Discovering Old Favorites and Chanel Bel Respiro Review

Over the past summer and most of the fall, I have neglected some old favorites. Summer was very, very hot and humid and the only perfume that I loved that seemed to work was Chanel no. 19. When I heard that there was a good chance that Chanel no. 5 would be reformulated and the EDP was a limited edition, I became hyper focused on that. Then, I fell in love with Mitsouko after two years (?) of trying to understand her.

In that time, I neglected Cuir de Russie. I had forgotten how plush and how good Cuir de Russie was. Holy cow, does Deneuve in parfum form smell wonderful. I am thinking of wearing Sycomore due to the fact that I have not worn it in over a year and can't remember what that smells like.

I've been lolly gagging on writing a perfume review especially one that I've worn off and on for the past couple months. I got a 5ml decant of this late spring or early summer and worn it a few times without reviewing. I think that it took me so long to review is because I didn't know what to make of it. At first, I got pencil shavings that takes me back to grade school pencil sharpeners. The type of pencil sharpener that was mounted to a table and had to be hand cranked. I don't know if they still have those type of pencil sharpeners or any type of pencil sharpeners. After a couple minutes, the herbs come out to play but still the pencil shavings are dominant. After 15 minutes, Bel Respiro becomes a generic masculine. There are many masculines out there and many of them are inexpensive. It's sad to say that after an interesting start, it falls into the category of generic masculine. What I did notice, is for an EDT, the staying power is really poor. This is sad because more often than not, Chanel EDT's last on my skin.