In pictures, the bottle looks like crystal.  In person, it looks like a glass porcupine.  I guess it’s nice that at least it’s different from the typical bottles out there.

  • Bone Rating: 3.5 out of 5 possible bones
  • Scent: Leather Goumand (but where’s the leather?)
  • Nose:  Olivier Polge
  • Classification: Masculine
  • Expense: $75 for 1.7 oz EdT (exclusively at Nordstrom in the U.S.)


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VOHINA by HUITIEME ARTS PARFUMS

VohinaWHAT I SMELL:  Vohina opens as a rich, smooth honey laden floral.  It’s warm and slightly “bathtastic” as it feels like it’s suited for bath oil beads rather than perfume.  I think I am smelling the lavender at the base, but it’s very muted which is nice as lavender can often times dominate a fragrance.  As the fragrance develops the honey becomes deeper and the fragrance warms and it loses the bath oil characteristics.  Around the 30 minute mark a woodiness comes out that seems to dry the fragrance without losing the lovely florals. After another twenty minutes or so, the honey get’s a bit sharper and that creates an almost hairspray kind of edge to the fragrance, but it doesn’t detract from the overall fragrance. I find Vohina to be very soothing, peaceful and relaxing and a fragrance that could easily take the tension out of the day.

From the Huitieme Art Parfums website:

A sunny afternoon in the fields, velvety and floral with peach tree blossom and lavender honey resting on golden hay.

woman-with-umbrellaWHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME:  A beautiful early summer day in a bygone era.

THREE ADJECTIVES THAT DESCRIBE VOHINA: comforting, peaceful, unassuming

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT VOHINA: Scent for Thought, Olfactoria’s Travels, CaFleureBon

BOTTOM LINE:  This was my first foray into Huitieme Arts and it was a pleasant surprise.  Vohina is not earth shattering, but you don’t always need an earth shattering fragrance.  To me, it’s perfect for just knocking around on a spring or summer day.

  • Bone Rating: 3.5 out of 5 possible bones
  • Scent: Floral
  • Nose:  Pierre Guillaume
  • Classification: Feminine
  • Expense: $125 for 50ml EdP


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NARCISSE NOIR by CARON

NarcisseNoirWHAT I SMELL:  Narcisse Noir opens with a dark and deep narcissus, like it comes from the depths of a country field that is moistened with a warm undercurrent that runs through it.  It’s sharp like the flower, but not so much that it’s all bite.  After around five minutes the orange blossom comes to the surface.  It’s not bright and it’s not juicy, but rather mixed with the narcissus it retains this darker, more mysterious edge.  The jasmine adds a bit of rubberiness to the mix almost like its tuberose.  I like it at this stage because it fills your lungs with weighted beefy florals.  But soon enough, the darker veil lifts a bit to reveal a lighter side which unfortunately reminds me of expensive hair spray.  If only the fragrance could have stayed in that early stage!  The drydown….well, see below…

Top notes are african orange flower and narcissus; middle notes are jasmine, orange and tincture of rose; base notes are vetyver, musk and sandalwood.

KrogerCitiCenterWHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME:  Years ago, the first home I ever purchased was in a suburb outside of Atlanta, GA called College Park.  I lived in a neighborhood where we all had historic plaques on our homes and it was very homey, pretty and was a great place to live.  Unfortunately, historic College Park is surrounded by some not so nice areas and quality grocery shopping was hard to come by.  In East Point, the town next to us there was the Kroger Citi Center.  I don’t know if they were trying to recreate a neighborhood concept, but whatever it was, it failed.  Instead of walking directly into the grocery store, you had to walk by a series of mom and pop small businesses in addition to a Popeyes chicken restaurant.  One of the business was a nasty looking beauty salon.  I don’t know what kind of chemicals were used in that shop, but that horrid burnt hair, chemical smell combined with the smell of Popeye’s Fried Chicken always gave me a headache and made me nauseous.  Unfortunately, the drydown in Narcisse Noir reminds me of the Kroger Citi Center.  OK, this is better than that, but it still reminds me of the gauntlet that I used to have to walk through to get my groceries.

As I was having a hard time getting past this association, I asked my husband what he thought it smelled like.  He said it smells kind of powdery like a girls bedroom and said it reminded him of his sister.  Go figure…maybe she ate a lot of fried chicken while she was under the hairdryer!

THREE ADJECTIVES THAT DESCRIBE NARCISSE NOIR:  sour, strange, pungent

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT NARCISSE NOIR:  Bois de Jasmin, The Perfumed Dandy, Perfume Posse

BOTTOM LINE:  You would think that I would give this a great big “1 Bone”, but for some reason I am repulsed, yet attracted to this Caron classic and every once in a while will wear it.  So even though it’s not for me there is a reason that it has been around since 1911.  Besides, who couldn’t love that perfume bottle?

  • Bone Rating: 3 out of 5 possible bones
  • Scent: Oriental Floral
  • Nose:  Ernest Daltroff
  • Classification: Feminine, with masculine leanings
  • Expense: $180 for 15ml Parfum Extrait which this review was based on.