Like Saint Laurent, Goutal no longer uses its original first name. I miss Annick. I also miss what is missing: the earlier perfumes’ noblesse. While this perfume house can usually be counted on to present very pleasant, fresh, French fare – thus making a release such as the crisp new orange blossom above quite commercially viable in Japan, where recent fragrances such as Rose Pompon and L’Isle au Thé will have done quite well with young female department store consumers (a recent and quite similar neroli/ lemon blossom perfume was also the cute and gentle Chat Perché, which was perfectly targeted to kawaii loving women in their early twenties, who have eschewed all sense of overt sexuality in recent years, clad in white and oat coloured baggy clothes that are very homely; self-contained; this kind of unovert floral thus ideal; quite nice, not offensive to anyone…)
But where for me the original Néroli by Annick Goutal cologne is an essential floral, I am less bowled-over by the new Le Temps Des Rēves, which opens up with a familiarly ‘bracing’ orange and neroli accord (don’t you feel there has been something of a glut of orange blossom perfumes in recent times?), but then widens out, softens, into a blander, flatter ‘bran absolute’ and musky ‘flower milk’ accord that I can imagine being effective on some people; just so; (and so feels like a certified future hit) ……but which doesn’t take me into the realms of dreams……
The Black Narcissus 
Photos and bottle look appealing in a modern-retro way. Noblesse is such a lovely way of describing the Annick era. Néroli is so direct and so complete. The way you describe Le Temps des Rêves sounds like it would be attractive if you found yourself in a sleepy, comfort-scent mood. A fragrance for bedtime, if not actually dream-like. My bedtime scents tend to run to perfumes that might conjure up wild dreams of battling with civet cats and crazed old beavers. Things I wouldn’t wear in polite company.
I had to look up kawaii images. Ah. Seems Japanese girls love playing dress-up, which is fascinating and must have a cultural backstory. So different than our post-grunge look here in the Pacific Northwest, home of Kurt C.
To bed myself . . .
Oh, a hygge scent …
Love this.
But not actually a hygge scent (for us). The base is too commercial and banal and would niggle the sleep.
You know me SO well.
Commercial and banal. The worst!
All the makeup & fragrance offerings for this 2020 holiday season seem sort of blah. They’re either safe neutrals or blatant repromotes of past products. Not sure if that is entirely due to the Pandemic causing an economic & emotional downturn. The Millennials globally seem to be the most likely to do any purchasing this season, perhaps this trend caters to their hygge, homely, and rather bland tastes? Maybe Goutal will do a pink birthday cake fragrance for them next, complete with rainbow sprinkles? (Meeeeeowwww) Anyhow, quite the contrast to the edgy (if not completely whackadoo) stuff my generation wanted to wear in the 80s.
Yes, this certainly isn’t edgy, but it is very pleasant; well made etc – I can imagine a nice, potentially smile-inducing sillage being given off as someone gets on a train on a spring day, for instance- but it would not be anything to send anyone into raptures…
My favourite Goutals are Les Orientalistes. Back in the early 2000’s I also wore Rose Absolue, Gardenia Passion and Ce Soir ou Jamais. Now the only ones I own aside from the Orientalistes are Nuit Étoilée, Mon Parfum Chéri par Camille and Songes.
I love all of those. A gorgeous anthology!
I still think Goutal is almost always a worthy house (sometimes I go nuts when I wear Gardenia Passion – there is that almost turmeric-like dry dust quality that I don’t know in any other perfume) – and they do seem to be keeping quite a lot of the collection alive.
This is also quite nice – but I do personally take issue with the base note (my god…such first world problems……)
Woman after my own heart. I also wear Heure Exquise (along the lines of Chanel No 19), Vent de Folie (fresh, rose geranium and a bit of sweet pea) and Matin d’Orage (crisp shiso leaf and gardenia). When AG is good, it’s really good, more string quartet than symphony, but sometimes simpler and more lithe is apropos of the composition.
Heure Exquise is an odd one: I like it and have the parfum – it definitely suits a certain mood though, and I think I remember Vent De Folie – if anyone is going to do a nice sweet pea note it is going to be Goutal. The Matin D’Orage is one of the many in the range that has that harsh note – it is in Vanilla Exquise and a whole lot of other ones, that I can’t handle.
I am so uninspired by the modern Goutal offerings that it shocks even me. I have almost all of the fragrances that Annick created while still alive, along with Songes which carried the torch wonderfully into the post Annick offerings. All the ones that have been released under the “Goutal” label are just meh and mundane in my opinion. Sad, in that Annick created such iconic scents that are exquisite.
That is how I feel too in truth.
I suppose the deep but light romanticism of the original collection is now considered passé.
Isn’t that sad, for some to consider it that way. I prefer to think of them as timeless.