Ombre

Ombre pulls from Louis Vuitton's Ombre Nomade, one of the house's most polarising releases thanks to its powerful smoky-oud opening that reviewers warn must be applied sparingly or it becomes overwhelming. Pearl Fragrances leans into exactly that opening - birch and oud arrive smoky and bold from the first spray, capturing the original's signature incense-on-hot-charcoal quality reasonably well for a budget spray. The raspberry-rose sweetness that Louis Vuitton uses to soften and add a velvety texture to the smoke is present but thinner, and the incense-benzoin resin work that gives the real thing its four-to-five hour leather-suede finish barely develops here. The result is a rawer, more one-dimensional smoky wood that doesn't unfold the way the far pricier original does over a full evening, but it does deliver the loud, unmistakable oud-and-birch opening that made Ombre Nomade famous in the first place.