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Lion1986 – :
I really like Ma Bête. I was sure it was love. Upon first application, I got equal parts fresh bright neroli, narcotic jasmine and aldehydes set against an animalic odor that creates such a fantastic blend. It’s supported by a slightly salty & earthy patchouli which is just at the right level. Strikes the perfect unisex leaning feminine appeal. I was certain it was an immediate buy.
But…I washed the sweater I applied it on. I don’t put this sweater through the dryer, so maybe this is part of the issue. When I was hanging the sweater in my closet, I thought “where is that awful sour piss smell coming from?” and followed my nose to the sleeve of my sweater where I was appalled. A potent rank stale urine was left behind, and I had a very stark visual. The visual was this: an older woman once beautiful and graceful now has a naked face and scraggly gray hair, is in her darkened home being patronizingly beckoned to follow by a personal nurse. The stench of a potty chair hangs in the air, drowning out her excellent vintage perfume collection. She’s standing in the gleam of an unconvered white lightbulb glaring at me- a glare that says time is thief that eventually robs us all, no matter your taste or social status. Scary. So scary. Also stinky. The urine smell stayed through another wash, hindered but unbroken. I wore the sweater regardless, and could tell my boyfriend was politely ignoring odor wafting from my wrist as we did a crossword puzzle over lunch.
Despite this, I still kind of want to make Ma Bête work. That pre-wash ecstasy! Maybe it’s like a bad relationship, where sometimes it’s so good that you try to ignore the obvious fact that it isn’t working in the bigger picture. Maybe just another sample on different clothing…
SnoneeTut – :
Ma Bete: dignified, beautiful, domesticated but with a primal wild streak.
This beauty is evocative of something that Snowbell would smell like. Yes, Snowbell from the movie Stuart Little, the lovable antagonist male Persian cat — white, purebred, well-groomed with a vein of sarcasm.
The aldehydes here are plush and fleeting, not sharp. The animalic notes are leathery, furry, dense. The florals are but an accent and add to the luxurious depth, dense woody softness and delicately dry, bitter bite.
Ma Bete is growing on me with her persistent, comforting low growl. She’s a captivating furry beast that makes me feel sophisticatedly bodacious when I’m in her company.
xach999 – :
A “beast”, but a tame one. Like a vintage perfume but with the volume turned way down. Only those close will smell the filth!
bam45 – :
I like Ma Bête a lot, and what I like about it is that it’s indeed vintage-inspired, but it’s different from perfumes like Salome or Maai, which are more “boudoir-style,” sensual, vampy, heady and rather heavy. Ma Bête is casual, more approachable, better for daytime. It makes me think “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” a chic perfume for a classy and upbeat personality. I picture cardigan sets, houndstooth skirt suits, and faux pearl necklaces, not ballroom gowns nor lingerie. Super charming.
I get all the notes listed, although the animalic note as well as aldehydes and jasmine are the dominant ones.
When you have aldehydes, jasmine and civet, it’s inevitable that there will be a comparison to Chanel No.5. There is just a bit of a resemblance, but even No.5 feels darker, richer, more complex and seems to be more of a special occasion perfume in comparison. But Ma Bête truly does have a huge, roaring animalic note. Very beastly, in fact. So if it’s something highly animalic you are looking for, definitely give Ma Bête a sampling.
I think Ma Bête straddles the line between modern and vintage very nicely, better than perhaps any other perfume of this newish “modern-vintage” style.
boscigor – :
This fragrance caught me by surprise. It is very different from anything else in the Eris three-set collection that two local boutiques carry together (along with the book about fragrances, I assume also by Eris, displayed next to them that everybody raves about and I want to read). I smelled it at random, along with several other fragrances, while waiting for some samples I had spent hours picking out to be prepared for me, I had to stop and do a double- and triple-take. It was overtly sensual to me, almost obscene, without being coy or come-hither or sexy in a blatant vulgar or prurient way.
I wore it that night (I sample fragrances by putting them on after an evening shower, smelling them throughout the evening as I go about cooking, etc, then wearing them to bed and seeing what I think of them in the morning, if I can still smell them, and if they subconsciously shifted in my mind during sleep somehow. I was surprised to LOVE it, because it was nothing like the smokey, woody, spicy, oud perfumes that I had gone to the Tigerlily boutique to sample. It was, and is, the odd ball out in my sample collection (on a middle-class income in the exorbitant bay area, and having only gotten into niche and boutique fragrances in a serious way earlier this year, I cannot afford to build a huge fragrance collection quickly, although I’m working through some four dozen samples I’ve bought, figuring out which to acquire and whether I will wear them.
By next morning, the lingering smell made me wanat to BARF. I couldn’t tell if it was that scent alone or something in the air in my apartment, but unconsciously all through my morning shower I kept thinking of a male urinal. It was skanky.
But that weekend I went to a different boutique, where I again saw it displayed, liked it to buy a sample of again, and this time LOVED on first scent and overnight.
This is very intense and polarizing to me. I could imagine somebody getting close to me and deciding they either loved me or could no longer associate with me at all on the basis of this fragrance alone. Which is not to say it is cloying. It is very, very, sexual without being ‘sexy’. I like this polarity, this difficulty. I like that it arouses such strong emotion in me. I like even that I hated it for a few hours and later couldn’t understand why. It didn’t bore me, and it is unforgettable. I kept wanting to smell it, kept–and keep–wanting to figure out what the hell I really feel about it. Enough so, in fact, that it is now the second most desirable fragrance in my budding collection, and I plan on buying it at the next discount bazaar held at Tigerlily perfumery (dec 18, 2016–san francisco, btw).
It keeps changing its essential nature on me, but never have I smelled something so purely animalic that nevertheless doesn’t smell of sweat. It is not leathery, either. But animalic for sure–in a private way that makes me wonder if others can smell waht I am smelling, too. It feels impolite to smell it–or to smell of it–in public, like reading a porno magazine at a newsstand. That is exactly why I do plan to wear it in public; and why it might become an evening standby (if only I attended more evening events). I would definitely not wear this to work for fear of my boss asking me to tone down my fragrance-wearing in general and thus depriving me of one of the great pleasures of every morning.
vitor4 – :
I’ve never wanted to post a review before even though I read this site everyday as it’s my preferred form of distraction. I LOVE this fragrance. I collect green chypres from the 70s and 80s but I don’t wear them much in public as they are a bit heavy for work. This isn’t a green chypre but it’s not sweet either. It’s frank and adult. The animalic tones aren’t roaring, they purr quietly. At the end of the day I can still smell them there. The jasmine isn’t cloying or screechy, the whole composition just hums along nicely, occasionally surprising you with whiffs of the different components like a playful moving shadow of light and dark. It’s suggestive of sex without being overtly provocative. This is the fragrance I’ve been waiting for my whole adult life, a modern update to the green animalic fragrances like Jean Luis Scherrer. Those ones from the 70s and 80s require a ballgown. Ma Bete is more carefree than that. It’s not for little girls though, I don’t think I would have dared wear it before the age of say, 38.
vitalik_93 – :
This is more of a vintage fragrance, it has that animalic that bursts the sensations out load of the ones who smell it, it is core to me and quite strong in animalic but the kind of it that is quite alluring to my sense.
Ironically, i don’t want to wear it myself thou! maybe it is quite strong to my nose, or a bit harsh and it’s exactly like Bandit by Robert Piguet i love it but it does disturb me when i wear it! maybe im not used to such fragrances or maybe it does mingle harshly with my skin! BUT i can’t deny that i liked this one, maybe cause it triggers some scenes in my mind or maybe memories!
KuzmaRuljov – :
Is there such a thing as a modern vintage? I think the two can coexist when inspiration like the animalic aldehydes from eras past come together to create an Eris present.
Ma Bête is sweaty without being swarthy, with that aldehydic-floral-animalic combination that makes you take notice but not in a questioning, “What’s that smell?” kind of way. It’s dirty yet clean at the same time, not abusing that license to be a bit devious by doing it in a classy way, unfolding with spices and white florals in teasing waves. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, there it morphs again, taking another direction. Is it fruity…is it creamy…is it mossy…is it flowery…is it spicy…
Don’t get me wrong, Ma Bête can be a beast, but it’s a very sophisticated, elegant one that time travels to the past, sourcing a sensibility that makes you imagine actually being a part of it.
Игорьпанк – :
I love the way perfumers are attempting to recreate the old animalics such as castoreum and civet in perfumes. I had been searching for a musk that was not sweet and was not powdery, an almost impossible thing in the perfume world, and then I found it in Ma Bete.
I have to admit I don’t like the opening notes. I’m not sure if it’s the nutmeg or the aldehydes or the combination together, but the opening fragrance on this was rather offputting to me. However, it only lasts about 30 seconds, and then the heart of the fragrance began, and it really did a great job of blending well with my skin chemistry. In fact, that’s how it does remind me of a vintage perfume, in that it does develop and not stay linear as so many modern perfumes do.
There are no flowery, sweet notes. I don’t get a lot of the jasmine sambac in this at all. The Tunisian neroli is very earthy and almost herbal. I can’t say that it does remind me of an old-fashioned style perfume, except I do have an old version of Piguet Visa, and it also used costus in its base, so this does remind me a little of that old discontinued version of Visa, very musky and earthy and resinous with styrax, full of the “unwashed hair smell.”
This is a fragrance for someone who really enjoys animalic notes without much sweetness. Very unisex, sexy and risque. A great boudoir scent.
Fuego_Terco – :
If you love aldehydes and animalic scents you might like this fragrance. It truly smells like an authentic vintage perfume, which I can appreciate. I do not like how it smells on me, but will definitely keep my sample to wear a tiny bit on occasions when I want to wear something that takes me back to a time when I did not yet exist.
This is truly a unique fragrance.
дима242424 – :
I so love this new (old) fragrance. It opens up very prim and proper floral and then begins its development into raunchy excellence. I have to say that as the fragrance was unfolding and warming up on my skin it reminded me so much of Schiaparelli…its like Schiaparelli Shocking on steroids. Perfect bc I was getting a little anxious there about the supply of vintage Shocking dwindling.
Kellettersi – :
Starts out nicely like a cross between L’Ombre Fauve and Musc Tonkin then something bad happens… It morphs into a horse pasture saturated with urine. It made me sad.
downjacketcoat – :
A wonderful aldehydic floral confection that brings Balmain’s Ivoire into my peripheral vision when I take a good whiff. True to its cinematic inspiration, it oscillates between beauty and beast in lovely contrast. Great use of those animal notes which give fragrances real body.