En Voyage Perfumes is a niche line based in the Northern California, USA. I was intrigued by the background of self-studied perfumer Shelley Waddington, who is the nose and the creator of her En Voyage Perfumes line.
I ordered some samples from the En Voyage Perfumes website straight away when I found out of this niche line, back in 2011.
Shelley Waddington is lovely, upon receiving the samples, there is also a letter with them, in which Shelley talks about the different scents she created and the mood etc which suits each scents.
The following is what I think about the scents. As much as I wanted to love them all, I’m afraid En Voyage Perfumes is one of those niche houses which I just can’t comfortably wear.
- Carmel Boheme by En Voyage Perfumes
Soon there’s this sweet, berry-hint and clean, uplifting sweet jasmine, tuberose kinda essential oil scent dominants the perfume for several good hours. In the beginning of the white-flower domination, there is some 90s-strawberry-flavoured-bubble-gum hint, and then the jasmine goes warmer, and some creamy gardenia scent comes in to stay. I’m not a fan of white flowers, so it’s somewhat headache inducing to me, but I’m sure any white flower lovers would find this one quite nice to try on.
Then dry down is soft, quite coconut-y and vanilla-y creamy which is slightly tropical to me. IN the end when Carmal Boheme fades into a skin scent, I can smell something slightly woodsy and creamy, somewhat it has a similar spirit to Havana pour Homme.
Overall, it is a nice white flower perfume with some delicious edible touch in the beginning and end. I would recommend it to anyone who loves jasmine and gardenia.
- Carmel de Ville by En Voyage Perfumes
Carmel de Ville starts with a burst of sugared plum with slightly green hint, it is weird but in a good way, somewhat it reminds me of the feeling when seeing a Kabuki play. Soon enough, an intriguing smell comes in and stays, it’s not a typical perfume-y smell to my nose, it’s ‘synthetic’ (as in I can’t possibly smelt this smell from any daily fruits or flowers) but not the type of fruity sugary synthetic smell you find in many commercial, somehow it’s like Play-Doh mended with some vaguely water-rose and floral scent.
Then it goes like Play-Doh plus sweetness plus lily smell plus a tiny bit creamy hint for a long while. I am not a fan of dominant lily scent, and somehow it makes me feel cold and a little bit gloomy while sniffing my wrist.
Later on, a weird echo-y milk-y slightly quasi-aquatic smell adds in, and it stabilises and harmonicalise the perfume, but I find it still a little bit headache-inducing.
I wanted to like Carmel de Ville, but it just doesn’t love me back. However, if you likes white flowers like lily, and you can go with aquatic-ish scent, try this one.
- Debut de Carmel by En Voyage Perfumes
Soon the ivory soap smell goes away, leaves the nice peachy smell dancing on a light, vanilla-y non-tropical creamy background. The peach-y smell here is the most real yellow peach smell I’ve ever smelt in a perfume(apparently it should be the apricot note here), and it is really mouth-watering and lovely, without any high-voltage pushy sugary interpretation of any particular fruitiness.
Then Debut de Carmel dries to really lovely genuine peach-y apricot-y smell with a tiny bit musky hint.
Debut de Carmel is my favourite among the whole En Voyage Perfumes range, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes real peachy, apricot smell, in a less ‘fresh’ (as in commercial perfume fresh pink way), but more real fruit-y way.
- Peche Noir by En Voyage Perfumes
Peche Noir by En Voyage Perfumes starts in a sugared, syrup water in a delicious, nectarine cold-sweet (as appose to stick Britney or Jessica Simpson sweet) way. I can definitely smell the lily there, but it’s also so well-blend and the lily doesn’t over power other notes. Somehow, this reminds me of the soap bubbles, the plastic container (infused with the soap water smell) and a sunny afternoon in the park when I was little. I like the beginning; however, the only drawback is it is a little bit edgy to my liking.
Then something cold, slightly minty but without the minty-ness ( I guess the lily gives the well-blend other part of the perfume this kind of good, cold minty-ness), and green, lush comes, it smells like a blooming summer night, but nothing like any of the typical white flowers I’ve ever smelt in any other perfumes. It is like a liquid song being inhaled. It is like a mixture of Burberry Weekend for Women and Annic Goutal’s Passion.
The dry down has a clean slightly ink-y smell added in to the middle notes, which makes me think of inhaling the scent of green grass and little flowers around a water pound, in a summer evening.
I don’t find Peche Noir seductive or sexy, despite what goes behind the creation of Peche Noir. It is just a pretty perfume. Peche Noir is not my cup of tea due to my dislike of the kind of sweet peachy floral fruitiness, but I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes Burberry Weekend or perfumes similar to that.
- Poete de Carmel by En Voyage Perfumes
Poete de Carmel by En Voyage Perfumes is a really nice and pretty perfume, but to me, it lacks of a backbone. Poete starts quite powdery in a soap rose water clean way, with a hint of honey.
Then it gets sweeter in the slightly earth, and tart. Every now and then, there’s a little bit fruity sourness comes by. It is like a weird but nice mixture of rose, light spice, and a little bit of Le Labo Oud 27.
Later on, Poete becomes spiced rose water. Somehow I find it really inoffensively familiar, It’s like a rose-themed, female version of Dior Eau Sauvage; or a slightly less melancholy combination of Anna Sui’s Anna Sui and Forbidden Affair and a tiny bit spice, but just better in a well-blend way.
Then it gets tarter, powderier, softer and warmer and sunny spring-like, at the same time a certain dominant sour fruity hint is here too. It is like inhaling brown sugar water with a pinch of spice.
Poete de Carmel is a nice perfume and I find it easy to like and the quality of ingredients makes it stand out when comparing it with generic designer house perfumes like Anna Sui’s. However, I wouldn’t splurge to buy it for myself as it is somewhat a high-quality version of generic-smelling perfume, Poete lacks some spirit to be a Poete de Carmel (or maybe, I have to confess, I had really high expectations for a perfume with such name). Nevertheless, it is a decant-worth/sample-worth perfume to me for sure.
- Makeda by En Voyage Perfumes
The opening is quite weird buy lovable in a mixed-up house detergent lemon-y sweet fruity way, but it disappear really soon. After this, Makeda is quite linear, what I can smell is just jasmine! Even though I’m not a fan of jasmine, but the jasmine here is so real, just like the one I smelt in a garden. If you were scared by TM Aline due to the sugared jasmine there, Makeda won’t scare you for sure, instead, it might lure you in to a new world where you find jasmine lovely, make you feel exotic and somewhere in between optimistic and happy.
To me, I can’t really smell much the wood, the dry out is more like a version diluted jasmine oil in some unscented body lotion, by unscented, you know most of the time unscented product have the slightly creamy coconut-y discreet smell undertone there.
Highly recommend to jasmine lovers.
- Havane Pour Homme by En Voyage Perfumes
Loud, cirtusy, zest-lemon-and-lemon-cake-dominant start reminds me of a good cologne to the citrusy extreme. Somehow it’s like some pre-blended citrusy refreshing essential oil. I’m not impressed, but I have to say I like it a lot and the feel of it cannot be compared with another ‘nice’ citrusy perfume. The start is quite typically masculine, but to me, it smells more refreshing and aroma-therapeutic.
Havane pour homme goes lighter and less acidic (citrusy) soon. At one point, it smelt like when you get closer to smell the citrusy oil and ginger oil in an oil burner and you smell both the warm water and oil. At this stage I even find Havane kinda disappointing as it lacks some perfume characteristic.
However, after about 1.5 hours, the smell of Havane gets creamier in a really subtle way, it gets slightly powdery and really vanilla-y (the vanilla here is like the vanilla plant, you can smell the vanilla-ness, but no sugar or any cupcake scent involved here), a little bit coconut kinda creamy (without the coconut tropical smell) and a tiny bit herbal hint somewhere along really discreet tobacco leaves and cocoa smell. Havane is quite sensual in a discreet way and at this stage I simply feel confident, in love and optimistic (in a mature, quite sense, not the fruity happy girly optimistic); it feels like going out with a confident sexy well-groomed workaholic type of guy who doesn’t wear much perfume and whom actually has a softer, and caring side for you only.
It is indeed a great office perfume. Either the typical refreshing aromatherapy beginning or the nice, close-to-skin dry down is a nice. Also, it is the first perfume ever I find not bothering me at all, I can smell it, but I wouldn’t even think that I’m wearing a perfume, it’s like you and the perfume are so naturally together; by no means I’m saying some other perfumes I like are bothering me when I’m wearing them, it’s just I can smell and am more aware of the existence of many other perfumes.
Highly recommended to anyone want a cotton-t-shirt-kinda-easy comfy office perfume or a quite spontaneous natural day perfume.
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