Chocolat

Chocolat sets out to smell like dark chocolate rather than a sweet-shop imitation. The maker built it as a deliberately linear, deep and velvety chocolate after finding no existing chocolate perfume that did what was wanted. It opens milky and creamy, with a soft lactonic note. The centre brings in coffee, suede, tonka and caramel, with a little apricot, muscovado sugar and maple behind them. The base is where the chocolate lives: chocolate over vanilla, sandalwood, leather and amber. Buyers describe chocolate with depth, sticky and rich rather than sickly, and one notes the coffee arriving later in the day. Not everyone gets chocolate. One careful sample wearer found sandalwood, amber and coffee and no chocolate at all, calling it rich, spicy, dark and woody. Another, who did not take to it, still called it very well done and said it suits anyone who likes cocoa powder or hot chocolate. That split is worth knowing before you buy a full bottle. Wearers report that it lasts a long time, with a couple of morning sprays still showing through the day. Projection is not described in any detail. One buyer joked that it ought to be sold as a pheromone perfume. It suits autumn and winter and evenings in particular, and reads as a dark, comforting gourmand with a woody edge, closer to cocoa and suede than to a pudding. It is made by hand by Juliet Rose.