David Frossard, the man behind niche outfits, Frapin and Liquides Imaginaires is the mastermind behind the new environmentally responsible brand, Obvious. At the time of writing, the brand has eight perfumes in its portfolio. The discovery set I purchased has seven fragrances; the latest Une Verveine was not included. The ethos behind the brand is simplicity, affordability, and environmental responsibility. Where possible, Obvious uses sustainable practices to source raw materials. The diagram below provides an insight into the brand’s production process (source: obviousperfumes.com). In today’s blog post, I’ll run my nose over the seven scents.
The brand describes their perfumes as “white t-shirt and jeans” scents. I guess that is true, none of them are unpleasant, but on me they mostly fall into blandness as they develop. They leave me wanting more. They aren’t distinct enough to compel me to buy. Un Bois and Un Musc are musky, woody ambroxan mixes that recall Terre d’Hermes and some of the Escentric Molecules range. The spicy rose cardamon mix, Une Rose, is pleasant but doesn’t bring anything new to the crowded table. Une Vanilla is a straightforward vanilla and musk, soft and inoffensive. The patchouli and orange blossom also don’t break any new ground.
My favourite is Un Poivre. It’s a well-done spicy pepper with a delightfully bracing heart of cinnamon, ginger, and violet leaf. It develops nicely on skin with a slightly citrusy, smoky vetiver base. For a pepper scent, it is surprisingly tenacious. My two favourite pepper scents, Poivre Samarcande from Hermes and Blackpepper from Comme des Garcons both only last about 4 hours on my skin. The performance of Un Poivre is on par with both of these perfumes.
Annoyingly, the discovery set contains dabber samples. I’m not too fond of dabber samples. They are messy and difficult to apply. Perhaps they negatively impacted my opinion of the scents. It’s challenging to get a gauge of longevity with this type of application. None of the range lasted much longer than 4 hours on my skin. Perhaps with a sprayer I would’ve enjoyed better performance. The simplicity of the scents lends itself to layering. Doubling up on application may also have improved performance.
It’s all well and good having these sort of simple scents in one’s collection, but I’d argue that the 110 Euro for the 100ml bottles is still quite an investment, and it’s even more if I need to buy a couple for layering purposes. I’d be just as happy having a bottle of Terre d’Hermes as I would Un Bois. It wouldn’t set me back over 100 Euro, either. Here in Australia, 100ml retails for 199 dollars per bottle. Finally, I do like the design of the bottles, but is it just me, or do they look a lot like the bottle for Comme des garcons Gosha Rubachinsky?
Have you tried this house? If so what did you think?