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1889s – :
Thankfully only a sample. I ‘m glad I didn’t pay for it, either. Sadanne will have some who will be crazy for it and fall in love. I’m not one of them. It is far too sweet and syrupy for me. Gourmand is not usually my style, however, I tried it because it comes from Slumberhouse, a brand I admire. It might be better on a hot Summer’s day, but on this quite cool Spring day I cannot wait until it goes away…hopefully very soon.
allogeFlier – :
Slumberhouse Sadanne
Currently on the market for 10 years, Slumberhouse was an indie brand created by Josh Lobb who quickly stood out among those who are passionate about perfumes and like to take on more daring/edgy compositions. Inspired by urban culture and the streets, there is something in Slumberhouse’s early scents that convey the brutality and youthful energy of this medium, with interesting, intense but somewhat creations that becomes tiresome in its saturation. The impression I have, however, is that time has led the brand to a mature and in recent years it has made a transition to something that still has an experimental and cutting edge side but that is more harmonic and usable. See the 2014 release, Sadanne.
I remember that from the comments of people at the time of release I avoided trying Sadanne, whose name already shows a certain peculiarity of the brand in its creative process: a word that in its slang serves to express when you achieve a specific result. The result, in this case, is to fit the saturation of alpha damascone into a bouquet of roses, champagne, strawberry and amber and make it somehow subtle in its nuances.
I do not know whether by expectations or by already knowing the molecule in question I expected something more brutal and daring in Sadanne and to my surprise the final result is much less saturated and overwhelming. The aroma of the pure alpha damascone has nuances of rose, red fruit and honey and this is explored in sadanne, molded around a strawberry and champagne concept. It seems to me that a discreet use of cassis serves to create the effervescent and half-bitter touch of the champagne, and perhaps by the combination of juicy fruits and cassis the olfactory form immediately reminds me of Byredo Pulp. The difference is that while Pulp offers a fig aroma and holds the composition in a greener and woody aroma Sadanne makes the transition to a heart of roses and a transparent woody base with a light powdery touch.
The use of the rose here goes in a closer direction to the damask rose, emphasizing the licorous and honey nuances of the opening at the same time that the perfume reinforces the aspect of honey taking it to the amber direction. It is interesting that there is a very subtle use of molecules that play the role of iris here, reinforcing the nuances of red fruits while giving a light powdery touch to the woody transparent mineral scent, serving along with the moderate use of amber to give more evidence at the final part of the creation. Perhaps for some Sadanne sounds unbalanced but given the history of the creations of the brand is a work of harmony with potent aromas and an exercise of extraction of uniqueness from a common structure.
ais190783 – :
Strawberry flavoured green wine into which some cork pieces accidentally fell.
So sour, fruity and slightly woody. My mouth is watering.
I find it a tad similar to Pulp, but I definitely prefer Sadanne.
sandoval-xxl – :
A big glistening pot of fruity, boozy, strawberry jam sitting on an old wooden table, polished to perfection, that’s been set for afternoon tea – nice china, those cute little spoons to serve the jam with, and an antique bowl filled with fat, fully blown roses. All of those different smells hovering in the air, which is stirred gently by the overhead fan. I get plum for some reason, even though it’s not listed in the notes, and a soft, almost baby powderish note, before the woody note comes through with the teeniest, tiniest smidgen of soap. I rather like it, but don’t know if it’s one I could wear very often – that strawberry note is pretty full on which makes it very jammy and sweet. Not sure how many blokes would wear it though – to me, this definitely falls way more on the girlie side of unisex scents. I think I’ll re-visit this little sweetie in the cooler months – it does smell lovely, but it’s hot and sticky and horribly humid today and it feels a bit much in this sort of weather. Still, I am enjoying this – it’s a fun, happy, carefree scent.
EDIT: I put this on in the morning, hung around home during a very sweaty, humid sticky day, then we went off to the movies in the late afternoon. I thought it had pretty much evaporated off, but all during the movie, I kept on getting the most beautiful wafts of it – it seems to get prettier and the strawberry note softens a lot. Longevity is great – I got a good 10 hours out of that.
maw426speagoessenda – :
Scent – an upscale strawberry & cream shampoo.
Season/Time of Day – I prefer to use this one in the colder months, during the day.
Projection – I didn’t get noticed, I didn’t get a compliment.
Longevity – I get 12hrs consistently.
bakovecvitalijj – :
I feel this is a female strawberry bomb. She has no age, she can be anyone she wants to be. She loves her juicy lipstick and her seductive walk. She can make you fall for her anytime she wants. She likes to play roles and will always keep you guessing. She is a temptress. A ripe strawberry drenched in white wine toped with fresh rose petals and sprinkled with ambergris. You could say she is decadent, even trashy, but the truth is you will never really get to know her. She is a dream, a mirage. A fantasy. Lust in a bottle.
rhidgecic – :
Slumberhouse is really in a league of it’s own. It took me a long time to get to try them. And I was sure my favorite would be the Slumberhouse “Kiste” and that is a gorgeous heavy marzipan cherry bomb. But it just sits on my skin as a heavy heavy bumblebee which have been rolling in honey all day. I love it for that reason and want it for this coming winter, but it is not my absolute favorite.
What really took me by surprise is how the Slumberhouse “Sådanne” smelled, and even more how it made me (makes me) feel.
First of all this is a perfume that comes to you, you know when you spray a perfume on your arm and you wait a few seconds and you don’t have to lift your arm to smell the perfume, it comes to you and surround you and eventually the whole room in a big beautiful perfume cloud. “Sådanne” is a perfume like that. It is HUGE, big volume.
And how does it smells then?…just spraying it on and letting you experience it with me (kind of).
Ok this is an ode to the strawberry. Yes like the notes say TRULY a BIG strawberry, which have been sitting in the sun in the warmest of the summer, and had the best conditions to grow sweet, big and red with all the taste a PERFECT strawberry can master.
And then you just turn up the volume in all these facets of the perfect strawberry. And don’t pick it, but makes it sit in the sun for even longer and then it starts to ripe… a little to much and turn into a bit alcohol smell. But this is in the best possible way. It’s a sparkling cool champagne made out of the most perfect strawberry.
“Sådanne” really is a bit to much, a bit over the top, and that is what make this perfumes so incredible sexy and carnal….or as other have put it..slutty.
But you can bring her home to your Mother and expect her to be a nice girl around your friends, she will wear a classic look and behave like a princess, the thing is, that only you know this princess is not wearing any panties”
polnax – :
Honeyyyyyyyyyy!!-dried grapes-oud-rose
you can smell all the notes clearly.
maxim777 – :
Josh Lobb has slowly but surely had made it to the top of my list of favorite perfumers.
I’ve worn Sadanne a few times and I get a myriad impressions but one striking association that has thoroughly made its way to my hindbrain is such: I have just finished a rigorous physical activity with my barely legal girlfriend and now I can smell her syrupy berry+rose perfume and dark smelling juice on me. It’s quite erotic at times and somewhat ‘childish’ at others.
And here is why I enjoy SH perfumes so much, they’re akin to a smell tattoo – rebellious, colorful, and they invoke strong associations. When I wear a SH perfume I KNOW my day is going to be more interesting and its like a smell ‘Toy’ which I carry around with me which I enjoy as I go about my business regardless of what others may think. Its an experience.
Back to the perfume at hand, Sadanne. This is definitely the LEAST Slumberhouse-esque perfume in that its not woody, boozy, smoky or ‘outdoorsy’ – its also almost entirely synthetic, which is rare for this line. But I enjoyed the change nevertheless, I mean Josh is doing his thing and Im loving it because nobody else is putting out even remotely as close to the experience and quality.
As for the actual notes and what it smells like please see dozen or so reviews below ^_-
If someone is selling a bottle of Pear + Olive please contact me!!
Мишка – :
This appears unique to me, but Sådanne sadly interacts weirdly with my skin chemistry.
There’s an acidic / sour smell when you crush an Ant between your fingernails. I recently noted the same results with D. S. & Durga’s “Foxglove”.
The only pyramid overlap between Sådanne & Foxglove is ambergris. This saddens me, since the rest of the composition is lovely.
alexzpr – :
I go back and forth with Sadanne. I’ve tested it several times. When I love it, I really love it. And when I don’t, it’s really, really bad and stinky. Each time I test it, I never know if it will be amazing or terrible. It really intrigues me! I’ve hesitated getting a full bottle because I just can’t make up my mind whether it is the most interesting and unique strawberry scent ever, or just a terrible body odor smell :/ I do normally like ambergris and other animalic notes. Maybe my skin chemistry doesn’t work with it, I don’t know. One day I will decide!
torres199412 – :
Sadanne is the last of the Slumberhouse sample pack that I have from Twisted Lily. I get largely a “sweet floral strawberry champagne” vibe. A mix of strawberry, rose, and wine, this is certainly an interesting warm-weather-leaning option.
It’s provocative and slightly sophisticated, even though the sweetness is significant.
Performance is decent but certainly not up to the level of Jeke, Norne, or Ore, but certainly a worthwhile performance if you love the scent.
6 out of 10
Gordon Gekko 1429 – :
It’s nice, and yes, it does smell just like VS’ Strawberries & Champagne but is a bit more whole, rounded… maybe a little bit earthy too, the strawberries aren’t as polished. It’s like a nicer quality, more grown up S&C. I could never justify the price tag but if this ever happened to fall into my collection, I’d wear it a lot. Its a scent that is versatile enough to wear whenever.
Cheadajesaume – :
Wow, everyone has a lot to say about this one—I mean incredibly-descriptive analyses of its allegedly psychotic syrupy notes. Has no one here smelled Victoria’s Secret Strawberries and Champagne? There’s nothing original about this fragrance at all. It smells good, though. However, its polarizing effect is completely lost on me, considering every American teenage girl in the late 90s probably owned the Victoria’s Secret body spray or lotion at some point.
Menkedzhirgal – :
Incredibly sweet syrupy sickly opening, like scratch n sniff strawberry. Then even more sickly, ie, something acid goin’ on. Then ….. pants, or as you say Stateside, crotch.
I so enjoy the reviews which so eloquently attempt to extol the virtues of such challenging olfactory offerings. But, y’know, I still like to smell……nice. Not like strawberry diaquiri puke.
But… not an instant scrubber – just got a whiff of aniseed. Wasn’t expecting that.
OK, now scrubbing.
sleemm – :
this one is lovely…
rose and booze and berry, it’s quite wearable (for me) and i enjoyed catching wafts of it during the day. oddly enough, i get caught up in nostalgia and reminiscing in that it reminds me of something. i don’t know what, though…it could be another perfume, it could be a random smell, seriously, it could be anything.
les liquides imaginaires did something similar too…can’t remember what, though…
definitely worth a sniff and possibly more…
kotofei26rus – :
Huh! I feel old and curmudgeonly reading all these rave reviews. One of those disconnects that makes me wonder about this whole “art” criticism thing. I just get strawberry wine spilled over some generic masculine cologne.
“Above all, perfume should smell good.”
This one doesn’t.
aybazov666 – :
Good enough for millionaires but priced for billionaires and entirely deserving of faint praise.
oksana558426 – :
for me, this does indeed start with a sort of ‘roses and champagne’ note that is luscious and very beautiful. the berries come to join this note to give a tart richness, counterbalancing the… wait, what? the roses and champagne have dissolved into strawberry laces?! those ones with the sour sugar coating, exactly the smell, in the plastic bag and all. how bizarre i think, and around that moment i begin to understand the genius behind this fragrance. it’s innocent. childlike in fact. it reminds me of gobbling sweet-sour ‘berry’ chewy things, or drinking artificial berry-flavor soft-drinks. it does retain that distinct ‘fizziness’ from the champagne.
but then, suddenly, i’m caught off guard by something… something lurking at the bottom of the bag. what is it? it’s almost as though the sugared sweetness has fallen to the bottom, merged with the plastic, and rotted into a deep, syrupy darkness. it’s toying with some very weird ideas in my mind. the childlike innocence i project onto it, along with the smell of something animalic, dank and rotting. not ‘death’ rotting, but… the image i have is of one of those sweets you find in the bottom of your bag after days / months, out of its wrapper, coated in god-knows-what and hair.
i actually have to agree with deadidol’s review in that there is something very oddly freudian about it. the uncanny representation, to me, of being a child, teetering precariously on a base of something very gloomy and best forgotten, like some childhood monster. the real dinger is that all of this is surprisingly easy on the nose. there’s nothing particularly challenging about it; i almost find it strangely comforting in its associations. i love it, but i would wear it for those moments of introspection i think. it’s an intelligent fragrance that really strikes a chord with me. although i do wish the longevity were slightly better, as it does dissipate into a light berry / musk skin scent after approx. 5 hours. but for what it is, i don’t think i can resist its strange, alluring charm.
Gordey163 – :
I find this being very similar to Bloody Wood. I am not saying they are exact but both are done in the same style. Both have a fruity/rose opening but this has much better performance. As mentioned previously, this has that Slumberhouse base that remains present in most of their scents. I think this is a little more feminine than BW but I do enjoy them both. Check em out both as they are great compositions!
BlackWolf – :
I used to go to the Renaissance Fairs with everyone dressing as they did in Da Vinci’s time, and I wore a pink empire gown with a rosebud crown on my head. There was a table overflowing with strawberries that you could buy to eat plain or dip in various sauces. The smell was incredible – hundreds of ripe berries, mingled with resinous forest setting all around, and my crown of roses! Memories of this time flashed through my mind with the first spray of Sadanne.
It is crazy beautiful! A stained glass window of a perfume glittering in the light. Fragrant colors of strawberry and rose reflected on the darker ambergris and wood. The contrast makes a resplendent setting for the ingenuous strawberry note. Just so fresh and unexpected! Paired with the rose, and leavened by the ambergris, the smell is original and ravishing. Definitely a “Love” for me!
нептун – :
Oh. Wow. This is a doozy. What a beautiful fragrance (It better be, for the $$/ml)
Sadanne is the link between flirtatious innocence & coy debauchery. The whole scent is an obscure juxtaposition between accords; a yin & yang type of ordeal. There is the sweet, fuzzy, effervescent half – and the animalic, lived-in, chaotic half. I semi expect this to be what an acid trip would smell like.
The opening of Sadanne is complex. There are sweet, ripe strawberries soaked in white wine, or champagne. Fizzy & delicate, enveloping & romantic! Boozy, syrupy, romantic, glamorous. Combating the sweetness is a thick, dark smog of something more sinister. I’m going to attribute the sticky ‘pine needles/creepy forest’ feel to the ambre gris, woods, and booze – it’s unique, to say the least!
The drydown brings something much more wearable – a whisper of that same syrupy sweetness, and the bouncing back and forth between something dirty, old, decrepit & sticky, child-like, and sparkling… This is a wild ride, strange and haunting.
I’m head over heels in love with this fragrance! There’s no way to escape being lured in by it’s Black-Tie-Only appeal.
Best uses: Traversing around a busy city and mingling with the nightlife, wearing floor-length gowns, riding in limousines, visiting exotic countries, having a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
silent-silver – :
Without seeing the notes in advance, my first thoughts were that Sadanne smelled like white wine with something very fruity. Maybe like a mediocre-quality rosé or a strawberry wine. It smelled like fermented strawberries, that lovely scent (note sarcasm) when you buy a crate and leave them out too long, and they go bad. Seemed more dry than sweet, but as I continued to scrutinize, I decided the sweetness was perfectly balanced. Initially I thought the fermented fruit was off-putting, yet it intrigued me too. I was so impressed with my first experience with Slumberhouse that I wondered why they would create a linear fruity perfume such as Sadanne. This burning question is the reason I let it slowly unfold on my skin. There simply had to be more to it.
It was worth the wait. An animalic note caught me off guard and totally threw my nose off. I had to smell it over and over again because I wondered if I was really smelling something animalic or if it was my imagination, but it continued to grow stronger. So then I had fermented, animalic strawberry. It was challenging and odd, as strawberries and wine are deliciously edible, but a dirty animal’s funk is not.
In the big picture, Sadanne smells wonderfully carnal. And that is not a description I ever thought I would use to describe a predominantly strawberry perfume.
I sniffed my wrist all day long (lasting time was easily 24 hours, through a night of sleep), and Sadanne grew on me to the point where I want a full bottle. This is art! It’s not your run-of-the-mill fruity perfume by any means. A perfumer who is not only able to come up with such an odd combination of notes that actually work well together but who succeeds in taking what could have been a Paris Hilton perfume and turns it into a whole new genre that I would like to refer to as “fruity-animalic” most certainly has captured my attention. Bravo! Very well done!
wed3d4 – :
Slumberhouse really speaks to me, even the ones I don’t quite like I still enjoy smelling (hi Sova!). I consider my favorites, Ore and Jeke, to be ideal winter and fall scents. I was excited in the hopes that Sadanne would be – finally! – a spring or summer.
Surprised by the reviews, I found this one to be thin and sweet. I definitely get the white wine, and less “strawberry” and more just… berry. Like I am drinking a white wine spritzer in a room with some fruity candles burning. I get rose underneath as well, but it’s just not enough to anchor it all down for me.
Commenter Roge’ nailed it with this one, sad sentence: “If this was packaged in a bath and body works bottle, no one would recognize this as niche perfumery”
glv865JeomiWogkig – :
“Snow cone” strawberry, from childhood! My favorite! That’s what Sadanne brings to mind for me. I like this scent. It is very smooth… Personally not finding it very animalic, but what can you expect from a crazy vintage-lover? Beautiful color, too. The more I sniff, the more I like it. Unusual and fun!
PunkCrash – :
An intoxicating chameleon of a scent. Sådanne opens with a bizarre combination of deep, sticky-sweet berry-rose, syrupy booze and a counterpoint of thin, arctic, coniferous resin.
The icy resin pulls the scent up and prevents it from entering sugar-bomb territory and is truly very beautiful, shimmering gently above the composition, like glass or ice. A scent so ‘high pitched’ it sits almost out of reach, like the eerie, breathy crystalline sound a human hears from a dog whistle.
Forgive my strange metaphors here, but Sådanne is not an easy scent to explain. The notes listed are certainly present, but don’t smell anything at all like I expected. This is a case where the odd, (and slightly wanky), press release actually explains the scent much more accurately than the actual notes.
The notes are fairly linear, with the only major change being a shattering of the icy aurora playing out above into something gentler, less biting as a dark, animalic vibe kicks in about half way through the wear-time and again – prevents the ever-present red-berries from straying into teenage girl territory.
Sillage and longevity are equally as confusing to me. Sådanne seems to shimmer in an out of focus, almost in a drunken fashion. It seems to all but disappear for a while, only to rear up again, loud and slurred out of nowhere. I initially thought longevity was about moderate, but after a few wears I’ve found it popping back up unexpectedly, 12 plus hours after application.
In short, a wonderful, strange, ethereal monster of a frag. Drunken fruit with a rose-bud in the snow.
killer71768 – :
This is a rich strawberry perfume. It is a lot like …”hot strawberry compote”, you can smell the “heat” weird I know…its sensory..textural. It also has a simliar resinous note in the base (like Norne) not sure but could be coniferous? Maybe it is a combination of the wine and amber woods that creates the resinous note? Nevermind no need to dwell, this is not super sweet, though its syrupy it is balanced perfectly. This is a hot strawberry jam for grown ups, I agree its bubbly! It is perfect for winter.
Komonita – :
Sadanne, at least theoretically, it’s all I don’t like about perfumery. It’s a sweet fruity-floral bomb that could have easily fallen into juvenile *yummy* fragrances territories for girls who like to smell like a lollipop. As a matter of fact though, while being all of the above, it’s none of the above at the same time. This was possible only thank to that genius of Josh Lobb.
The fragrance opens with a juicy red-fruity note paired to some rose. It’s tart and sweet at the same time and extremely radiating. The overall sweetness and candy-like aroma made me immediately think of gummy-bears but what actually saves this accord from precipice is the juxtaposition with a subtle yet remarkable animalic presence to which I like to refer to as *an actual bear*. The fragrance feels fizzy, vibrating and extremely alive while the red-floral parts merge with a darker and warmer base of incredible beauty and novelty. As in several other *Slumberhouses*, I still get distant echoes of the Lutens’ typical syrupy texture but the ability of Josh Lobb’s is to take the whole thing to a completely new level by skipping e certain heaviness which is typical of these kind of fragrances. A crazy composition that’s both fascinating and wearable.
Powerful, novel, funny and, in the end, extremely solid.
Big thumbs up!
Rating: 8/10
BKPreston – :
My boss just told me I smell like a Yankee candle and that he won’t mind smelling like one too. It does smell like an upmarket candle, one that has forest fruits in its name and comes either purple or red usually. Considering I applied a little from a Luckyscent dab sample to my right forearm, I would say the projection is pretty damn good. I have mentally placed Sådanne in the same broad catergory as Tauer’s 10 Une Rose Vermeille and Parfumerie Generale’s PG13 Brulure de Rose. Fruity roses that smell like real roses and real fruit. As opposed to car air-fresheners posing as perfumes. Like the Tauer and PG, Sådanne is more than just a fruity rose. Syrupy sweet fruit-bushels of ripe blackberries, strawberries, raspberries some more berries, possibly a fuzzy peach or two and of course bunches of roses. The general effect is similar to drinking a thick dessert wine like Inniskillin or another ice wine. In stark contrast to the nectar, there is a heavy leather that combats the dessert for attention. As if watching the swordplay in saber fencing, the leather and sweet notes perform a repertoire of lunges and parrys so fluid it is more a dance than merely tactical maneuvering. Weaving everything together are warm resins and dark woody notes and there you have Sådanne.
eg345 – :
Let me just throw this out there.. This WILL be someone’s Nirvana, hands down. Hell, this could even be MY Nirvana. This was a clash between confectionery greens versus natural greens. The immediate thing that jumped out was the intense green apple jolly rancher accord. Disguised in the chummy candy flavor is a green rose but you probably wouldn’t know it unless you looked at the note breakdown. Later, the syrupy sweets are condensed to leathery strips of danky natural greens. During this period is where Sadanne is most masculine. I must note that the jolly rancher accord is tattooed throughout the duration but decreases in volume. Speaking of duration, this is one of the few summer scents with killer longevity but not as cloying as the syrup suggests. In closing, who would of ever guessed that Slumberhouse would make a fragrance that is kid-friendly…and when I say kid, I’m talking teenage range. If this was packaged in a bath and body works bottle, no one would recognize this as niche perfumery. No doubt, one of the more palsy-walsy niche offerings on the market..At this point, the wrist sniffing has become somewhat of a habit.
kttussy3ah – :
A kinetic, shape-shifting, cinematic rose-berry musk.
It’s standard practice for artists to throw curveballs. However, in the world of contemporary perfumery, where the notion of the perfumer-as-artist is often lost within an industry that privileges utility over innovation, such curveballs tend to throw the audience with greater magnitude. While Slumberhouse’s Josh Lobb unapologetically favors innovation and experimentation, his line has coalesced around a tone of melancholic nostalgia conveyed through outdoorsy, rustic, opulent, and often dark aesthetics. Despite dissenters (Pear+Olive), and stabs at other genres (Grev, Eki, Kote), the brand has become infamous for moody scents that are as demanding as they are lavish. Nonetheless, last year’s Zahd indicated a shift away from “plein air” thematics toward a sort of melodramatic demimonde; a scent that captured the olfactory impression of red and burgundy velvets and plush brocades rather than that of a pastoral space. Yet where Zahd implied a genealogical progression, Sådanne epitomizes a breakneck 180-degree directional shift.
The first point to address is that Sådanne is a remarkably difficult scent to fathom—not just because of its upending of the familiar house aesthetic, but because of the way that it wears on the skin; it’s as much a meditation on sillage and performance as it is an exploration of the dominant notes. The scent starts with a luminous rose that’s sweetened by some berry-like nuances that aren’t clearly identifiable as a specific berry. Their tartness is shrewdly pervasive, and they smell closer to a stem or a branch than a damascone fantasy accord might. For the first minute or so, a distinct Kool-Aid association is triggered together with the impression of something loosely shampoo-ish, but this subsides with the emergence of a bawdy animalic undertone. These animal notes stem from the use of an ambergris accord that oscillates between civet and indole, modifying the rose into something more rose-esque and magnifying the tang of the berries. While this helps to deliver the scent from the potential terror of the Kool-Aid opening, there are several things going on at once here. Most notably, the bitter rose is transformed into a rose that’s much more botanical, and the effect of this is unsettling. Furthermore, the scent feels as if it should simply present a cheery and elevated character, but there’s a dissonance in the shadowy animalics that seeks to undermine the prettier, sweeter aspects. And this is what makes Sådanne so hard to fathom—it’s a scent in which notes and impressions undulate and buzz like electrical arcing; a scent that activates a sort of synaptic depth charge in that beneath the seemingly playful surface, a myriad of contradictions and incongruities form. So, what you have in this opening sequence is a fractal image of a bitter rose that’s first rendered sweet through the use of candied berries, and then subverted through botanical animalics. This uncanny juxtaposition causes the scent to flicker, producing a series of phantom notes that smell at times like raisins (not present), tart berries, tobacco (not present), bitter rose, and the botanical musk—an accord that can perhaps best described as mildly unnerving.
This sequence—which only lasts for about 45 minutes—is uncanny in the Freudian sense. While it’s completely alien to the Slumberhouse aesthetic, it smells inexplicably familiar—like it’s been approached before in other perfumes, but not quite in this manner. At moments, the scent comes across as quite pop—like something contemporary and commercial—but it’s followed by the recognition that something like this would never fly in a mass-market because of the animalic undertones. It becomes apparent, then, that this fragrance is not just an instance of slippery accords, it’s also about the slippage of associations that the scent produces as the components seem to both conflict and compliment in ways too complex to nail down. Picture, if you will, kaleidoscopic rubies spread out over a sheet of salmon-red foil, spot-lit by a buzzing and humming fluorescence, surrounded by an inky darkness. Given the vivid visual imagery and unnerving juxtapositions that Sådanne produces, it seems that it would be the perfume of choice for several of David Lynch’s female leads. But it’s what happens next that will cause those familiar with the line’s notorious bombast to scratch their heads.
After about an hour or so, the incandescent opening all but vanishes, and the scent dips radically to a trace. It’s here that the musk shows itself the most in a somewhat carnal manner, and for the next five or six hours, what you get is the semi-sweet residue of the opening notes. It becomes a sugared rose skin-scent accompanied by a musk that smells a tad post-coital; and in this respect, it might be discerned that one of Sådanne’s goal is to simulate seduction through a blur of crystalline refraction. The scent feels dreamy, but in more of a woozy, drugged-out manner than that of simply slipping on a pair of rose-tinted glasses. The unsettling aura that surrounds the fragrance really is there with you for rest of the journey.
Sådanne roughly translates to “such,” but in Danish slang, it also means something to the effect of “Right on!”—a phrase that infers easy acceptance or acknowledgement. Yet, fans of Slumberhouse need to tread cautiously with this one, largely because it’s so far removed from anything the line has produced thus far. I’ve been wearing it for several days now and am still struggling to get my head around what it’s doing. Although I tend not to subscribe to gender demarcation in perfume, this does lean feminine, and the associations that it produces feel far more ge