Goest perfumes revisited

Sometimes I think that every perfume review should be preceded by a disclaimer, saying something like “How a scent is perceived is subjective and what is one person’s love may be the next person’s hate”.  That is true not just for perfumes but for smells in general. I, for example, can’t stand the smell of bananas. Just the thought of them  makes me fell a bit queasy. I got train sick on a very hot train journey when I was quite a small child and I still remember vividly how horribly sick I felt and opposite me, another girl was eating bananas and since then the smell of this rather innocent fruit, reminds me of feeling nauseous.

I didn’t like all the perfumes I tried from Goest, but that don’t mean that they are bad perfumes. My overall view on the perfumes is that they are all interesting and well blended. They were also all very true to their description, which isn’t always the case with perfumes. Though I had read the descriptions when I purchased them, I didn’t re-read them until I had actually tried them, but I found that my impression was quite close to the descriptions.

Dauphine

Divinely innocent, incandescently pretty.

Inspired by the redolent imageries of Sophia Coppola's film 'Marie Antoinette', Dauphine is a clean, ideal, fresh skin scent, pink and cream and white all over. This scent has notes of pink, full blown rose; milky, fresh, sweet almond; and a reveille of innocent, airy musks. This scent is sweet, but not in a lurid, hard-candy-way; it's sweet like fresh, cream-filled, rosewater-scented pastries.

Innocent, but not immature; quiet, never cloying: this charming and refined scent is superlatively, incandescently, and, quite simply, very, very pretty.

Notes: Muscs, Almond, Roses, Cream

Aspects: Fresh, Gourmand, Ambrosial, Refined

Upon application I got roses and almonds at first whiff, with, yes, a hint of soap. The almond and soap disappeared quickly though, and I got roses and musk, with time the rose faded more and more, leaving just a trace with the musk. It really smells just as it is advertised, creamy, clean roses that are sweet but not cloying.

This perfume gave me the biggest surprise of all the Goest perfumes, because I don’t like perfumes smelling of roses. It’s not that I don’t like the smell, I do, and I can like rose perfumes when other people wear it, but it never feel like me, when I wear it. So I was hugely surprised when I not only liked Dauphine, but that I like it a lot. In fact, next to Silent Film, this is my favourite! There is something in it; I believe it may be the musk, which tugs at a memory and a good one too. I get a little tug in my heart every time I smell it, but I can’t for my life recall what it is I’m reminded of. Nevertheless, I love this!,

Grand Tour

Sport, spirit, and straight-out polish.

Grand Tour makes an excellent first impression, opening with a burst of traditional aromatic herbs and five delicious citrus fruits. As it wears, the excitement at the heart of this scent is revealed: fresh and pure sweet basil and a smooth, abstracted cedar note combine for a distinctive and energetic spiciness that revs at 4000 RPM. This effect is backed by a foundation of well-tanned leathers and elegant oakmoss for a long-wearing and sensual yet subtle sillage.

Although the classic structure of Grand Tour alludes to great bygone masculine fragrances, this scent's not just for the boys. On women, it's incredibly sexy - think a well-heeled, natural woman in a crisp men's white oxford shirt.

Fresh and invigorating for day, sensual and elegant for night: man or woman, Grand Tour is built to be your constant signature.

Notes: Woods, Tanned Leather, Oakmoss, Herbs, Citrus

Aspects: Vigorous, Adventuresome, Neat

Most of Goest perfumes can be worn by men and women, but this is the only one that really feels like a men’s perfume to me. The fist impression isn’t any notes in particular, but just men’s cologne. Not in a bad way at all, but just masculine. After a while I can detect the oakmoss and there is a faint citrus somewhere behind that. After several hours it is leather and herbs. I like it; it is perfectly wearable for a woman as well and feels very fresh.

Jackal

Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

Jackal opens with the scent of dry, powdered chocolate tempered with a hint of beckoning, mouthwatering vanilla. As it settles into the skin, the most darkly charismatic side of patchouli appears, cloaked in a multifaceted, sensual smokiness of many associations: the sweet, swooning scent of toasted tobacco - the bitter, magnetic smell of money - faraway fires in the woods.

This bottomless scent is the epitome of the anti-perfume. Though it has an original glamour, it is not the cosmetic powder-cloud of classic scents of fashion; and though it is natural and earthy, it has nothing of the biting, traditional terpenes of the hitchhiker's tonic. Jackal's essential effect is that of your own skin, only sexier; it is the essential effect of you, made simply more magnetic. Jackal wears very close to the skin and easily enhances other perfumes.

To all sensual men and women: where will you end, and Jackal begin?

Notes: Sweet Smoke, Dirt, Bitter Chocolate

Aspects: Earthy, Animalic, Dark, Vast

Jackal was all chocolate when I first applied it, with an interesting earthy quality. I was, however, not sure if I liked it and then J came into sniffing distance and had a very dramatic reaction on it. Now, J is interested in perfume all by his own and has a nice collection himself, so he is definitely not anti-perfume. This one he disliked intensely, though and I think it may have biased me a bit as well- I do prefer J to think I smell nice. But there is also the matter of that earthiness that soon revealed itself as patchouli. My body amps patchouli and most perfumes that have that note ends up smelling just patchouli on me. And though it isn’t a bad scent, my paternal grandmother wore a perfume where it was a prominent note. So even if I didn’t dislike Jackal, it truly wasn’t a perfume for me. If you like chocolate and patchouli, though, then I think you have a hit.

Lartigue

A little bottle of precious sun, swim, and sail.

Lartigue opens up on the skin with a bright, airy, and succulent show of abstract fruits and superfresh citrus. It progresses to reveal a green, clean, and joyous heart backed by a base of watery woods and clean earth. Inspired by the beatific and eternal Riviera portrayed in the images of 20th-century master photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue, this Goest scent celebrates all in life that is liberated, enthusiastic, and on-the-spot.

Forget what you know about usual "sport" scents, those brash and metallic colognes that are the olfactory equivalent of shoulder armor, spandex, and a helmet. Lartigue, by happy contrast, is modern, clean, and elegant, and cuts a handsome figure clothed in pristine tennis whites.

(And, in the true spirit of modernity, this scent is great for both men and women.)

Notes: Woods, Peach, Citrus, Sun, Air

Aspects: Succulent, Bright, Modern, Fresh

This perfume opens up with a blast of lemon on me, and there it stays. I can’t detect anything else and it fades very quickly on me, after an hour it is gone. It’s very nice as long as it lasts, though. A very good scent for a hot day, as the feeling of it is so cool and light.

Realism

A green tableau in four dimensions: bring the outdoors in.

Realism opens with a buzzing, resinous green swell of grasses, herbs, and blossoms giving off their freshness in the heat of the sun. Supported by damp petals and black soil, the soft and expansive smell of crushed stems from a fruit tree fills the heart of this scent, breathing a sublime greenspace for hours. In the drydown, a sleepy accord of ultraprecious hay absolute and quiet cedar.

It's Realism, but more than that. Its realism isn't that of a bookplate from a botany book, but that of one of Courbet's tableaus, if it unfolded in three--actually, four--dimensions.

Unisex, and no less gorgeous for it.

Notes: A Crushed Stem, Soil, Herbs, Hay, Citrus

Aspects: Green, Sunshot, and Blooming

If Lartigue was a blast of lemon, Realism is a blast of freshly cut grass. This is truly a really green scent and it reminds me, though I have yet to smell them side by side, of vintage Vent Vert from Balmain. That is a very good thing in my book- I love Vent Vert. I get the same feeling of it as I got from Lartigue, a scent for a hot day, but Realism also have staying power. The dry down gets just drier, the grass turns into hay and you can detect the cedar. Unusual and lovely.

I am very happy that I tried Goest, I think the quality match the bottles and advertisement. I really want a bigger bottle of Silent Film, and I want more of Dauphine, Grand Tour and Realism as well. I would also try any new perfumes they may present in the future.