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Almukhamed – :
Ok, I bought the original crystal bottle in the wood box with the potpourri loose inside (don’t know why they bothered with that) when it was still available, probably around 2002. And it remains the most expensive bottle of perfume I’ve ever bought. But it was so worth it.
It’s heavily carnation, but not like other carnation scents from before then. It has a wet smell, like a florist’s cooler, that stays with it. I happen to like this effect. The rose middle notes come on but never overpower to carnation, and it’s a spicy carnation too. I was over 50 when I bought the bottle, but I didn’t feel like an old lady wearing it. Now that I am an old lady, I still don’t feel like one wearing it. But old ladies in the 1950’s certainly wore carnation perfumes so I understand the stigma.
Golconda is a scent you wear for yourself. I don’t think you’d wear it to a bar to attract someone. And no one would want to think they’d attracted someone so frivolous that she paid that much money for a bottle of perfume.
Mercifully, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz (DSH Perfumes) came up with Fleurist a couple of years ago. It’s very much like Golconda, and so much cheaper. Worth every penny spent. Both of them.
gopkalo3352 – :
I don’t have the bottle, we just purchased a decant to see what the Paris fuss was about. When I first applied it to my wrist, it first hit me with pure carnation which transformed into its soapy version in the matter of a minute.
Nevertheless, it’s a very pleasant scent but it does remind me a lot of grandma’s soap. Lovely floral soap. At no point would I want to smell like that.
After two minutes, the scent acquired a highly spicy note and nothing of the pure carnation is left over. All I could smell from that point on was aniseed, cloves and ginger-like spices. The scent on my husband’s wrist remained soapy for much longer but ended up with spicy as well. This may be alright for your Christmas cookies or Glühwein, the spiced wine on Xmas markets in Europe, but not on your skin.
This one especially reminds me of what I read about the maker: he is not making JAR scents for the general public but more as a side hobby next to his other projects. You can definitely smell the unique peculiarity.
One positive thing is its sillage. If you wear this scent, then you can be sure it will be noticed. I had to wipe it off with rubbing alcohol because I disliked it so much but even after that, the leftover scent is still strong. A good amount of soap did the job in the end.
inkanat – :
Golconda is a pure carnation bouquet, every bit the fresh, spicy flower that I love. I also detect something surprisingly unpleasant, however, like a musty, rotting flower in the bunch. (Fortunately, I only scent this note close to the skin, and it soon dissipates.) I don’t recognize the Stargaze Lily until I see it mentioned in other reviews, but yes yes, there she is, sweet and fleeting. Overall a spicy, clovey carnation which softens over time but stays true. A beautiful fragrance, but I do prefer Comme des Garçons’ Series 2 Red Carnation; it is all the purity of carnation without either the strange rotting note I experience OR the astronomical price tag!