Giorgio Armani launched the Armani Privé quartet in late 2004. It is the line's first entry into the high end luxury fragrance market, and the perfumes have the packaging and price tag to match. According to Armani,
I wanted the perfumes to be close to the way perfumes were made in the past - just me working with perfumers to find fragrances that I believed in and liked, with no limit on the price of raw materials. (quoted in The Independent, 1/22/05)
Pierre de Lune, also known as Moonstone, features violet, green notes, cassie flower, iris and belambre, a synthetic with a woody-ambery odor. It starts, as promised, with sweet violet tinged with green notes. Once that calms, the cassie takes the stage, and it remains prominent through the dry down. Cassie is not my favorite floral note, but despite that, I found Pierre de Lune to be the most interesting of the four perfumes. It is also noticeably the most feminine.
The belambre provides a diffusive, almost fizzy quality to the early stages; later, it gets warmer and softer, and the iris lends a velvety, lightly powdered finish. There is a hint of something lightly candied in the base, but it is not an overly sweet fragrance. Very much worth a try, especially for those fond of cassie flower.
Ambre Soie has notes of ginger, cinnamon, clove, cedar, patchouli and amber. The top notes are lovely: deep, rich and resinous, with a hefty kick from the spices and a creamy, melt-in-your-mouth sort of finish. As the top notes fade, it gets thinner and more transparent, and the spices become rather subdued; not being a huge amber fan, I rather lost interest.
It is easily the most gourmand of the four, but it is nothing like as foody-rich as Hermès Ambre Narguile, nor is it as long lasting. I read somewhere that Bois d'Encens is the biggest seller of the line; if I had to guess, I'd pick Ambre Soie as the next most popular, but it was my least favorite of the four.
The fragrances are $185 for 50 ml — twice as expensive as the Hermessence line. Ouch. They are nicely done, but to my mind, they are not twice as nice as the Hermessences, in fact, if offered the choice, I'd take the Hermessences. And, sadly, there is nothing like the Hermès Discovery set that would allow you to buy small quantities of each, although if money is no object, there is a gift set of full-sized bottles for $740.
They are beautifully packaged in square glass bottles with an outer casing made of Kotibe wood. For buying information, see the listing for Armani under Perfume Houses.
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R., I've only tried Ambre Soie and Bois d'Encens, but I agree that they are not twice as nice or at all nicer than Hermessences. I am curious to try Pierre de Lune, but I know that since it has cassie and violet, it will most probably not be nice on me.
I love the bottles but think I'll pass on these. Thanks for the review, Robin!
I've smelled these, and liked them all – and would have snapped them up in a second if they'd been priced less ambitiously. I was only able to smell them via glass tubes that dispensed a brief spray – nothing I could actually get on skin; I would like to try them on skin before I'd allow myself to even think of developing a lemming! The Ambre Soie was not my favourite – odd, considering what an amber fan I am.
M, I think you would find the PdL interesting even if you didn't like it. I like Bois d'Encens better, but the PdL is very nicely done, and more complex than the BdE.
The bottles really are striking. They weren't as heavy as I expected, but still, very nicely done.
N, the NY Barneys was giving out (not freely, mind you) nicely boxed sample sprays, at least for that. “Ambitiously priced” is exactly right.
The Pierre de Lune was my least favourite of the 'quads'. It just seemed to quite 'ordinary'.
The Ambre Soie, to my nose seemed to be a clone of Victoire Gobin-Daude's Jardins Ottoman.
My favourite was the Encens.
B, the Encens is my favorite too, and the only one I find at all full-bottle-worthy. But I still think the PdL is more “interesting”, whatever that means 🙂
And think Jardins Ottomans is much nicer than the Ambre Soie.
Yes, Robin, I think you are correct about Jardins being better. I just had a sniff of my sample of Ambre Soie.
Interesting…Mmmmm, that usually leads to really liking…LOL!
I love Ambre Soie but I agree that it's not long-lasting. If it hadn't come in such a SICK bottle I wouldn't have purchased it. Damn, I love those bottles.
Robin — displaying massive ignorance — is cassie flower, farnesiana, and mimosa the same? Is this the same top note in Caron Farnesiana? (Which I've also not smelled.) Can you take a stab at describing it? Thanks.
Robin, I keep asking my brain to come up with the smell of mimosa, and it keeps obliging with: champagne and orange juice. (although that IS a nice smell…)
LOL — you'll own a bottle before you know it!
K, the packaging really is cool. What I failed to pay attention to was the stones — what are they? Are they plastic?
M, I'm no expert on the subject either. Some sites say that cassie is the same as acacia farnesiana, others say no, botanically they are not the same thing. “Cassie absolute”, as used in perfumery however, I think is usually from acacia farnesiana.
The term mimosa does seem to be sometimes used interchangeably with cassie, but botanically, they are related but not the same.
But the smell has nothing to do with champagne & orange juice. It is a deep, sweet floral smell, with sort of green herbal undertones, warm rather than bright, often powdery. It is so hard to describe floral smells! But I think of it, along with mimosa, as an acquired taste that I have not yet acquired.
I agree that the scents are truly not twice as lovely as the Hermessences, but, for me, the bottles are what make that price at least partially justifiable…jumping through hoops here to try to justify Bois d' Encens purchase. I'm an amber lover and was initially bitterly disappointed w/ Ambre Soie. Found it to be *way* too light and transparent, but the anise note in it intrigued me and then I discovered it layers gorgeously w/ Bois d' Encens and I was hooked. Don't think I could spring for a full bottle, but if money was not an object (please Santa, let that be my gift – money no longer being an object), I'd certainly get it.
Ah, must try them layered. The Bois d'Encens is my favorite of the 4, but I am not much of a bottle person — I like a pretty bottle, but generally am not willing to spend extra $$ to get one.
Hoping Santa will give me that same gift, LOL, and then maybe I'll change my tune about pretty bottles 😉
Robin, I totally agree that Pierre de Lune is by far the most interesting. I nearly fell on the floor when I heard the price at Nordstorom's perfumery last year, but the memory of that scent gnawed away at me until I succumbed and returned to buy it. I did hold out for a week. Almost.
Lately, I'm using Bois d'Encens more that anything else in my collection and I've totally lost interest in PdL. Such is the fickle nature of my affliction.
Robin, just kidding about champagne and oj 😉 but my vague recollection of mimosa is of a strong, sweet, tropical white flower, probably not my thing. Looking forward to your review of the Incense, the only one I've smelled.
K, Ack — hope you will fall back in love with PdL, it is far too expensive to use as a room spray! But it is true that the Bois d'Encens is more wearable, and more loveable in general. I was not at all surprised to read that it is the top seller.
I'll start wearing it again in the spring I imagine. The box and bottle is not only pleasing to the eye, I think it will help preserve the perfume until then.
R, I only smelled PdL on a paper stripe & it reminded me very much of Calypso Mimosa, very soft & almost clean.
Ambre Soie was very long lasting on my skin & very (too) strong for my liking. I found it to be very masculine & well, just “too much” for me.
Bois d´Encens kind of reminded me of an even stronger Ambre Soie version. I´m not into incense fragrances – I don´t want to smell like a church, but feel like that every time I test an incense scent – , so it wasn´t my favourite of the line. (I don´t have a favourite at all.)
I think the fragrances cannot compared to the more wearable Hermessence collection which I – like you – prefer.
But in my opinion the Armani Privé collection is also very well composed & perhaps I´ll like the scents more the longer I test them. At the moment I don´t feel attracted enough to purchase one of them – which isn´t a pity regarding the prices 😉
S, The Bois d'Encens is my favorite of the 4, but if you don't want to smell like a church, it isn't going to work for you! Surprised you found the Ambre Soie so strong — after 20 minutes I found it very thin.
But would be way more excited about these if they were half the price!
Robin, does Pierre de Lune remind you of Apres L'ondee? To me, it almost smells like a duplicate. What do you think?
Well, I am a big amber fan, and the Amber in this line, is, to my thinking, considerably better than the Hermessence. In fact, I didn't like the Ambre Narguile enough to buy any, preferring the Rose scent in the Hermessences. This is a great holiday scent. Warm, deep, sweet and gourmand. Feels like Christmas. Generally, too, I've found that amber scents are my husband's next choice to the vanilla scentrs, another reason why Ambre Soie is, for me, eminently wearable.
I spent many years in the South of France, where the yellow mimosa used in perfumery is grown and it's the scent that transports me back there whenever I encounter it, which isn't very often. The scent of mimosa is everywhere along the coast (from St Tropez to Menton) in February/March.
The *only* mimosa scent that is true to the real thing is the Diptyque one (the home fragrance). So if you want to remind yourself of what it smells like try to sniff that one, b/c it's really the best. Mimosa is both strong and delicate, sweet and green, and powdery. It's impossible to compare it to anything else: it's totally unique. It's not a tropical white flower scent at all.
PS. I'm really sad when I read about people who say they don't like the smell of mimosa. Most of the time it's because they've never had occasion to smell the flower itself and only have knowledge of bad perfume rendition.
C, honestly, would never have thought of the 2 together. Will have to try that out!
B, It is certainly less sweet than the AN, so I can see why a real amber lover might prefer it. As you know I am not an amber lover so what do I know 😉
J, Thanks for commenting — I'll have to look for that Diptyque. If I've ever smelled the real thing, I have no memory of it.
I have Ambre Soie, Bois d'Encens and Eau de Jade. I found the Pierre de Lune barely smelled of anything at all, so I didn't buy it. Of the 3 I have, I love Bois d'Encens most, but enjoy them all. Have heard there will be a 5th, Amethyst coming out, any truth to that rumor?
T, 3 bottles, good for you!
I am so surprised about the PdL, I found it the strongest of the 4.
Hear the same rumor about Amethyst, but that is all I know!
We now have an Armani stand at Saks here in San Diego, so I spritzed PdL again last night, and got the same effect – slight floral alcohol smell for about 10 minutes and then nothing. Very bizarre! I guess it must not register in my nose or something.
Some sort of selective anosmia then? Could be to the cassie but guessing it is the belambre stuff.
Armani Prive Pierre de Lune
is the closest perfumery ever came to what I have to smell like!
If I were allowed to have only one bottle of perfume – would be it!
But since it costs all 310$ here I'm desperate…
It is shame how expensive these are!! Hope you will manage to snag a bottle eventually.
It sounds so wild that anyone could never smell mimosa!
In our country there is a tradition to celebrate begining of spring with these flowers: to present them to our women or just buy and put in the vase in the house.
Mimosa is one of my favourite scents!
It's sweet and fresh with greeny notes! Like the melody of spring itself. 🙂