Eau Santal by Montagne

Sandalwood is perhaps the most mis-understood of all scents, it’s strong but can be turned into a deceptively simple fragrance, in the case of Eau Santal, an interpretation of Le Labo’s Santal 33, Montagne goes in your face…and it goes in early! What do I mean by that? When you first wear this I would describe it with one word: prehistoric. Let me tell you why, if you’ve never smelled Santal 33, be prepared for a strong fragrance….let me rephrase that, be prepared for a really-strong fragrance!, its woody, it’s dry, it’s spicy, when I use the word prehistoric its because this is what I imagine opening up a bark of a tree that’s been sitting for hundreds of years smell like, it’s that earthy. People use the word “pungent” to describe certain frags, I would use this word with one caveat…pungent implies it smells bad, in this case, this is pungent because it’s sharp and strong, do not expect a soft “woody” scent that sits on your skin, expect a slap of wood on the opening, but, that sharpness is tone down by something…that’s where the bergamot and the mandarin come into place, it makes the fragrance airy and removes some of the heaviness you expect from such a woody frag. I

The dry down of this scent is all about wood and what I can only describe as “old paper”, its very strong yet the spicy tones down and what you get instead is this lovely sandalwood that is not tamed but perhaps its willing to share the spotlight with the other ingredients, it goes from prehistoric to civilized by bringing in the cardamon, the amber, the iris that provides just a touch of the powdery feel that makes it pop on your skin. It sits lovely on your skin and provides hours of a scent bubble, I don’t apply cologne to my shirts but I imagine putting this on your shirt will mean you can smell it all day!

Now, how does this compare to the original and to competitors?: I determined that I needed to compare this against Le Labo’s original fragrance and compare it against at least one of the famous “clone houses”,  I decided to use Alexandria Fragrance’s Santal’s Kiss for this purpose. How did I conduct my test…it literally took me three days! I used Eau Santal by itself on Day 1 as I wanted to understand how this fragrance conducted itself when playing solo, wore LeLabo and Santal 33 on each arm on Day 2 and then on Day 3, I compared Eau Santal to Santal’s Kiss by doing the same test. All 3 days included me going to the office and working for around 9 hours, all while taking notes on my handy notebook!

How does it compare against Santal 33?

I’ve got to be honest, my nose is not specific enough for me to say that this is 93% close or some random number like that, I did a test however, the day I wore it solo, I went to Nordstrom (I needed to sample something else), the lady asked me what I was wearing, I gave her my arm to smell, she said “Santal 33 I see, nice”.  If you ask me how close it is, I would say…. I could not identify one versus the other if blind testing.  Now, let’s be honest, when I wore Santal 33 and Montagne on different arms, I could tell a difference, Santal 33 smelled “cleaner” but not enough for me to be able to say how different which means it’s extremely close. I think Santal 33 has more cardamon if I were to identify anything different.

How does it compare with Alexandria Fragrance’s Santal’s Kiss?

I hate to say this because I used to like Santal’s Kiss a ton…but, Montagne’s is a bit more airy and therefore closer to the original, the dry down of Montagne does not sit heavy on your skin,  I can detect the amber and the musk more, that makes a big difference, this fragrance is meant to be Eau de Parfum, not extrait, and Montagne made that right!

How does it perform?

In one word? Epic. I put 2 sprays on my chest, one on each arm bend, …that lasted 14 hours! At hour 14, I showered and I could still smell it! The projection was at least 3 feet for the first 2 hours. This is what beast mode gets defined as! Now, this is a strong scent so be careful, if you are taking public transportation and you just applied it…you might get the stink eye from someone because the projection is beastly! Beastly!

Conclusion

There’s a simple formula here…..price vs performance, do you go with the original or do you go with the inspired expression? Montagne is the winner, hands down. The price of this bottle versus what you get is simply ridiculous, Santal 33 is extremely expensive and I tell you, unless you have both bottles and try them side by side, you will not be able to tell one from the other, if you wear this to a party…and someone knows Santal 33, the’ll talk to you about it. Amazing and highly recommended.