Comme des Garcons Series 3: Incense Avignon

During the We Three Kings joint blogging project I read so much great stuff about Avignon that I gave my husband a bottle of this deep, rich Comme des Garcons incense fragrance for Christmas. Smelling it over the last week has made me very happy. There's a beauty and grace to churches, even for non-believers like me, that's awe-inspiring. Is it the memory of vaulted ceilings and coloured sunlight pouring through stained glass windows that gives Avignon perfume its ethereal charm? Or is it something innately graceful about in frankincense/incense that makes Avignon so appealing? Either way it's a proud and slightly flamboyant perfume that I'm loving.

 

The first spray of Avignon has an incredibly dark inky quality. It initially reminds me of Serge Lutens's Daim Blond. That's not to say that these two fragrances smell the same, but there's a similarity in the richness and dark depth. Avignon is also quite woody. I'm not usually a fan of woody fragrances, but this is old piano woody rather than pine forest woody.

In a review from 2006, Robin from NowSmellThis describes Avignon as "what I think of as the industry standard" for incense fragrances. Praise indeed. Over at Scent of the Day Krista Janicki asks "Does heaven smell of frankincense?" If you like the smell of church incense. Or if you've every walked into a cathedral and been overwhelmed by the beauty of the architecture, then you should definitely try Avignon.