Encre Noire
Lalique (2006)

A beautifully executed vetiver soliflore.

I personally like the blast of cypress oil at the top and wish that part lasted longer.
My skin occasionally pulls a nuttiness and a sour quality in the vetiver that I don't love.
Encre Noire eventually dries down into a sweet leaning vetiver musk that I like.
Long wearing and, for me, a solid vetiver reference.

In stark contrast with the overt sweetness of modern men's perfumery, Encre Noire stands strong as the black vanguard of the dry and woody.

The dark horse of Lalique products is stored within a black glass flacon, square and minimalist in design with a dark wooden cap. It's minimalist, it's gothic, it's leftfield and the scent within it forms a gesamtkunstwerk that gives you an image of a man clad in a black coat and a black hat, his eyes obscured by the shadow cast from the brim, holding a finger up to his lips and letting out a slow, steady, windlike "Shhhhh...."

A la the men you'd see in Fritz Lang's M, I suppose.

Either way, this scent is an addictive one, with a respectable longevity and an even more respectable sillage from my experience. The total dryness of it is a make it or break it from some people, there isn't a friendly nook and cranny to hide in here. But I like that. Some of my best and most thoughtful experiences have been walks in a rainy forest, which it conveys.

Scent's good. Price is a steal. You get a 100ml of this nectar. What's not to like?

My 100 ml Encre Noire is 99% full, despite being in the collection 14 years. I tried with this one, I really did. Everything about it seemed like my face was on the overhead in the boardroom when they were brainstorming this. Minimal profile - check. Noir in the name - check. Minimal packaging - check. A feeling of darkness - check. On my skin it’s thin, woody, like polished wood, a hint of lemon pledge, gone in 60 seconds. I wore it in a variety of ways and sprayed it by itself layered it with other scents, spring, summer, fall and winter, with no success. I bought a second 50 ml bottle thinking maybe it was the bottle. It was t the bottle. For some reason this disappears on me, and when it doesn’t, it’s smells like wood polish/pesticide. Luckily the smell is so faint that washing or wiping it off succeeds in getting rid of it. The existence of this and its online veneration makes me believe that perhaps my nose is just not very developed or refined, and there must be broad categories in fragrance and smells in general, that I’m oblivious to. Another effect it had is that now I hate the note of vetiver, and have a hard time getting along with any fragrance that has it, especially as a top or mid note. I was auditioning sycamore around the same time as this and liked sycamore better, until my experiments with EN just ruined that for me too. Gave this one to my best friend - he loves it and wears it daily. Go figure.

A similar but simpler profile to Bvlgari "Man in Black" but a bit more dry. The projection is nice but the longevity is a bit weak. Still the fragrance is very nice, dark, and sophisticated. Excellent value.

Superb vetiver woods scent which my girlfriend loves. $100 on their site but can be found on ebay for $30. Great perfume for the price.

An affordable alternative to Chanel's Sycomore, this fragrance offers a woody musky vetiver scent that is well-composed for its price. However, I found myself getting bored of it after a while. The Extreme version is more wearable and the Sport version has more projection. This review is based on the 2021 bottles.

The biggest issue I had with this fragrance was its performance. Despite testing it in various ways, I couldn't seem to get it to last more than 3-4 hours. While it's certainly worth the hype, it ultimately leaves me wanting more.