Roja Dove Diaghilev and 400th post

I've had a teeny bit of Roja Dove's Diaghilev for close on six months now, possibly even longer, yet I have never tried it. Courtesy of Carol from waftbycarol refer to this link for her great review. I'm not sure why I hadn't tried it until yesterday. Possibly it is a case of increasing numbers of samples, with the inevitability that some get missed. I had it in a drawer at work, but every time I looked at it, I thought that I would struggle to pull it off in a work environment, having read that it is a chypre in the grand old style.

I needn't have worried. Like other classic chypres (and Diaghilev obviously isn't, in the sense that it was only created in the last couple of years) it can be worn by a man, in my opinion. I wear Mitsouko quite often, although I must admit that it is easiest to wear the current eau de toilette, which I think is the most man-friendly, for want of a better expression. Anyway, I digress.

Diaghilev surprised me in the sense that it was full-on chypre goodness, with plenty of florals and oakmoss, yet had a sensuousness (perhaps an almost oriental feel) later on in the base, no doubt as a result of the vanilla, and patchouli possibly. Like Carol mentions in her review, there is a definite  animalic-ness to it, which makes it feel quite classic and vintage in feel, despite its recent heritage. This is possibly no surprise, considering Roja Dove's love for a lot of the classic perfumes.

I was wearing Caron's Nuit de Noel a few nights ago and was struck by the similarity between the two, at least to me. While the Caron perhaps differs slightly by having that distinctive Caron base (by the way, I can find a definite correlation between Nuit de Noel and Tabac Blonde, ignoring the smoke and leather aspects, but that's another story) they are both essentially excellent old-school-in-feel chypres, which can't be a bad thing.


Sorry to be so vulgar as to not only keep tabs on my post count, but also to have the temerity to draw attention to it, but today is my 400th post. I'm not obsessed with post counts, but having reached the 400 milestone I was struck by how quickly time flies - it really does seem sometimes like it was just the other day that I posted for the first time on From Top To Bottom!