Je Ne Sais Quoi

Incredibly gourmand. Like sticking your head straight into a bag of dry dusty rice.

A very unique and delicious gourmand. This smells like a vanillic puffed rice treat, served in a tea house that specializes in matcha lattes, but also serves green tea and warm citrus drinks. It's very sweet, but also quite green and refreshing in the opening, thanks to the violet leaf. The note is dewy and leafy here, not harshly ozonic as it can sometimes be. I read some reviews that said it smelled like popcorn, and while I see where they are coming from, the rice note is distinctive enough to my nose to make me think of puffed rice and not popcorn. There is also something creamy and nutty in this that reminds me of almonds and pistachios, so it amplifies the milky gourmand effect. As the fragrance dries down, it becomes a little darker and woodsier. Vetiver and guaijac wood don't take center stage, but they show up behind the sweet rice treat and tea. Je Ne Sais Quoi is surprisingly strong and loud, don't expect a soft green tea scent like Margiela's Tea Escape. They are two opposite sides of the same wonderful coin, with some similar notes styled quite differently.

This is a comforting nutty rice and matcha scent with lots of sweetness. The opening is both aromatic and lactonic in its creaminess. The rice note is similar to that in Diptyque’s l’eau papier, though that one is muskier and this one leans sweeter. I almost get the scent of sesame. Je ne Sais Quoi swiftly becomes a skin scent so for this reason in combination with its cosy profile this would make a nice fragrance for wearing round the house or even for bed time.

A cup of hot, creamy, delicious matcha tea with milk. This is so good! now I regret I only got a 30ml.......

What a well-named fragrance! I sprayed my sample, sniffed, pondered, sniffed some more, and said to myself out loud, "What is that?" I didn't know what. My first-impression notes read: "Wheaty? Woody? Sort of fresh? Like sweet-grassy-wheat-powder." I was less far-off than I expected to be, at least! I really love the rice note here, for it's mellow sweet/savory element. In combination with the matcha and balsam, you get a warm, starchy, slightly malty scent, with a subtle, mulchy-sweet greenness to it like swampy vanilla (but, you know, a nice swamp). It's dryer and more powdery than I would personally prefer, but that's my dislike of dry-powder scents talking. Overall I find this very unique and captivating. It smells wholesome, soothing, and pleasantly mild. It smells like raking leaves in the afternoon; then curling up on the couch with a bowl of lite-butter popcorn, a mug of vanilla steamed milk, and one of your favorite comfort movies in the evening; then turning in early for a good night's sleep.