Anybody want to tell me why I don’t love Chergui?
It’s just… wrong. And I don’t know why. There’s some good stuff in there, but it’s overwhelmed with the musty smell of, and I know somebody is going to chastise me for this, old people’s houses. It reminds me of going visiting with my grandmother when I was a kid.
EDIT: For more on the discussion, head over to this post at Chicken Freak’s Obsessions, and enjoy!
Muse, thanks for saying it! I want to love it, but it’s cloying and sweaty sweet. Doesn’t quite work.
You are not alone.
Sweaty… yeah, sorta. Urgh.
Hmmm. I sometimes don’t like it, but for me it’s overspiced and sticky. Like someone decided that if putting food in a smoker is good for bacon and pork, maybe smoking would be good for some breakfast pastries and a pot of honey to pour over them.
But last time I wore it I loved it, so I suspect that it’s pretty variable, too.
I hereby officially Give Up on Chergui. I have Given Up on Mitsouko too.
Off to find some Tabac Aurea.
Chergui does have something a little weird or off about it that prevents me from loving it, though I do like it. I like smelling it on the homme very much, but when I wear it myself there’s some note in it that bugs me a little, something that reminds me of hair gel. Some kind of musk? I never noticed it in testers which makes me wonder if the bottle I bought to split with a friend was a newer formulation.
HAIR GEL? Ewwww. Still, it’s better than the smell of old people’s houses…
I haven’t tried it but unless you want to love it, trust your nose.
Ewwww Mitsy.:P ha
See, thing is, Tamara, that if you look at the list of notes for chergui, they are RIGHT UP MY ALLEY. I LIVE there. Hay, spices, amber, what have you. It’s just that they smell really wrong to me in Chergui.
And I don’t hate Mitsy. SHE hates ME. (Wow, I should be penalized for Excessive use of capital letters.)
I received a small decant in a swap as an extra (very nice extra, indeed). I, too, really want to like it, and I do like it – to a degree. It’s the baby powder dry down that is stopping me from making a move on this one. If I wanted to smell like baby powder (a smell I like), I’ll just lay down 5 bucks at my local CVS…
The jury is still out on this one…
Hi, Kym!
Seems like people get such different things out of Chergui… someone holds forth on the magnificent hay-tobacco, and somebody else talks about the beautiful tobacco-spice, and somebody ELSE else talks about the lovely spice-amber-smoke.
And then those of us who *don’t* like it say things like “sweaty,” “overspiced and sticky,” “bacony,” “like hair gel,” and “musty.” And now, “baby powder,” which I admit I don’t get, unless the amber is reading powdery on you. Which it might. It might be embarrassing for me to admit that the drydown was the part of it that I *didn’t* hate.
I don’t know why you don’t like it but I can definitely agree with that. It has everything it needs to be spectacular but on me, it turns my stomach. I think it’s the hay combination with something in there.
You might be right, Ines – “everything it needs to be spectacular,” but in reality it just isn’t.
Anyway, it’s not like I don’t have anything else to wear.
Wow, right on! I SHOULD love Chergui, too, (I am always hunting for the perfect feminine tobacco) but all these acutely observed comments have helped me to figure out why I don’t like it either — gooey, sticky, cloying, sweaty. Mitsouko vintage extrait, on the other hand, I’m wearing today, and there’s nothing better!
Does the “perfect feminine tobacco” exist? If you find out, let me know. I love love Tabac Aurea, but it smells like my old boyfriend – i.e., on the butchy side. But so delicious.
Wish Mitsy did like me.
I may be alone on this, but Chaos reminds me of Tabac Aurea, and hence reminds me of tobacco. (I think it’s the clove-patchouli-woods connection.) Chaos is thinner than TA, but maybe also more feminine?
Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille is also more feminine than TA, but really heavy and sweet, and expensive to boot …
TA wins again!
You know, I kinda-sorta liked Chaos but didn’t find it compelling (or very tobacco-y). I had one of those TFTV 4ml minis at one time, but I found that it reminded me of nothing so much as gingerbread, hardly any pipe-tobacco smell at all. Traded it away. Havana Vanille is okay, but I think it’s a bit schizoid. A weird experience. I should go get out my decant and try it again, but it might be too warm today.
Yep. TA wins again, you’re right.
Makes me sneeze…… VIOLENTLY.
Really? Well, then, you’re not missing much!