Year: 2011
Notes: bergamot, elemi, frankincense, cedar, Siam benzoin, vetiver, oakmoss, musks
Olfactive Studio brings together contemporary artistic photography and perfumery, with the sole aim of providing an experience "between the eye and the nose". Teaming up with professional photographers, this niche house draws its inspiration from their works, and attempts to capture the essence of each image in a fragrance. While the concept is interesting, it doesn't help that the fragrances are highly questionable.
Autoportrait is one of the most mediocre niche releases in recent memory. Instead of taking its inspiration from the featured photograph, this dark woody-oriental is a shameless replica of several cheaper designer fragrances of this ilk, such as Gucci's Gucci pour Homme and Rochas' Lui. In other words, it's yet another scratchy cedar fragrance with some elemi and frankincense.
In addition, the woods are glaringly artificial, with the ever popular (and highly abused) aroma chemical cocktail of Iso E Super and ambroxan overpowering the other notes. With quiet sillage and good longevity, it's a generic, banal and uninspired synthetic concoction that lacks even an iota of originality.
In one's opinion, it's houses like Olfactive Studio that are currently giving niche perfumery a bad name.
Autoportrait is one of the most mediocre niche releases in recent memory. Instead of taking its inspiration from the featured photograph, this dark woody-oriental is a shameless replica of several cheaper designer fragrances of this ilk, such as Gucci's Gucci pour Homme and Rochas' Lui. In other words, it's yet another scratchy cedar fragrance with some elemi and frankincense.
In addition, the woods are glaringly artificial, with the ever popular (and highly abused) aroma chemical cocktail of Iso E Super and ambroxan overpowering the other notes. With quiet sillage and good longevity, it's a generic, banal and uninspired synthetic concoction that lacks even an iota of originality.
In one's opinion, it's houses like Olfactive Studio that are currently giving niche perfumery a bad name.
