Annick Goutal Encens Flamboyant is a perfume that is meant to conjure up Eastern Orthodox churches – icons lining the walls, colorful hues on your skin from sunlight and stained glass; churches filled with incense smoke and chants. This fragrance does conjure up this environment, but as a person that associates this environment with when someone dies, I find this scent too emotional for me to wear.
Encens Flamboyant opens with a smoky, anesthetizing, spicy, dry black pepper. The fragrance starts to reminds me of freshly blown out candles. It’s waxy and smoky…and very somber. The incense smoke appears and it’s slightly metallic. It does smell like incense and charcoal in a chain censer. The smoke in Encens Flamboyant is sheerer than other smoky scents. It isn’t heavy. The dry-down is a balsamic incense with dried evergreen needles. It’s very balmy. And at the base is when Encens Flamboyant starts to “lighten up”.
To me, the overall feel of Encens Flamboyant is somber and melancholic. It isn’t one of those gothic or vampy incense fragrances that makes “dark” irresistibly sexy and filled with a sexual energy. Encens Flamboyant is resting and morose. The scent reminds me of extinguished candles. Light is a symbol of life. The light is gone and I’m left with a trail of smoke. Encens Flamboyant is so mortal. I think it is very well done. Your personal experiences will determine if this is one you consider wearable or not.
Notes listed include frankinsence, pepper, roseberry, frankinsence resin, cardamom, sage, nutmeg, “old church” incense, mastic tree, and balsam fir.
Give Encens Flamboyant a try if you are looking for something that reminds you of church candles or incense or if you like perfumes like CdG Zagorsk, Heeley Cardinal, Profumum Olibanum and/or Olivier Durbano Black Tourmaline. Encens Flamboyant is a unisex scent and for a smoky scent, it is sheer. I think it does well as a fragrance for layering.
I find projection of this scent below average. The scent is long wearing for an Annick Goutal. However, it wears softly.
The 3.4 oz. of Encens Flamboyant goes for $175 at Luckyscent and Harrods (UK).
Victoria’s Final EauPINION – Blown out candles, hot wax and frankincense in a censer. This fragrance reminds me of a vigil. I like it but it isn’t my favorite out of Les Or*entalistes (see personal reasons above) but I think it is well done.
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I. Have. To. Try. This!
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It’s getting more difficult to find. I regret not picking up a bottle of each of Les Orientalistes when they were more available. Oh, well.
To me it was pine trees and ashes. Like there had been a forest fire and I rolled around in the ashes left over. Unfortunately, none of the AG perfumes I’ve tried really work for me.
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Speaking of forest fire perfumes, I think Tom Ford Extreme smells exactly like a forest fire. Is that a genre of perfume that I didn’t know about? 😉
Oh I’m so sorry that it makes you feel morose – to me it lifts me up and in my tiny collection of incense perfumes is the ‘lightest’ one. It’s on of my fav AGs too.
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Other incense fragrances work for me, but this one is “too real” and brought back some memories. Difficult to explain but it triggered some memories.
I really think this is a beautiful, well-done perfume. It’s rare to find a sheer incense and this is one.
Oh Victoria, partly because of your Annick Goutal’s reviews I just ordered a bottle of Ninfeo Mio! I generally like incense, but the imagery behind this scent is not very appealing to me.
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Ninfeo Mio makes me happy. Encens Flamboyant makes me sad. I think it all depends on your experiences, all scents do, but this one reminds me of big, scary and uninviting Orthodox churches. It’s the candle element to it.
I still think it’s worth trying if you ever get your hands on it.
Hm… It’s a beautiful bottle… I should try it!
I have to explain, probably. I really like AG’s bottles – colored ones. But those several perfumes that I like from the line all come in transparent bottles. I kept trying perfumes from those beautiful colored bottles and not just wasn’t impressed or didn’t like them but hated almost every single one of them on my skin. Recently I finally found my perfect bottle – Ambre Fetiche. But now I realized that I haven’t tried this one – so there is one more chance for my love to AG’s bottles 🙂
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Like you, I adore the colored AG bottles and I’ve tried to make myself love the TFs in pretty bottles too.I collect Depression glassware so these colored bottles attract me.
Ambre Fetiche is my favorite AG. It’s so beautiful, wears for a long time and the black bottle is stunning.
[…] Copal Azur a try if you like frankincense or incense perfumes. Or if you like perfumes like Annick Goutal Encens Flamboyant, HEELEY Cardinal, Norma Kamali Incense, Huitieme Art Myrrhiad and/or CdG Incense Avignon. If you […]