Description
The skin is soft and warmed, yet in some spots almost transparent. Opalescent lily. Forsaking flirtation and prudery, the beauty reveals her inner self, daring to expose herself as she truly is, superlatively nude. It is the perfect moment. Ripe flesh awaiting to be picked.
Undaunted, she casts aside the urge and it is now in complete silence that the fatal attraction operates. A docile, consenting victim. The beast is actually not far away. He lies in ambush and, as the fine connoisseur he is, anticipates the moment he will take possession of her essence. For him this prey is named desire and he assesses her fully-fledged femininity. The fragrance soars. We are nearly there. It is soon the time when the heart will liquefy and shed its vanilla notes, when leather will melt into a balm and when an unrecognizable anatomy will deliver its precious, sunbathed and uplifting aromas. Blissful pestilence. Believe in the beast, this embrace has the taste of eternity. How could one do without it?
Nose is Shyamala Maisondieu. Charogne was launched in 2008.
larieCepker – :
More mind-bending experimental weirdness from ELDO – not because it is weird in itself (it’s not), but because it’s so unapologetically synthetic and clashy. And for me personally – because it smells *exactly* like vintage, vanilla-scented aerosol wood-furniture polish, fizzed up with some extra aldehydes. Like your glamorous grandma doing some house cleaning in 1963 – it smells sort of “space age” but in a dated way, throwing back to earlier versions of feminine mystique. While it has no orangeiness at all, its chemical-waxiness conjured up a tinge of PG Bois de Copaiba, at least for me.
So obviously I’m not picking up what everyone else is getting at all, but it’s close enough to make me sure I’m not hallucinating. It’s not even unpleasant: this has an oddly compelling aroma, enough to make me keep sniffing to figure out what’s going on – how can it be so deeply plasticky and industrial and yet somehow organically dirty at the same time? This will be personal, but when wearing this I just can’t stop thinking of those plastic covers some people put over their sofas, and feeling like I should go home and dust. True unisex – being as oddball as this transcends gender. Freaky deaky stuff.
RudikSergey – :
A quiet fragrance from start to finish. Opens sweet on my skin an hour ago and still is. Sprayed on wrist last night but small amount did not do justice to the lillies. I can now detect the lillies which are not too invasive, just the way I like it. The vanilla is too strong for me though, and I like sweet but not from vanilla. It also smells powdery on me and I think I got a tinge of animalic at the opening but that dissipated as quickly as it came. On me, it’s pretty much a safe fragrance to wear to work everyday, but it’s too demure for me. I like something a little more ‘oomph-ey’.
tura7350 – :
To me, this smells like christmas gone bad. It starts very sweet and spicy, with vanilla, ginger and a touch of cinnamon but pretty quickly this sweetness starts going more towards the sweetness of rot and mold, combined with fake leather. The closest ive come to smelling this is slightly moldy, badly stored vanilla flavored-pipe tobacco. All of this may just be my skin though, as it worked quite well on my partner.
forus17 – :
Doomed from the very start, forgotten and forlorn, rotting lily slowly disintegrates into a vanilla demise.
May – :
Skanky rootbeer leather. Dirty, animalic leather surrounded by a cloud of vanilla and white flowers and… bubblegum??? LOL! I’m not finding this as challenging as many other wearers seem to be… maybe because I’ve been wearing a lot of skanky old school retro fragrances? And this definitely smells retro to me. May not be office friendly but I don’t find it really over the top (then again, I just wore Bat yesterday and singed everyone’s nostrils by over-applying…. although I really loved it!) A modern take on retro classics.
niyazi76 – :
The bouquet at the beginning smells a little like an amaro, very sugary but slightly bitter and certainly alcoholic. Lily, ylang-ylang appear soon after and are followed by a terrible “animal smell” that becomes a version of leather with a hint of jasmine at the end. Coming from someone who loves leather, I cannot abide this leather/animal smell! Very pungent and hits you at the back of the throat.
gk110751 – :
It may not be a crowd pleaser. Depends on where you are. It may not be a signature scent. Depends on your confidence. For me it’s a necessary reminder that the art of perfume is alive. It’s not fresh it’s not clean it’s not safe and sweet. When I give this a go I get the most satisfying reminder of wet umbrellas, dust on imitation flowers, the rag in the car that cleaned the dipstick, the bad walnut cracked by the hearth at Christmas, linoleum kitchen floors, and in the morning after on your sheets an earnest willy tear, dried in rememberance of the sexiest dream. The colour’s I get are Autumn yellow/ochre
Vladislav777 – :
So…somebody on Luckyscent compared this to an open-casket funeral where the uncle with the bad breath next to you is chewing a Juicy Fruit gum. And that is really the best description of Charogne. The lilies here are so indolic they seem to be masking a horrendous odor.
I admire the perfumer and I´m so glad I got to smell this. I can´t imagine wearing it, but smell it by all means if you can – this is a scent that will broaden your horizons.
sissyRaxbollaCoili – :
CHAROGNE is simply one of my favorite scents ever, and I hope never to be without a flacon of it.
Lilies, black pepper, ginger, vanilla, subtle ylang, and a curious hint of banana/bubblegum are layered over a suave leather accord. The leather has a plastic-y “pleather” quality, like expensive sex toys. Indoles confer a slight mothball quality which is not offputting at all, but quite intriguing. JUICY FRUIT chewed at a funeral, haha. I love it. This fragrance is sweet where it should be, vanillic where it should be, spicy where it should be, and musky where it should be.
CHAROGNE sits on my skin as if it were my own bespoke perfume.
sedou61 – :
A stunning fragrance, but the notes listed do not add up to what I am smelling. Not at all !!!
I have lived in the Massive des Maures now for more than 8 years. The perfume that is the Provence fills the air on a Summer morning and is unmistakable. It’s a melange of pine and cedar backed up by leathery, mushroomy, earthy notes. It’s the most gorgeous mixture of nature pure and this is what I get when I spray Charogne.
I’m really puzzled at the notes listed and surprised that cedar,pine etc are not shown though I know that generally perfumes are made up of hundreds of notes which cannot all be listed.
To sum up, this is the Provence bottled. The woods are dominant,but smooth and not overpowering. Silliage is great and the smell lasts forever. Wonderful.
dimon 200879 – :
I am truly surprised at the comparisons to dirty toilet seats, corpses and filth. For me, the lilies here are restrained and mysterious, just the way I like them; most lily-centered fragrances are too screechy to me but this is soft and inviting, if a bit melancholy.
There is an intriguing sweetness and an animalic kick that might not be harmonic in any other fragrance, but works to exception here. As another reviewer stated, there is something akin to bubble gum in the opening, but a giggly fragrance it is not. And despite the animalic notes, I wouldn’t even call this necessarily sexy. I find it a rather clean version of sensuality, pretty and unique, and I would wear it anywhere.
I am getting no Shalimar out of it whatsoever. Shalimar to me is the dirtier one and something in it disagrees with my chemistry. Charogne suits me well. Considering a full bottle.
Vasiljev1972 – :
There is some bubble gum scent and medicinal in the opening. The lily tries to peek through but the other notes drown it out. The medicinal note is especially strong perhaps it’s their take on leather? The notes look interesting but unfortunately not blended well in this one.
VlAdIsLaV98 – :
The notes are so interesting! Are they true? Is it just the flamboyant ELDO marketing thing?
Charogne smells like a joke.
It opens with a strong fake cherry flavor. There was a cough syrop for kids called Bactrim. that’s it.
I’m sorry I’m not very educated into perfume hyperbole Language. That’s Bactrim to me. Then it’s an alternate joke between something vanillic, something with a slight rotten edge, like trashbin, then animalic, then vanilla again but dirty like old doll heads. Charogne gives me this image like an old dusty broken doll head.
musket – :
This reminds of a Chemist shop. The old fashioned jars of liquorish sticks, the lollipops on the counter, the cosmetics, the menthol scent of vik’s vabour rub, the medicinal quality in the air. Very interesting.
VovaXLIV – :
I can’t get around the fact that this smells almost exactly like walking into The Vitamin Shoppe in the States. Sweetened, flavored multi V’s & protein powder aura. That is all! strange…
exim9432 – :
chemical mediocrity.. a mistake that won’t happen again.. low duration and sillage but incredibly high in its price tag..one of the few scents that deserves to be hated!
andrei284 – :
The animalic note is so strong, so warmful…it’s a pleasure to wear it
alexrey – :
floral/ rotten leather and a chemical waste dump accord… kooky in a positive way if you got money to throw in the wind it’s for you!
ali-khan85 – :
This one is something new, let me put it this way:
a junk food (burger) restaurant toilet that has been wiped by a white 3+ years old cotton mob it’s color has been changed over time from clear white to mid gray, with a blue barrel full of a water that has been used 5 times today, & an un-named red liquid soap bottle. this junk food restaurant is in a vital place where the restaurant serves 500+ people a day. so this perfume smells like that restaurant’s toilet at 7 PM.
kind of weird but i have smelled this thing before in real life. & i wasn’t suprised that it’s name means Carrione, or a dead meat i guess! لحمة غير صالحة للاكل – يعني لحم ميت
it is linear as im smelling this toilet all the way. although i love the art of the perfume (the flower with blood drops) & the name of the perfume truly describes the essence perfectly, but the perfume itself isn’t my type. it brings headaches all around!
sergo00 – :
EN. Despite an extensive collection of niche fragrances, I knew nothing of “Etat Libre d’Orange”, then, I wrote a post on Fasebook, creating a mental connection between Charles Baudelaire and perfumes, so one of my virtual friends told me: “the perfume that best describes the poetry of Charles Baudelaire (his “Les Fleurs du mal”) is “Charogne” by ELd’O, so today I’ve found my best 2 creations by ELd’O: “Charogne” and “Rein” and I’m already have them in my 150 niche perfumes collection.
IT. Nonostante una vasta collezione dei profumi di nicchia, io non sapevo nulla di “Etat Libre d’Orange”, poi, ho scritto un post su Fasebook, creando una connessione mentale tra Charles Baudelaire e profumi, così uno dei miei amici virtuali mi ha risposto: “il profumo che descrive meglio la poesia di Charles Baudelaire “Les Fleurs du mal” – è “Charogne” di ELd’O, così oggi ho trovato i miei 2 migliori di ELd’O: “Charogne” e “Rein” e sono già nella mia vasta collezione dei profumi.
rasiko – :
Luca Turin may dismiss it, but I love it and would consider it one of THE best of the entire ELdO range.
A very unusual and completely new vanilla/ tobacco/ floral. Super sophisticated, charming, glowing-warmth, radiant spicy shine and totally addictive.
Normally I dislike lilies in a room for the scent tends to choke my throat, but here it is a beautiful opening sensation (I wish the floral sunburst would last a little longer. It’s like a shooting star, that short but so very very bright).
2 years ago I bought KIEHL’s “Ugandan Vanilla & Cedarwood” and this one has a similar pharmaceutical dryness about the vanilla note that makes it more intriguing and less sweet.
My mother took me to “Reformhaus” when I was a child; a German pharmacy that would sell stuff you can now buy at Holland & Barret and other independent health stores. These places would smell exactly like this: sweet, aromatic and slightly but pleasantly pharmaceutical.
So extremely well blended that after the initial lily burst, the remaining ingredients seem to blend into something that is so hard to describe as you can no longer make out the individual ingredients but the choir of their notes altogether create something so compellingly and aromatically new and unusual.
9/10. Great creation, superbly blended. Almost masterpiece. If only that floral lilly burst in the beginning lasted a little longer.
andru_74_19 – :
Warm, creamy, lightly sweet and just a hint of lily. Stunning take on classic vanilla-y amber. The lily and jasmine give a lightness within the sexy haze of sweetness. Well crafted, morphs beautifully and lasts for about 7 hours.
ajb867intitytek – :
Despite the racy name, I smell nothing corpse-like here. This is lily, leather and spice mixed with dense vanilla. Good, creamy vanilla. Not screeching plastic vanilla.
I detect the ylang underneath giving a sort of banana bubblegum impression. What makes this not only do-able but loveable for me is the labdanum and leather creating a smoky backdrop for all the sweet and creamy elements.
EDIT*
After wearing a few times this is just.. too much. Too sweet, too thick. The lily dies away in about 30 minutes and never seems to come back.
akim-42 – :
Smells like sweat and rubber on me, not pleasant!
Voyaka1985 – :
Charogne and I aren’t meant to be. I loved the idea of a dark lily scent, I even loved the weird implications the add copy makes. But no.
Charogne opens not too bad, with cardamom, incense, leather and vanilla, but than the scent transforms into a rubbery synthetic leather (it’s a leather that I’ve encountered quite a few times in other ELdO’s scents, but in a lesser concentration than here). There’s also a scent that I can only describe as “bad breath”. I have no idea what combination of which notes causes this, but it’s absolutely not nice. It’s quite sad, because next to the “bad breath” I smell gorgeous vanilla and later in the development of the scent the vanilla becomes a lot more prominent.
Smokey, deep and gorgeous, blended beautifully with leather and incense. It even reminds me of Shalimar! But still, not worth the first hour.
teac2143 – :
On the opening I get a musky, animalic smell, most likely the combination of a strong lily and leather.
But then the vanilla kicks in and it really reminds me of the dry down in “Shalimar”. It has that powdery, sweet incense quality.
It’s like an old lady coming back from the dead and morphing into a younger, more attractive version of herself.
NACTYA-1 – :
It’s the smell of a bad-mannered cougar heavily flirting with you.
mmisha – :
Indoles are the key to Charogne (corpse) by Etat Libre d`Orange. Indoles are aromatic heterocyclic organic compounds found in flowers, feces, and rotting flesh. To me, Charogne smells of confederate jasmine and lilies. Lilies are flowers traditionally found at funeral services. This theme is definitely not original and has been explored in other fragrances, for example, Passage d’Enfer by L`Artisan Parfumeur and Eternity by Calvin Klein. ELdO is simultaneously ripping off the concept and making fun of it. Clap. Clap. Clap. To its credit, Charogne is a high quality composition, but it’s incredibly intense and even unsettling.
Worth a try if you are into white florals 4/5
edj163Unlogrere – :
It’s very easy to be mislead by Etat Libre d’Orange’s fragrances. Their name and marketing want this from us… and, honestly… isn’t that magic? I can’t think of any other brand with an approach like this!
And so we have “Charogne”. I can’t really figure out why and how some people associate the fragrance to its name. Corpses and cemeteries? Seriously?
“Charogne” is a strong vanillic floral fragrance. Its opening is quite strange and it’s where I’m able to associate “Charogne” to the “death” theme. It’s acid and rancid and the only note I can detect during this brief stage is the bergamot. Like I said, the opening is fast and suddenly you are presented to a huge white buquet of lilies and jasmines. Surrounding these two white flowers we have vanilla and a touch of leather. And that’s it. No dead bodies rottening inside of a box.
Maybe due to its focus on the lily, jasmine and vanilla notes, I find “Charogne” to be more feminine than masculine, but… hey! We have “Fleur du Male” in every departament store!
sandr-09 – :
The marketing on this stuff is just stupid. Folks have made fair points on that. Let’s just agree to agree and I for one will simply ignore that bull$h1t. That aside…
I stumbled across this stuff in a shop in Dublin this weekend and was blown away. I _love_ lily. Until now I’ve never found a lily-centric scent that worked for me. They’re either too timid about it or they’re grossly overpowering (like real lilies tend to be, IME). I’ve got samples of a ton of ELd’O scents and none of them have compelled me to purchase. But this stuff is so filthy, dirty, rough PLUS lily I really was bowled over.
Can’t really comment on sillage yet, but longevity is tremendous. 10 hours since I put it on this morning I can still smell the drydown on my wrists.
Net-net, don’t judge this stuff by some marketer’s idiotic copy, give it a good sniff.
decagon – :
I ordered a bunch of ELdO samples from Lucky Scent based on their notes and description. Due to my first package getting lost in the mail, it was three weeks later before I could try them out and by then I had forgotten the reasons why I had chosen each. So, I apply a little of Charogne to my wrist and my first impression was not bad. It smelled like a toned-down version of another perfume I tried recently that I thought had a nice smell, but was just way to overpowering for me to wear, though I couldn’t place exactly which one…maybe Rochas Femme or Boudoir? In other words, Charogne had potential. Then I started cooking dinner and with all the hand-washing the scent had disappeared by the time I tried to smell it again. So I put it on a second time, but this time, I pull up Fragrantica to check out the notes of what I should be smelling. Big mistake. I read the reviews where a bunch of people said it smelled like death and meat. I then Googled “charogne” and learned it was French for “rotting carcass.” I don’t know if this new knowledge influenced my thinking, or if I didn’t leave it on long enough the first time, or if, heaven forbid, the smell blended with the raw chicken I was cooking earlier, but when I smelled my wrist again I wanted to throw up. The scent made me so nauseous I felt like I couldn’t scrub it off good enough.
And another thing that made me dislike the fragrance was the blatant sexism of the name compared with the description. Clearly they are referring to a vagina (“unidentifiable anatomy”) as a rotting carcass. While I am aware that ELdO wants to be offensive and prides themselves on crossing the line of what is appropriate and what is not, I have a feeling that if someone made a racial or ethnic slur about people smelling like rotting carcasses, there would have been much more of an outcry. Irrelevant to the way the perfume smells, but I just had to get on my feminist soapbox for a hot minute.
Anyway, PM me if you want the rest if this sample, as I don’t think I can ever open the vial again.
lion1630 – :
The perfumes of Etat Libre d’Orange nearly always strike me as solid, but seldom do I find them mindblowingly beautiful. The reason may have something to do with the fact that this house makes a real effort to carve out individual and unique identities for each of its perfumes. As a result, there must, of necessity, be a certain bluntness to them. I am reminded by this strategy of the classic line of Calvin Klein perfumes. The tattoo perfume becomes iconic and impossible not to identify as it wafts by you in a corridor, or even in the street, because it has been carefully crafted to smell like nothing else which existed previously. Imitators will follow (though many will be accidental imitators–reminding wearers of the first perfume which staked a claim to that very same territory), but the icon remains firmly etched in one’s mind, its memory trace called up each time that something in its immediate olfactory neighborhood is sniffed.
Charogne smells like nothing else in the ELDO line, and little else that I’ve encountered in perfumery before. My closest comparison for the opening would be: take some Keiko Mecheri A Fleur de Peau, and add a big dose of vanillin. It is that sweetness which dumbs the opening of this composition down and makes it far less appealing to me than the Keiko Mecheri variation on this theme, but for those who love vanilla perfumes, Charogne offers a completely new take which absolutely must be sniffed! The same mesh texture of ambergris which exalts A Fleur de Peau to new heights of wonderfulness is present here (albeit identified as “leather”), but it has been spritzed liberally with vanilla–for better or for worse, depending upon one’s nose!
The dominant florals in this composition are ylang-ylang and lily, it seems to me, both dark and somewhat dirty and perfect partners with the leather. I would say that in order to appreciate this creation one must like not only vanilla, but also ylang-ylang and lily, as they are rather salient as well, and by the drydown this seems more like a dark floriental than a leather perfume.
girosergey – :
Has a strange affinity with ambre sultan by serge lutens. That nutty vanilla ness . Of course in the drydown it’s a different matter. Sultan goes smoky incense and charogne goes fruit and rotting body parts. I love them both dearly.
aleksej653 – :
The description, ad copy, and list of notes sounded like a dream to me. “Ripe flesh” sounds like fun right? The vanillic and animalic notes that others mentioned sold me on it too.
Well, I tried this at least three different times and all I could smell was something that reminded me of an electrical fire, electronic pencil sharpener, or a pot full of geraniums.
Pagos – :
I am sorry to say but this fragrance did not work on me – too septic (it reminds me of hospitals) – especially right after the spritz. I will give it a 2nd try though!
May – :
The first half hour of this is a harsh, overly sweet plastic-y vanilla. I don’t get any white flowers or leather. Just a bit of spice with said vanilla.
Faust_ – :
Starts of slightly cool, then the jasmin and lilly show up, and while it does not become warm, it won’t stay cool longer either. Charogne smells like a slightly balmy white floral on me, with a very slight touch of leather, and a slightly warm vanilla, yet it is still not so warm on me. There is only one thing which makes me feel a bit disappointed – I hoped for a far more stronger leather, and for that “animalistic” quality, but instead, Charogne is an unusual white floral on me. Still love it.
Serpmolot – :
This scent won me over despite being a contradictory fragrance on my nose, because I feel something kind of semi animalic, and at the same time comfortable/cozy also.
I feel an aura of birch-vanillic-powdery combo in a explosion since the opening,i get a carnal sensation with a slight animalic touch,also reeky, i believe that is made by a incense chord.
I can feel something kind of fruity, tutti frutti together, maybe this combo with a nice and tasty vanilla, very unique and formidable.
Rating: 8,5-10
bragnik – :
A nice scent. Warm and woody – lots of cedar. Cinnamon in the opening, vanilla in the drydown. Could have been a Lutens other than the staying power, which is very weak. Charogne is over-hyped, like most of the ELO range, but that said, this is one of their better offerings – I might not buy it, but I would certainly wear it if bought it.
KABAN2010 – :
First the lily bloomed on me, artificialish and natural sometimes. Then I got meat that was rotting nicely. Oh, I loved it! Then the meat ran away. I wish the lily did and the rotting stayed, but no. Then came other flowers and a fistful of caramel. Then the greens grew, cheerful, light-green in colour, and went on to play nicely with the flowers and the caramel. The scent lived on me this way for three days and nights, like things from the fairy-tales do. Sometimes it took Charogne four days to leave me. I was not able to wash it away or to scrub it off even though I tried. I liked the scent.
Seryoga – :
Underrated – Turin is dismissive, and I think this is a rare mistake on his part. Charogne opens with jasmine, incense, and dark vanilla, moving through leather (dark purple leather), and settling to a wistfully mournful lily accord. This accord is beautifully judged – ‘lifelike’ would be out of place here, but it does capture the spirit of lilies perfectly, and is softly sweet and rounded – one wants to say *hushed* (the casket stands in the curtained gloom, floral tributes bow their heads). d_l_esmond is right that this is gothic, but it’s more Gorey than Poe. (Oddly, there’s something in this accord that reminds me of warm nights in Athens.)
awa358speagoessenda – :
Oh… i just need to have this one! Please if anybody has it and would like to swap it or maybe even sell it, just let me know 🙂 It’s so interesting and sexy, sensual leather and incense scent… So lovely! and all of that with a fresh yet warm hint of lily and peppar??!! Unbelievable! Pure loveeee!
Vadik360 – :
Very interesting, somewhat disturbing reminder of a cemetery. Rotting roses and maybe lilies, post-funeral more than post-coital. Well crafted, decadent and unwearable. But not unbearable as Sécrétions Magnifiques. Something for a scent library, to be sniffed at occasionally when reading a Gothic novel. And if one ever wonders what vampires might smell like freshly risen from the crypt – this is it.
offmsyrino – :
On me it opens with overpowering lily, but in 5-10 minutes it settles down and I feel something sour and creamy and I don’t feel the scent around me.
kumar – :
The first thing I get is a cinnamony note, kind of like cinnabar. After about a half hour, this changes over to a mostly ambery scent. Eventually,the amber starts to ease somewhat and a slight amount of vanilla and incense come into play. The intensity of the whole fragrance fades rather quickly (a couple of hours) then stays close to the skin as gentle (generic?) amber, vanilla, and incense. I don’t get ANY leather or “dirt” from this. Nothing special, not a favorite for me.
sergio550 – :
Unfortunately, this fragrance didn’t work on me, or at least I personally didn’t like it. It reminded me of Shake’n’Vac… didn’t pick up any leather, just outright freshly cleaned-carpet scent.
EDIT: Must have been having an odd day when I first tried this. On second and third application of this perfume, it seems to be massively different. I can still heavily detect the vanilla and lily, but now I definitely understand the ‘leather’ or ‘dirty’ aspect brought on by the leather and spices. It’s actually quite interesting, sillage is quite close to the skin and longevity is a few hours.
Pashan – :
The first 30 minutes it smelled perfect (I am a lover of leather fragrances) but after that the smell got a very strange accord maybe because of lily incense or ginger. Something turned dirty and animalic, so with all respect this scent is not for my skin and for my nose to enjoy.
Longevity is very good, about ten hours.
uegenii – :
This was a pretty floral scent with a corrupted, indolic note that, along with the scent’s name, really put me off.
Arion – :
I get an initial blast of amber from Charogne, and after 30 minutes or so this melts into a heightened clean skin scent, with buttery leather and a hint of lily and incense. Ridiculously clean, luxurious and sensual, I love it. This is a modest scent compared with other fragrances from this perfume house and sillage is low (this is one to wear for yourself).
daniladeruk – :
Eldo’s politic when it comes to naming frags has always focused on provocation and Charogne makes no exception. So many times we witnessed a launch of one of their fragrances expecting to smell something “out of the world”, “extraterrestrial”, but too many times we just found that the majority of their compositions where anything but weird (Tom Of Finland, Je Suis Un Homme, Eloge Du Traitre, Antiheros, Fat Electrician etc. etc.). In this context, Charogne definitely makes an exception being one of the very few that lived up to its name (Vierges y Toreros, Secretions Magnifique, Jasmin et Cigarette).
A rancid indolic accord joined by vanilla and animalic leather while white florals fly over very low. The overall effect is pretty odd but at the same time fascinating. There’s something very intimate and private in Charogne, something you could only share with your long term partner, like chewing a bubblegum that just came out from his/her mouth.
Not among my favorite fragrances but still a great example of a “weird-composition”.
Rating: 7.5/10
kulibin – :
This fragrance didn’t inspire me when I first tried it, but it’s definitely growing on me.
It’s quite unusual in that it gives a big hit of wood when you first apply it, combined with a sweetness I can’t really pin down. After that come notes of suede – not unpleasant but a little jarring in view of the earlier sweetness. Finally, however, it dries down to a mellow and subtle skin-hugging incense that reminds me instantly of Buddhist temples in Hong Kong.
My advice to anyone unsure of this one is to give it a few tries before you decide whether or not to buy, because it’s definitely a slow-grower.
floowlalalley – :
I get lots and lots of leather from Charogne throughout its course. As much as I like leather, I prefer a more subtle approach.
The fragrance opens with leather, lily and ylang-ylang.
Some time later jasmine and a soft incense come out and mellow the scent down a little.
After about 1 1/2 hours the base notes start pushing in: vanilla, amber and still the leather even though it’s gotten fainter.
It lasts about 7-9 hours on me.
I feel reminded of the smell out of a box of new shoes right after you open it: leathery, rubberry, a little stale. It may be at least partially the ylang-ylang, a note that just generally bugs me but I think as a whole it’s still a weird scent. I certainly wouldn’t consider Charogne blind buy material.
веста1607 – :
Leather? Hmmm. Interesting. I didn’t get any leather notes from Charogne at all.
To me, this fragrance smells like someone with chronic halitosis that has tried to cover it up by chewing a piece of Double Bubble gum. Has that candy-like sweetness with a hint of mint that doesn’t quite cover up the fact that someone is in desperate need of a dental visit, LOL! It does eventually dry down to a soft, skin-hugging floral musk that is much more wearable.
Interesting and unique, but not something I will purchase and wear. I recommend sampling and not making any blind buys for this one.
zuzuk – :
I’m not impressed by Charogne and Etat Libre in general, but it’s not bad anyway. On my skin it smells mostly of vanilla with a hint of dirtyness and something else I can’t really detect. It’s an interesting fragrance. It’s not so powerful, only a bold vanilla with no frilly edge, still very feminine and not unisex IMO.
It’s nice to have it on, but once again not worthy a bottle.
sasha1710 – :
This is one of my favorite perfumes. You may name it love at first scent.
I was trying to find smth new and get acquainted with Etat Libre d`Orange colognes. So I’ve tested all of their perfumes and left home without buying anything, but I was holding a paper stripe with the smell of Charogne. The farther I was from the perfume shop, the more I was in love with the perfume.
Finally after two days of depression I bought it. 🙂
It can hardly be described but it is the smell of the sexiest beast. Strong, intensive and enveloping scent. Vicious and creamy. Quite a seducing beast. 😉
The interesting thing is that Charogne somehow smells like a slate pencil. 🙂
I usually wear this perfume when the summer is gone and the weather is already chilly, so Charogne makes me feel cosy and relieved, as it lastes from the beginning of my day till it’s already time to sleep.
qeyrth – :
What else could I say that SedNonSatiata has not already said, beautifuly that is.
I enjoy the creamy floral opening of this scent. The jasmine notes continuously introduce has you wear this scent. As it warms down the vanilla, leather and animalist notes develop in to a balanced symphony of fragrance notes which could be worn by all.