Comme des Garcons 2011 Comme des Garcons for women and men

When I first smelled this, I was immediately transported back to the summer of 1995, 16 years old, working at the Big Value Outlet, a local discount store chain, handling inventory and there was the smell of industrial fumes that I recall learning to quickly associate, Pavlov's dog style, with a paycheck so that I could buy 70s and 80s new wave CDs like Joe Jackson and XTC at Strawberries. CDG 2011 does capture that distinct smell of adhesives and packing tape, but I will also agree with others that it also evokes the heated dust on electronics (I love another reviewer's comparison to that of a floppy disk entering a hard drive). It also evokes new ink cartridges and toners for copy machines—a Xerox accord, shall we say?

However, after the first ten minutes, what is clear here is all of this orbits around what smells like the often most fragrant darker purple varieties of lilac, with their delightfully pungent headiness. There is also a ton of anisaldehyde here, which reminds me of the blooms of certain hawthorn trees like Crataegus monogyna, also pungent with facets of aniseed and indole. Then there is this brilliant use of Safraleine (saffron-leather) that elevates the overall effects. So what happens is that the post-modernist synthetic concept ends up evoking natural smells concurrently, or, at certain stages, there is this olfactory ping-pong of sorts. I love this intrigue: it's refreshing to approach something like this when so many recent efforts to be artfully niche, listing natural ingredients used, with their terroir indicated, end up seeming rather crude and harsh in comparison (I've sampled way too many new releases so far this year that are absolute duds).

Here, with CDG 2011, we find Antoine Maisondieu being allowed to push the boundaries but still deliver what is a cohesive, balanced composition. To include the plot twist of lilac and hawthorn blooms in the middle of a hydrocarbon fantasy, still hints at the warm and organic even amongst its futuristic artifice. That's what makes this absolutely brilliant.

When I was in college I worked in the mail room. It was a really fun job — I got to know a lot about everyone on campus and their habits, and everyone knew me from coming to pick up their packages from me. The manager of the mail room, Gayle, was a bit of a hard ass with a chip on her shoulder toward all these east coast or Chicago or California kids that would end up working there or picking up their mail. Of everyone who started working there my freshman year, I was one of 2 who didn’t get fired. She had a soft spot for me because I was semi-local and probably reminded her of her relatives.
Gayle’s husband had a debilitating stroke while I was there and she became the sole breadwinner of her family. I can’t imagine her salary was much. But, despite her sometimes harsh demeanor, she remained fundamentally principled and upright, despite some extreme pettiness from her assistant manager (but we don’t need to talk about Joan). I’m really glad I got to know her, even if I haven’t spoken to her since I graduated.
When we received floral deliveries, Gayle would keep them on her desk until they were picked up. Sometimes they were never picked up until they were past their prime. For me, this fragrance smells like Gayle’s desk: soft, sweet florals surrounded by packing tape, cardboard, and plastic, with maybe just a hint of sharpie (this might be only my imagination), as well as the olfactory equivalent of fluorescent lighting. The real power of perfume is memory, and for me this is a great one.

Of course the glue and tape notes generate the most buzz around this fragrance, but for me, this is the best lilac I have smelled!

This is a fairly realistic picture of opening a brown cardboard box, cutting the brown packing tape, getting through some layers of bubble wrap and finding a freshly bloomed lilac flower. Just that, but that is enough, a modern floral masterpiece, reinterpreting the classic chypre and transforming it into an art installation.

If You have a chance You must try it!

Opens with a pretty strong, post office/fed-ex-esque smell. For someone who has always been weirdly drawn to chemical odors, like gasoline and epoxy, the glue note here is sublime. The glue and tape tend to dominate at this point.

Stepping into a small post office filled with cardboard boxes, envelopes, packing peanuts, and tape everywhere. Overhead fluorescent lighting creates a harsh yellow glow.

Just past the opening, a bit of the synthetic harshness has subsided, and a more spacious, complex atmosphere is opened up. The glue is still dominant, but as a whole it is much more atmospheric. A kind of ethereal, musky powder lingers in the background, supporting the harsher notes in an inventive harmony.

Opening new electronics parts from ebay in the workshop. You crack open the window to let in some fresh air.

After a few hours, the synthetic scent of glue barely lingers, but is still detectable. The scent is much softer and much quieter now. Delicate flowers send out pleasant rays of sunshine. A honey-like nuance is apparent as well. This is where the fragrance begins to smell somewhat like a more traditional women's floral perfume, but it is still refracted by the barely-detectable industrial notes to conjure a strange nostalgia.

A constructed memory of a meadow.


Overall, a great fragrance, very wearable, but less versatile. Tells a fantastic story that I won't forget.

side note: While it doesn't smell like Dior Fahrenheit, I notice a spiritual similarity with the gassy, leathery, hydrocarbon opening that morphs into a woody floral.

This is phenomenal! Smells like a fresh bouquet of purple lilac wrapped in scotch tape & doused in industrial glue.

I'm in love with this. excellent unisex smell.

this is great, and really not that offensive the way some synthetics can be. totally getting brown scotch tape! it's like a pleasantly airy leather, and I tend to not love leathers. manly without being stinky : )

I bought this perfume because somebody in the comments said it smelled like UHU glue which I happened to love so much when I was little, I used to eat it. It’s giving scotch tape more than UHU, but I still love. Unique fragrance which goes well with a futuristic outfit. Only problem for me is that the scent is headache inducing so I can’t wear it for long periods of time and def not for work.

I love this cologne! The smell of an Amazon box pulled a bunch of 10/10s. But I didn't get the glue smell. So I took Elmer's glue and sniffed it for a long time. It gave a weird feeling but I still couldn't pick up on that note. Definitely wearing it on every single date night I have. Jammie Foxx definitely has all of these kids because he wears scotch tape and glue cologne.

Smells like a mix of how new airpod cases smell and someone's house. Like a couple hours after laundry day

You know that smell when you open an Amazon box? The brown packing tape? That's what this smells like. I would say that makes it polarizing.

An Unidentified Perfumed Object.

It is really weird, only CDG makes such perfumes. The bottle is already very strange, looks like an unfinished object, it doesn't stand straight, and there are weird glue bubbles inside.

The juice is made of the same wood. Industrial glue and scotch tape? Yes they are there, especially the glue, which reminds me a lot of the Cleopatre glue, with a very almondy smell. This glue note almost reminds me of the effect of benzoin or cinnamon, but more "industrial" and abstract.

A floral aspect comes in after a few minutes, in total harmony with these notes of glue and scotch. I recognise the lilac, a note that I find very delicate and feminine. It is a pretty branch of pale mauve lilac, almost photorealistic, which adds a touch of "real" in a not so ordinary juice.

Finally, saffron arrives in the background, adding another facet to this multi-dimensional fragrance. Although colder and less sensual than usual, it "coats" the glue and the tape to give a warm plastic smell.

The result? Improbable but so obvious.
It's like a nostalgic perfume, which will evoke memories of the past for some, the work done in art classes for others, or evenings in a bedroom warmed by a long-lit TV or computer. Personally it reminds me of a huge room freshly painted in white, with windows on each side letting sunrays and spring breeze coming in. The only objects in this room are a computer on a table and a purple lilac branch in a pot.

So strange and so intoxicating.

Right off the bat I get an incredible amount of brown scotch tape backed up by glue and aldehydes. It's like ripping open and unraveling a brand-new roll of brown scotch tape. I personally love the smell, but I definitely don't think the initial is very wearable. You WILL smell like brown scotch tape. Thankfully, in terms of wearability, I think it settles down rather quickly. I'll still get brown scotch tape throughout its life on my skin, but it fades away and melts into the other notes beautifully. It becomes more of an ambiguous, nostalgic sort of scent rather than tape.

When it settles down... God this stuff is good. Close your eyes. Imagine you're in a corner office, dozens of floors up, with big glass windows overlooking the city. You are the most beautiful, Platonic form of a stapler, or maybe a paper organizer, sitting on the office desk. That's what this fragrance makes you feel like. Non-binary office stationery. The aldehydes make it so clean and so neutral, a beautiful space for the very light florals, leather, and musk to romp around and blend together. I think it's really well-blended, it's hard to pick up distinct notes after it dries down a bit; I think that lends to the intoxicating nostalgia and genderless-ness of the fragrance. I keep smelling it to try and figure it out, placate it into something neat and easy to know, but it refuses that in this gorgeously airy, light, and clean way. Insanely wearable considering the notes when you get past the first 30 minutes.

I can’t get over this stuff. It’s industrial sleeze and low class addiction. I feel high as kite when I put on multiple sprays. It’s addictive as all hell. !BUY IMMEDIATELY!

This scent is pure positivity and happiness for me. Very uplifting and mood enhancing, easy to wear, nostalgic and ambiguous at the same time. Art.

edit. this is the best perfume I've ever smelled. beyond everything else. hope they won't discontinue this.

Smells like what BMO from Adventure Time would smell like. Arts and crafts, glue, a very faint floral in the distance. Hunted down a decant of this on eBay because I just HAD to know what it smelled like. I don't know if it's something I would wear out and about, but it's comforting and reminds me of being in kindergarten!

When I was a kid, a mandatory part of the supplies that schoolchildren needed for classes was glue called OHO. We used it during drawing and art lessons, when we would make collages out of colorful papers or lanterns for tea parties. I was bad in drawing, but I was very enthusiastic when it came to assembling something from paper. And one of the reasons was, of course, the smell of OHO glue, similar to varnish, but somewhat milder and more pleasant. I’ve never gone so far as to get addicted on it, but I’d love to sniff it and enjoy it. This perfume, which everyone calls by the year of production, because its non-specific name hides it so well that it is now difficult to get, reminds me, if at all of any known smell, of the smell of OHO glue. And not just of the smell: the perfume is transparent, colorless, and the bottle has air bubbles, like OHO glue had. Even the packaging is reminiscent of some industrial product. The smell of glue is felt intensely at the very beginning. There is also something floral in its background. The notes say that it is lilac, but to me it is a vague, varnished flower. Both notes subside after a while and the smell of leather comes to the fore, like shoes on which a shoemaker has just pasted what needed to be fixed. For those who loved to sniff glue, this is an opportunity to do it once again, in a different way. And for others, to whom this scenario may seem unnecessarily nostalgic, this may be an avant-garde madness that does not care for a conventional taste.

I am shamelessly addicted to novelties and gimmicks. If you say that a perfume smells like something weird that usually isn't supposed to be in a perfume, I am automatically going to want it because my brain is very simple. But CDG 2011 manages to successfully pull off gimmicky notes while skillfully incorporating them into a fragrance that is shockingly wearable.

Yes, it does actually smell like adhesive and tape. In particular, it makes me think of the adhesive melting off of that classic clear/brown shipping tape. Within the tape accord (or beneath it, or in spite of it) is a tinge of some cherry/almond/benzaldehyde-esque note. The safraleine is also very present, which always gives me a suggestion of some sort of paper.

As many others have said, there is also an electronic facet to it. To me, it is evocative of ripping the plastic bag off of a brand new electronic device. If you were to put your nose on the speaker "vent" of a brand new TV and take a deep sniff, it's kind of like that. The general plasticky vibe could even go into the territory of vinyl pool toys, and the inexplicable "vinyl doll head" kind of smell that a few perfumes seem to have. Once the lilac comes into focus, you can almost imagine it blooming out of a circuit board.

With all that being said, will CDG 2011 make you smell like some sort of freakish biomechanical human-machine hybrid? No. If you let your mind wander and allow it to just be without analyzing it, it really does just come across as a quirky and artsy floral. No, your coworkers are not going to think that you bathed in E6000. This stuff honestly does only smell weird if you are actively focusing on the weird parts of it. If you relax and let go, you'll find that CDG 2011 is relatively easy (and rewarding) to wear.
Regardless, this is a must-sniff. Whether you actually wear it out or just privately smile at its ingenuity is up to you.

This is oddly nostalgic to me, maybe because it reminds me of middle school art classes because of all the glue we used lmao. It also brings to mind the smell of brand-new plastic goods, maybe some toys or electronics? Those smells evoke nostalgia as well. It also smells aldehydic and a bit soapy, adding to the sterile, synthetic impression.
Combined with the clean florals, it reminds me a bit of some strange, futuristic version of Estee Lauder's White Linen where the powder has been replaced with adhesives and abstract industrial smells which actually makes the scent more comforting strangely enough, and more something I can enjoy as a modern man.

I actually kind of like this. I don't think it's just a novelty perfume or weird for weird's sake, it's interesting and pleasant in a way. Performance is quite decent, though I don't think many people would wear this outside anyway...

i smell like ive been put in a floppy disc drive. the computer is slightly hot. there's a single flower in a vase across the room.
💾🌷😌

first thing I thought, when I smelled it was...this is the perfume that "Jane Jetson" would wear. Made in 2011, it was way ahead of its time. This is more of what a floral should smell like in 2050.

Also since June 2021 (10th anniversary of CdG 2011), their e-store is officially selling this perfume again(!!)
The artist statement they wrote for CdG 2011:

"WE CAN FIND BEAUTIFUL THINGS WITHOUT CONSCIOUSNESS. A FRAGRANCE THAT COULDN’T EXIST IN A BOTTLE THAT SHOULDN’T EXIST. WHAT QUALIFIES ANYTHING FOR THE RIGHT TO EXIST? WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHAT SHOULD BE REJECTED? PURPOSELY TAKING A BOTTLE THAT HAS BEEN DISQUALIFIED FROM EXISTENCE AND PURPOSEFULLY GIVING IT ITS RIGHT TO EXIST."
- REI KAWAKUBO

[Artist context and where to buy explained through analogy in my review below.]

[JUNE 2021]

1 [PERSONAL THOUGHTS:]
Stand by! A lot of artists seem to love CdG so I thought its time to chip in!

This was one of my first perfumes I bought with my own (perhaps) money.
I'm still pretty blessed to have quite a lot of the juice of CdG 2011 to try now and then. Even if it's quaint in immersive-realistic ingredients since I've tried other avant-industrial fragrances since this is still good!

Everyone's basically described this perfume perfectly. I don't feel I can add anything else, objectively except... Personally for me it smells just like the air that whirred from my old Windows 2000 PC complete with Altec Lansing speaker wool fuzz. I like that it even smells like the casing that housed my old "100 Free Games" discs we got from the occassion trips with Grandma to Chinatown back when I lived in Asia. Its a compact experience of this very plastic time as a kid born before the early 00s in a bottle, but about as small in sillage as those pink plastic toy phones that play D. K. Smile's Butterfly (which depending on what you had then might be just enough!)

Time-skip to 2021 and we are now in a post-CdG art world where net artists are now old enough to contribute to their experience as digital natives, and established technophiles and engineers are creating hyper-real experiences with chemicals. Coincidentally with the alarming rate technology hyper-accelerates and is improving, the post-internet world introduced a global synthesis in the arts via cross-pollination within the industry, which with such seemingly different worlds of art, has proven with interesting creations never before seen.

2 [CROSS POLLINATION OF ART:
THE RELATIONSHIP OF FRAGRANCE, ART, SOUND VIA TECH, SYNTHESIS AND CHEMISTRY]

ADDENDUM: Delineating some nuance here for non-trans ppl reading (w this note on top) that even is SOPHIE was both trans-humanist and trans-person, the experiences of trans people and transhumanists are completely separate things and should never be confused as one or the other. I'm coming from this as a non-binary person where I tend not to think of established modes of gender, which can be very real and especially important to binary trans and transhuman ppl. *Also SOPHIE does not like being referred to by any pronoun when discussing SOPHIE's work and their relation with surrounding studies of art.

(Also do not conflate me completely with tech-humanism, which sees tech-devices and humanity as equal. Letting you know, I'm personally more "post-tech" where the needs of humanity and ecology must never be forgotten in advanced technology, and that personally clarifies that tech must never be designed against the needs of humanity, lest we become dehumanised under our own technology. Also Kawakubo, while working in a similar ethos of avant-industrialists; trans-humanists is very much still Cis-femme. Reason why this is discussed, below:)

Akin to a perfumer working with laboratory chemicals, the beloved sound engineer / conceptual legend / post-humanist SOPHIE through sculpting and painstakingly-layered, proportionally-EQ-modified, exaggered waveforms created a cartoonised, hyperreal world of sounds impossible in the restraints of physics in reality. Much like how olfactory chemicals create experiences too real, curated, or surreal to exist, in the world of SOPHIE, PVC balloons and bubbles seemingly twist, melt, and animate in their own accord. Metal folds into each other like glass, or bubbles like falling water, fades into hot steaming air. Glass sounds like water, or a chewy lemon. The sound of one's breath swallows a whole universe and breathes out stars in the galaxy of their body. Pianos sound like 600 foot mountains. Things bounce, transition, appear, or disappear too fast like 3D Animated CGI. And it's pop! Point is that despite having now lost SOPHIE, our post-digital, hyperaccelerated world so strange and so fast since last decade has introduced means and modes of art that our past-ancestors could only scratch the surface of. Now thanks to artists like CdG's Rei Kawakubo and SOPHIE, what it means to be art and how one achieves such goals can be alien, bizzare, and truly wonderful that we are the species with the capacity to abstract and create such things into being. And not just in tangible touch and sight either. Sound and smell... these senses can be quite interconnected but now more so with how hyperreal such once unthinkable theoretical concepts can "be".

It is the beginning of 2020 and the contributions of creators conceptually similar to, or directly inspired by CdG (or in theory, from past writers) means that CdG 2011 is now surpassed in the throne of the super strange / bizzare, the futuristic, the post-human (even "super-man!") .

Here are some suggestions for very interesting synthesised constructions to consider in the world of fragrant art!

3 [RECOMMENDATIONS]
FOR FANS OF CDG 2011:

Jump into the deep end with The Door by D. L. Roelen for an updated take of the very rare CdG 2011 if you're satisfied with the idea of smelling like a work of architecture yourself. Try Aether's Ultrae (vapor smell of hot TV screens, melting plastic and newly unpackaged store computer electronics) and Step Aboard's Bosco Sopeso (digital post-cryogenic garden in a 480-feet bio-organic neoprene skyscraper), and Barrois' Ganymede (first high-definition real-quality smell of a pvc-carbon printed-plexiglass spaceship!) This is only a taste of how evocative our man-made chemicals have become. We already know perfumes can far exceed our legendary predecessors. Perhaps, at times, feel free to enjoy art made not just for grand natural statements (didactic art can only go so far!) but simply because we have the luxury to experience art that exists for itself: art for art's sake.

..If that's what you wanna do!

4 [IN CLOSING:] The industrial / futuristic / architectural genre's really fun, especially if you're a jaded concept artist who, after years of academic and personal study learning historic classics, feels they've seen everything. Onto the future world envisioned long ago, now beginning before our very eyes, circa. 2020!

What shall we, in our current generation, contribute from here? As SOPHIE (or Kawakubo, in vague koans) once said: anything you want! Any shape, form. Perhaps soon we won't need a story to explain why we as humans, post-humans, and our art must "exist." In such works of art post-CdG, post-hyperacceleration and on its way to post-industrial (as long as we're still around, hope!) let's support and contribute to such artworks like these which glimpse an experience of a world where technology rules us *without* not being aware of what our creators and savvy technophiles don't want: to have to live in these awe-moving, soul-shaking but inhumanly crushing dystopians far into the imagined futures of such works... which is actually just literally IRL RN, exaggerated and in a cute carry package! Can't have cyberpunk without the punk ^//^

Anyway, I'm so happy to experience, create, engage, indulge more stuff like CdG 2011! And houses and furniture and clothes are so cool these days, right?

Now we get to experience and create such cool future things perhaps even stranger and inhumanly-real than CdG out of chemical air, especially as we continue to stay alive(!) ...hopefully, as we are attempting an existential crash landing, these technological things they fawn of that we also sure love to use may be used by a growing majority working together to also help us succeed in soon being at peace with our man-made creations, and repair the world of ours post-haste; and in turn of repairing the vessel which carries our souls: the world, to repair ourselves, at last we may achieve: the immaterial. (Wow what kind of strange awesome world can we make exist starting today! Is it possible to transcend or improve what is human or beautiful or art or our world any more than now...? What if in such world we didn't have to attempt to a "crash landing" because there was no "pilot." Ooo...!)

Maybe we can start making interesting art answers by asking interesting art questions. (ex: Are there molecules that make you smell as yourself in an alternative form, age, material, or gender? Hi mom!)

PS: And to think I shared all this thanks to all these new cool bottles, sounds, and smells. something something art art power of art *giggles*

(Happy pride month!)
(Also they're permanently selling CdG 2011 again at the Melbourne Comme Des Garcons e-shop-- enjoy! Local to Australia, and online only!)

On me, the opening consists of cold flowers, berries, chlorine, sunscreen, solvent, and tape. This combination certainly smells strange, but I enjoy it a lot. It doesn't smell like berries in a traditional sense, more like the berryish aroma ballpoint pen ink gives off. Both the solvent and "berry" notes tone down quite a bit after an hour or two, leaving behind an amazing icy clean floral musk with tiny nuances of chlorine, new electronics and something suedey. Longevity is around 6 hours and the sillage is moderate.

★★★★★

I feel that sometimes we miss the point. Perfumery at its finest isn't always presented in the form of the highest quality natural ingredients.

Niche is taking over the perfume spectrum: so many niche offerings that supposedly provide elegance, uniqueness, quality. Still, it has all come down to the majority of them being one ingredient in its extremity (oud intense, rose absolute etc)

I appreciate Comme Des Garcons the most from the whole niche world. It's a house that excels in perfumery in the same way they excel in fashion. They keep having a concept in every scent, which I terribly miss from the days where all designers had a concept. Most of their compositions have the complexity needed for one's olfactory experience to go wild, and feel things through scent without boundaries.

Comme Des Garcons EDP of 2011 to me is all those nostalgic abstract memories I keep dearly from when I was a kid in the 90s. Images of inflatable toys, plastic Nintendo packaging, the whole urban wave of the early 00s.

This is a wearable nostalgic cloud in a bottle that reminds you that perfection is not the key, hence the bottle's inability to stand up.

Why do all bottles have to stand up? Why is good perfumery associated with pure extract oils that we steal from nature in a time where nature needs humanity's attention?

Maybe good perfumery can be a lab's synthetic construction from imperfect chemicals, blended by a passionate human mind to perfection.

It has an acrid, synthetic, industrial, electronic like smell that smells familiar but I just can put my finger on what it exactly it is. Maybe a computer? or maybe those robotic children's toys that moves via a remote control? Not sure, but it's nice, quite interesting, but it dries down perfumey, which is totally not what I'm expecting

More than anything else this perfume smells to me like burned skin during sunbathing. The combination of the smell of sweltering skin, some chlorine from the pool still left on, a wet bikini, and the residue of body lotion and oily flowery sunscreen melting and dripping, leaving the body exposed to the sun.

عطری شدیدن آلدهیدی و سرگیجه آور با بوی چسب
-----------
Scent & Qualiy: 4/10
Longevity: 7/10
Sillage: 7/10
Creativity & Uniqueness: 9/10
Affordability: 4/10
-----------
Overall: 6.2/10

Comme des Garcons' intersection of weird and wearable at its best.

It's hard to dissect this one in terms of traditional notes, as above all else this smells synthetic and solvent-like. This is a deliberately "fake" smell, and that's just fine, because it smells great.

The core is a cool-smelling floral note in the vicinity of lilac and hyacinth, accented with a smell akin to a new, glossy magazine, and a bit of saffron. The petrochemical quality here is almost petrol-like, like Santa Maria Novella's Nostalgia. The drydown smells like a mixture of new car smell and glue, and somewhat papery as well.

2011 wears very light and transparent, with decent projection, but is slightly ephemeral all in all.

Unquestionably one of the most original releases from CDG.

A computer-generated plasticine, glue-jointed model unicorn wearing a candy necklace, arriving via cardboard box, shrink-wrapped in plastic. Sweet Tarts in periwinkle dot matrix print. Chalk-dust graffiti of a pastel-hued meadow on the side of a rubber wellies manufacturing plant. A sugar-android blowing iridescent latex bubbles in a concrete garden of violets. Milky sweet tea on white vinyl chairs under the wisteria vines in the misty, pearl-grey dawn.

On my skin, it's:

Not leather, vinyl
Not lilacs, violets
Tonic water
Concrete
Celery-like aroma of new electronics

I'm an avid CdG fan, but this one makes my insides twist into melancholy, regardless of the colourful metaphors it evokes. For avant garde, atmospheric CdG, I'll stick to the infinitely more wearable (to my nose and for my skin) Standard Artek. Onto the 'bay this goes, unless someone here wants to make me an offer. 100mls, purchased sealed, with intact cello, in origami box (no glue is used for the box, it's in the scent instead...get it? get it?) bottle was sealed in plastic as well, brand new minus 2 sprays.

And yes, I'm absolutely sick to the teeth of babying my bloody emotions, but if I don't, I'll drive away the 2 whole people left in my life. D'oh! o.O

This - at the time when it came out - simply named 'new' Eau de Parfum features a set of qualities that make it one of the most remarkable Comme releases for a long time - still now, six years after it's launch. It's straightforward name nodding to the brands very first perfume, back then already featuring the nowadays ubiquitous EdP formulation and also continues the trajectory of novelty that Comme des Garcons managed to inhabit for a long time now - in the lineage of CdG 3, the Odeurs, Series 6 and Guerrilla 1 with such a pleasant synthetic lilac glue polish floral illusion theme that makes it very singular, and pretty much uncomparable to anything else. At the same time it can placed in proximity of some of the modern synthi leathers - think of Cuiron and Cuir d'Ange. On a different scale however, it's not a leather as such but has an intriguing note that can be appreciated for afficiandos of such experimental leathers The bottle is also gorgeous. Having a slight suspicion that it could already be out of production, not having seen it in the DSM outlets for a while, however at the CdG store in Paris recently. Highest recommendation.

rubber and coated leather sneakers, fresh cut grass, the smell of tennis

all the associations we have with glue, rubber, newly opened whatsits! all are here. hilarious marvellous. it really feels as tho you might do some organ damage inhaling it, but not quite. that abstract flower growing in its glacial world makes it safe (and this becomes strongest over time, leaving the glue a disturbing memory). i couldn't wear it myself, but would want to get close to anyone who did, just to talk to them i think. also would buy it for the bottle alone, but can't quite afford for something i wouldn't wear ... or can i? hm.

The box is made without glue, like origami, but the smell is pure industrial adhesive. This synthetic bomb could be the next "Odeur" fragrance. CdG just as it is. Loved at first sniff.

This is one awesome fragrance. Honestly I don't think Comme des Garcons 2011 was designed to be worn, it's a fragrance for novelty purposes only. Treat it like a work of art not as a cosmetic.

Comme des Garcons 2011 smells of old-school Clag paste, a staple glue for school aged children in Australia. Not only did I use a lot of Clag paste for art and craft as a tiny tot but I must have consumed a lot too. It had a very distinctive smell, something that has been captured beautifully in this fragrance.

Once the dominant glue accord has vanished, a soapy, powdery scent emerges making Comme des Garcons 2011 somewhat wearable. A heavy dose of lilac and styrax makes this scent almost pretty and feminine.

I adore the packaging too. The bottle comes complete with bubbles imprinted into the glass, making the liquid itself appear thick and bubbly rather than fluid. I'm just in love with the quirky and unique nature of this fragrance. You really have to expect the unexpected when it comes to Comme des Garcons.

Intriguing and well worth a sniff even though you may be repelled. This is inventive, modern perfumery at its finest.

When i first smelled this I was smitten, its unabashedly synthetic and simultaneously addictive. The opening is truly art; the gluey, aldehydic olfactory blast is an experience to say the least. I was reminded of smelling permanent markers, pool toys, as well as the common connection of glue sticks and rubber cement jars. I bought a full bottle soon after and began wearing it. The opening always excites me, but as the day goes on something begins to really irk me in this fragrance. On my skin it seems like the florals amp up and the sweetness comes out and it eventually becomes very very laundry detergent-esque. Not like clothes fresh out of the wash, but like sniffing the box of powdered detergent directly, where the synthetic chemically grating facets of the aroma rear their ugly head. Its tenacity is a blessing and a sin, as it easily lasts 20 hours on me and about 17 of those are supercharged gain detergent. Its hard to formulate a definitive opinion on this seeing as how i love the opening and dislike the drydown, so I will leave this as a like. Regardless of my own personal experience with this, I have a ton of respect for the audacity it took for CDG to make such a strange scent, and I definitely could imagine some people passionately loving this, it's just not for me. Everyone should experience the opening at least once, as there really isnt anything like it in the fragrance world!

this is truly a Lilac / aldheidic/ musc fragrance. if you like lilac you know what you're going into. else no blind buy

I've tried quite a few of the Comme Des Garçons fragrances and this is definitely the most unusual one that I've come across.
In fact, this could possibly be the most unusual fragrance I've ever smelt!

I don't really get any glue or masking tape notes from this. Instead, to me, this smells just like an inflatable rubber ring (I think they're sometimes called Life Savers) or any other inflatable toys that you would use in a swimming pool.
It's so difficult to describe that smell, but if you've ever used inflatable pool toys then hopefully you'll know exactly what I mean.
It also has a slight soapy musk and floral tinge to it.

What I also find strange about this scent is that it's actually very likeable despite all the weird notes and descriptions.
I'm a big fan of CDG as a perfume house; I've introduced a few of my friends to the line and most of them have said that this is the fragrance they like the most.
I didn't expect to, but I also actually quite like the scent.
For some reason I'm just really intrigued by it. I can't put my finger on it.

I have absolutely no idea when I would use this, so I probably won't ever find myself buying a bottle (especially since it's one of the pricier CDG fragrances).
I find with most of the CDG line that their scents should just be worn whenever you feel like wearing them.
That's my favourite thing about the house actually.
Most of them are too unusual to really place into "when/where to wear" categories.

I do like this one, but it's just a little bit too unusual for me to have the guts to wear (lol!)
I know I said that people seem to like it, but I'm just not sure if I'd feel confident walking around smelling like a rubber ring.

This one is definitely worth checking out simply because of how unusual it is. It's really fascinating and there's absolutely nothing out there like it.

I am one of those odd people who enjoy the smell of hydrocarbons. Paint, glue, petrol etc all smell nice to me (not that I make a habit of smelling them).

Therefore, this bizarre and lovely perfume is right up my alley in terms of things that I enjoy the smell of. It is a complex, interesting industrial-type fragrance, with floral undertones. And the glue note really packs a punch!

Despite that, I am not sure weather I would actually want to wear this scent. It smells like the type of fragrance that would give others a headache if I were to wear it. And, as much as I love CDG perfumes, and as much as this comment feels almost blasphemous:- I don't think it's worth paying actual money to smell like glorified glue.

hmmm just got this and am not sure what to make of this yet. i blind ordered a bottle as i was so intrigued by the concept. it definitely smells as advertised, just like industrial glue and packing tape. i am not sure this would be considered a "sexy" scent. I will give it a chance and report back.

Did you guys smelled it more than 10 seconds ?
Yes it smells like masking tape and glue at the first smell, obviously... But after few minutes... Wow, just wow.

The glue and tape are yet there, but not so present, just in the background, and this is not obnoxious indeed ! It mades the floral notes, the real heart of that perfume just stronger, they enhance this delicate bouquet, which makes it not really for women. It results a floral for men, and this is really impressive !

The lilac, spicy lilac, thanks to the saffron, is really sweet and it is really a schizophrenic duet with the "indus" side. Indus vs Nature !

It could sounds weird if you just read my comment without smell it, but the lilac is just the perfect flower to mix with this industrial idea.

Great job, CdG, the most weird and unique "fashion / mainstream" house on the market, but in a pretty good way !

Yes it smells like plastic bags. No joke.

For me this smells weird and industrial, like the smell you get when you've just unboxed a new computer or mobile phone. I guess some people might want to smell like an empty electronic product box. I appreciate it on a conceptual level but it doesn't provide me with the sensory pleasure and emotional response I look for in a perfume.

Industrial glue. Stinky scotch tape. Haha... So strange this perfume is!

I just LOVE it!! Reminds me of de small balls i used to roll of the glue in crafts class :-)
It is sweet/cosy and metallic/cold at the same time!
Weird but in a nice way and sort of suitable for everyone but not really, hahaha

No shit, this does smell like industrial glue, i'll be damned if my clothes don't stick together if i spray it on me.

The smell goes between a mixture of industrial glue, (obviously) rubber tires, ink cartridges, medicines, and chemicals, it's synthetic as hell, and strangely enough i like the smell of it.

Occasions to wear this?No idea, a meeting with aliens perhaps?

I get more ink from 2011 than glue: sticky litho ink, brand-new artbook, and biro. It has a somewhat retro, 70s vibe: it reminds me of filling whole sides in exercise books with doodles that ended up embossing the paper. For some reason it also reminds me of new medical equipment. That might turn *some* people on ...

It smells like glue and masking tape. Very creative, interesting, and strangely addicting. Unfortunately, it's not something I wanna be smelled like.

this one is special indeed, the industrial glue touch is so strong and gives it a never smelled in a parfum before feeling,addictive I,d say, and I dont see it unisex but rather masculine

I have never tried anything like it. The scent combines the floral notes with a number of synthetic components and I thought that it would be difficult to wear but I was wrong. The notes fit seamlessly together creating an unusual but beautiful, fresh scent perfect for the upcoming spring. The scent is exciting and innovative. It is a wild romance of tender, natural lilacs and industrial, futuristic elements that are totally in love with each other.

I do not know how safraleine is supposed to smell but the opening smells to me fresh and a bit green with very pleasant, clean and light aldehydes. I am a big lilacs fan and I admire how the lilac note is used in this scent. I can smell lilacs right away and they continue to shine in the heart notes. There is an airy quality to the scent, a bit abstract but beautiful and spring-like. For some reason I think about being high up in the air on an hot air-balloon surrounded by the vastness of an open space and looking down at the lilacs garden. Once the freshness of heart notes passes, the dry down on my skin is totally abstract and industrial but very pleasant. It has a bit of a leather-like quality but not a strong one.

I am really impressed with this perfume. It is definitely representing a new trend in a perfumery and I admire how Comme Des Garcons managed to create such a beautiful and wearable scent with these unusual components. Overall score is 8/10 and full bottle worthy for me.

Well.. you have to hand it to them.. it really does smell like packing tape.

So, where to start? Here: Comme Des Garcons at its finest!

If you've been compelled by the most avant-garde deliveries from this house such as Odeur 71, Odeur 53, CDG for Stephen Jones, Guerrilla 1 or their Synthetic Series, you're in the right place as "Eau De Parfum (2011)" moves in the same direction of their most abstract/industrial/conceptual/ pushed-to-the limit type of stuff. All the CDG's hallmarks are here including the bottle that doesn't stand up on its own, but what it smells like?

A floral leather! Well...sort of. If this definition brings to mind of Chanel Cuir De Russie, Jolie Madame, Tabac Blond, Cuir De Lancome or Knize Ten be aware that this is nowhere similar to any of them. The rendition of the floral leather represented in "Eau De Parfum (2011)" is similar to what Kazimir Malevich achived with Suprematism in the meaning that a Suprematist is associated with a series of aerial views rendering the familiar landscape into an abstraction... In this context Eau De Parfum represents both the florals and the leather in a sort of familiar yet completely "new" way. Flowers are mechanical, industrialized, alien, stylized yet clearly flowery. The leather (achived with a considerable dose of safralaine) smells aseptic, brand new and treated but at the same time is able to provide a remarkable warmness and a touch of humanity to this robotic monster. Eau De Parfum (2011) is surely an android but with a big red and pulsating heart...and a tad of sweetness.

To all of the above you have to add something even more chemical that is what they call "Industrial Glue" and "Brown Sticky Tape". In this phase Eau De Parfums delivers exactly what he promised: the most true to life rendition of Brown Packing Tape and Bostitch Glue. Two of those type of smells that usually don't belong to body fragrances but we all still love (same as for gasoline, kerosene, steam iron, wet soil, brand new cars, tar and the likes). In this context the mastery of the perfumeur was to blend all of the above elements into a fragrance that results very wearable, comfortable and naturally plausible. Far form the typical approach we're used in traditional perfumery but nonetheless fascinating.

Wondering if this is more a smell than a proper fragrance? NOT AT ALL. The new Comme Des Garcons is a terrific perfume, modern yet extremely solid, very distinctive, versatile and easy to wear but it's surely not for everybody. Personally I've never smelled something like it. Lasting power is very good as well as projection.

Since 1994 Comme Des Garcons is confirmed to be the reference house for avant-gard, innovative and futuristic compositions (not to talk about their fashion collections) and after almost two decades we're so glad to discover that they still have a lot to add on the table. Kudos!

One more consideration:

One of the most common concerns when Comme Des Garcons announced the launch of this fragrance was the presence of safralaine (an aromachemical that smells somewhere between saffron and leather) that was previously included in their 8.88 with a disastrous result. Let me reassure everybody saying that the new Eau De Parfum shares absolutely no similarities with 8.88. The safralaine here is very well blended, never overdone or too prominent and used mainly to provide a leathery feel.

Rating: 8.5-9/10