Description
“Ingredients, a few clues: meteorite; a circular mandala of light and dark; the heart of an earthly material, mineral, amber, musky and woody, whose notes are only revealed at the end of a long voyage. Peau d’Ailleurs is strange, undefinable and elusive. An exploration into ourselves, through the elsewhere and the unconscious, its perfume is also an escape into the infinite territory of dematerialization, where the scent of the cosmic void comes into contact with that of a Terra Incognita.” – a note from the brand.
Peau d`Ailleurs by Starck is a fragrance for women and men. This is a new fragrance. Peau d`Ailleurs was launched in 2016. The nose behind this fragrance is Annick Menardo. The fragrance features musk, woody notes and earthy notes.
Paul1986 – :
It’s got geosmin in spades (in spades – haha! see what trabuquera did there!?) alright … but I’m not sure it’s got anything else in it!
I’m definitely going to give this a wearing soon. On cardboard, the aroma I’m getting is overwhelmingly of geosmin. I do know what that smells like, as I have a bottle of it. I am willing to suppose that if I wear it it will manifest as a … more entire fragrance. Not that geosmin is an unpleasant smell – far from it indeed … but alone it doesn’t quite constitute a perfume!
I’ve put some of this on now … and I’m at ease now that it isn’t monomolecular. I’m getting that dark oily woody musky aroma that I’ve mentioned under Soie.
I think the spray mechanism leaves much to be desired on these bottles, though. I hope it holds out for the full 100ml … it kind of feels like it might not, TBPH!
Having had this on a fair while now, I would say it’s soapy also … and exceptionally linear. I wouldn’t say now that this is Nasomatto-grade stuff – no, it doesn’t attain to those heights, I’m afraid. And I’m in doubt as to the sheer strength of it – although I am getting pleasant whiffs of it, not as much as I ought to be getting I think, really … although much of that might be attributable to to-one’s-own-perfume anosmia.
SpaRk3858 – :
my wrist smells like a freshly opened sack of John Innes compost.
I’m transported to Spring time, of pruning the rose bush. and of when i return home with a few new plants from the garden centre and the smell that emits when i release them, roots and all, from those horrid black plastic pots they grew up in (that you never know what to do with afterwards). dig dig with the metal trowel. and getting occasional wafts of Dolce Vita that was sprayed on my jumper yesterday.
the surrounding wafts (sillage) are a musky, woody clean earthiness. and like you have just fallen into a privet hedge on your way home from Homesbase, as the sun comes out after the rain.
clean, new, humid. the dewy perspiration from kids foreheads, playing on a hot day by the overgrown pond watching frogs, cheeks aglow.
this unusual creation manages to smell like perfume as well. genius.
rodo – :
Deeply weird, fascinating synthetic enigma. Super-mineralic, damp sterilised earth which has nothing whatsoever organic or warm about it, but somehow grabs your nose and won’t let go. Vermiculite? Sharp sand? rock wool? It’s got geosmin in spades, it smells of geology, not biology, but it’s not at all hostile or unpleasant … just eons away from whatever you might be used to. I get nothing woody at all – there are no recognisable flora or fauna to my nose, it’s all kind of sterile and space age, yet it keeps being oddly compelling. On my nose it even – really weirdly – cycles into some sort of space-suited citric fresh cologne on some wafts, before returning to the orbital’s seed bed laboratory again. It’s the sort of thing that might give me the fear I felt with many Oliver & Co or Clean scents – the sheer lab-brewed artificiality is startling and disorienting – but somehow in this one, the approach actually works. Robust, but not overwhelming on either projection or longevity. Definitely not to be blind bought unless you really, really love the oddball.
Shinkori – :
The wonderful exciting smell of wet ground,just after the first drops…Has surprising long lasting,6 hours ago I have put it on me-after a bath and it is STILL there!!
roma___2000 – :
Now this is overly earthy with metallic notes somehow. It’s like the fertile soil but mostly in an artificial nursery.
It’s musky, woody, earthy blend in an artificial frame. It could be used for spa purposes for instance.
Fair.
GoodVladislav – :
Peau d’Ailleurs by Annick Menardo for Starck.
Probably the oddest and totally mesmerising perfume that I have experienced in my life so far. The only way I can describe it is that it smells like someone spilled perfume onto a pile of soil – dark brown, moist, nutrient rich and fertile, the kind you just want to dig your hands in and squish through your fingers. The scent itself is linear, and body warmth amplifies the earthiness. It doesn’t project far, but I don’t think it is supposed to. I think it is meant to be a personal aura, at least that is what it feels like for me.
Now, describing a scent as perfumed soil, you would think it smells dirty or unhygienic, like you spent the day digging in the garden and didn’t bother having a shower. Far from it. It smells like clean and moisturised skin after spending a day outside in the sunshine.
Structurally, I am reminded of Hypnotic Poison (another Menardo) in that no specific notes stand out because the blend is so well done, and the graduation of top, middle and base flow seamlessly into each other.
I managed to get a sample of this some months ago and I knew I had to find a full bottle. Finally, yesterday it arrived, and in the meantime I have ordered the other two in the series.
ivurt – :
FIRST SNIFF: Standing in the downstairs mens section perfumery of Neiman Marcus in Houston I notice a trio of bottles, tall and rectangular, spray-mechanism built in to the black faux-cap. When I visit a store I can go through a LOT of those smelling papers (blotters, smelling strips, etc?) Whatever you call them, I go can easily spray perfume on a thick stack of them. Some companies make really very nice cards for spraying their scent and it never fails in a store setting, that a SA will take cards from another brand and use them to demonstrate the scent you are discussing at the moment. So I feel bad when this happens and I took the utra-lux Tom Ford cards on the counter and tore into three parts and used each section to sample each of the Starck trio on.
I am immediately drawn to Peau d`Ailleurs, its raw green earthy notes immediately pull me in and activate a part of my mind that holds memories from my youth of working in the grain fields moving the sprinkler pipes. The still green grain has a very green plant-specific smell. The scent develops on skin and clothing into a very dry, sweet, citrus plant-like smell. The notes for this reference wood-notes, but I am more convinced that the wood they are talking about is the smell emitted from a broken green sampling tree whose flesh tears and strings rather than snap or break off the way an aged twig would.
Stark references Meteorite, Mineral and a mandala of light…which I am not able to translate for you except to say that this scent is DIFFERENT from others. It’s a strange and beautiful blend of the extremely natural and organic with the synthetic sterility of the not-living.
THE PICTURE IT PAINTS: The Starck website handles this section better than I can, so here is the text copied verbatim from the Starck website… “Peau d’Ailleurs is strange, undefinable and elusive. An exploration into ourselves, through the elsewhere and the unconscious, its perfume is also an escape into the infinite territory of dematerialization, where the scent of the cosmic void comes into contact with that of a Terra Incognita.
Here are the notes as described by STARCK, copied verbatim from the Starck website… Ingredients, a few clues: meteorite; a circular mandala of light and dark; the heart of an earthly material, mineral, amber, musky and woody, whose notes are only revealed at the end of a long voyage.
What it is NOT: spicy, fruity, aquatic, masculine, feminine, woody, heavy, dark, rich.
What it IS: Airy, Dry, green, sweet, grassy, powdery, light,
IN THE BRAND FAMILY: I smelled all three in the line at the same time, before I read about the strange an obscure nature of the notes hiding within, so for lack of a better analogy… I was listing, but I could have been listening more closely. The scent we are discussing here most stood out to me, but I am anxious to get back to Neiman Marcus to sample the other two properly.
Full Bottle worthy? – YES
Retail Cost? $150 for 90mL
Sample worthy? – Most definitely
PARTING THOUGHTS: I applaud Phillipe Starck for creating a Niche line that is not afraid to be obscure and weird. Some may find it trite when a company says that a scent has a note init that is outer-worldly or otherwise impossible, but I like it A LOT. It almost always means that it will have a weird edge to it. tell me it smells like a plastic bag, like gray plastic, meteorite, moondust or lens flare and I am in-in-in! So far I find that these unnatural edges are typified by aldehydes of some kind because they are synthetic in nature and usually defined by the things they smell like rather than being created to smell like something specific. Nevertheless, I am a hopeless sucker for this tactic.
IF you are interested in buying Peau d`Ailleurs by Starck I would direct you to talk to my friend MARLA at the Mens fragrance counter @ Neiman Marcus Houston’ store. You can call her at (713) 621-7100. Tell them TheNichepPerfumery.com sent you
lionor10171 – :
I tested this yesterday at NM. The SA asked me if I liked it. I told her it smelled like beets. She grabbed my wrist, sniffed, and agreed. I don’t want to smell like beets. I bet if you could quiz beets they would admit to not liking their smell either.
uiiHGHCvhnkmo – :
You’ve maybe heard about Guerilla Gardening; where people reclaim their connection to the land by growing things in cast off landscapes. Well, Peau d’Ailleurs is an olfactory landscape in miniature : beetroot growing through cracks in concrete, watered with a stagnant puddle and splattered with citrus milkshake :- welcome to Guerilla Perfumery!
But don’t give up yet – its not all about decay and trash… Running through Peau d’Ailleurs – like a seam of muted gold – is a subtle, musky, lemon cream floral.
Putting on Peau d’Ailleurs is a fabulous challenge. Its like a tightrope walk through the wasteland; with musky lemon on one side and ditchwater on the other…
****
faudderee – :
Dont smell it from the bottle, nor blotting paper!!!
I thought the saleslady wanted to kill me with the smell of rotten potting soil….
NOT SO ON SKIN! So give ot a fair chance,
A very likeable, ghost scent…..unindentifiable yet familiar
Smell of thousend things …
Perfect synth- biosis.
xit896InsuffBooni – :
It smells carrot seed and exotic musty woods. Interesting!