ESTATE CARNATION EDP (General Catalog)

ESTATE CARNATION 60 ml Eau de Parfum Spray
Estate Vanilla, Sweet Opium Smoke, Carnation, Rose, Olibanum, Orris Root


IN ORDER TO PREVENT SKIN SENSITIZATION, DO NOT APPLY THIS PRODUCT DIRECTLY TO SKIN AFTER A HOT SHOWER OR BATH.  USE CAUTION APPLYING TO SENSITIVE AREAS SUCH AS THE NECK.  AS WITH ALL PERFUME, IT IS RECOMMENDED TO PERFORM A PATCH TEST PRIOR TO APPLYING ALL OVER TO CHECK FOR SENSITIVITY.


This perfume is a spicy amber-heavy Oriental with a base of our house vanilla (Estate Vanilla), sweet opium smoke, pink carnations, Moroccan rose absolute, olibanum resin and a touch of cool powdery orris root. It's a very spicy, sweet, rich amber blend steeped with pink carnation petals. Goes on strong and takes a few minutes to settle down and meld with your skin chemistry before you can get an impression of the true fragrance but when it begins to unfurl it is thick, mysterious, elegant and haunting at once. A sophisticated perfume that is completely different than our more carnation-heavy Winter Dove, which is a sweet gourmand vanilla carnation. Estate Carnation is very complex and deeper, a sultry golden perfume.

This does not open with the spicy carnation I was expecting, but sweet tendrils of opium! What a surprise! A good one, as I love opium (uh, the scent ;p). This feels very Victorian to me. I feel like I'm detecting something akin to a carnation scented body powder. Oh, I know what this is reminding me of, my Grandmother! Not really because she wore something, more that I remember exploring her large house (she had 9 kids!) and came upon some body powder in a closet somewhere and it smelled similar to this. I remember thinking how classy it smelled. This has that same "classy" feel to it. I like it a lot. As it dries the Estate Vanilla comes out more. Estate Carnation just says "high society" and "Victorian" to me. Though I'm not entirely sure it's a "me" scent I will use the tester and see what the husband thinks.

This is really a beautiful and complex carnation scent - what I like most about it is that I don't get any musty or harsh clove notes! For some reason it seems that 90% of carnation based scents have clove, which tends to overpower the carnation, and fortunately EC doesn't. The carnation is delicate but robust, it's well complimented by crisp, unsour roses. I get a boozy kind of vibe from this, perhaps that's the opium note, which I'm not familiar with enough to be able to identify. It's overall a sophisticated and unique scent, with very subtle pepperiness and a bit of sweet vanilla. It dries down to something reminiscent of Molinard Habanita or pre-1950s Caron Bellodgia on my skin - a beautiful, slightly powdery floral. Lovely! If you enjoy classic perfumes, I think this would be right up your alley.

I wish that I could pluck the opium out of this scent and get rid of it, but I've never been a fan of opium fragrances.  It's like a box of generic white laundry powder, dust, sharp white smoke, chemical hairspray... it does nothing good on my skin.  And that's unfortunate, because the other notes in this are lovely.  I think that Solstice Scents does the best carnation blends (Riverside Hayride, Winter Dove, Dellamorte <3), and I love the sweet, powdery, violet candy-esque orris and creamy vanilla touches to the carnation, the fresh brightness of the rose, and the delicate, natural spiciness of the carnation.  The opium just gives it an unfortunate touch of generic white bar soap covered in dust and dirty ash tray on my skin  

I would love this scent if it didn't have the opium in it, because the carnation-rose-orris-vanilla combo is so beautiful.  It's creamy floral from the orris and vanilla, spicy floral from the carnation, and fresh from the rose.  The opium just gets stronger and sharper on me over time, though, drowning out the other notes for me.  I definitely recommend trying this if opium plays nice with you, though.