Lavender is one of my favorite notes and I’ve been looking at adding another lavender-forward fragrance to my collection. Initio Rehab was a near miss (I like it a lot but there’s something just a bit cloying about that one) and I’ve kind of always wanted one of those awesome spikey BIR bottles, so tonight I’m battling the new Purple Melancholia vs Extradose to see if one or both are FBW. Purple Melancholia opens with a wave of smooth, creamy, lightly sweet lavender. There’s definitely some warmth and richness here from the cardamom, and faint creaminess coming from coconut. It’s not a sunscreen coconut, think a can of thick coconut milk or a coconut creme pie, and even then it’s not super coconutty. I don’t typically like coconut in fragrances but it works beautifully here. This scent is very familiar - I worked through a decant of the similarly creamy lavender BIR Ivory a few months ago, and this one feels like they replaced the smokiness with cardamom and somehow made the lavender a bit smoother. Projection was ok - I had to lean in to about 1’ to get it, but it was pushing off strong in that range. I’d say it’s pretty linear for about 3-4 hours, after which it starts to turn into an ambery lightly vanillic with a touch of lavender skin scent. 8 hours into the wear and I could still pick up faint traces of it. I think this can be worn all year aside from the peak of summer, with the cardamom warmth carrying it in cooler months but the light aromatics and coconut creaminess working in slightly warmer months. Extradose lives up to its name - it opens with an explosion of sweet lavender. There’s definitely some spice thrown in here - like maybe a touch of cloves or something - but the sweet lavender is the star of this show. The lavender here is a bit sharper, like maybe the flowers aren’t quite fully grown yet or you’re getting some of the bitter green stem - it’s definitely not as smooth as Purple Melancholia. But that’s ok - the lavender here is unapologetically in your face and is clearly the star of the show. It’s also pretty linear, projecting a bit more than PM, like maybe 1.5’-2’ for 3-4 hours, then settling into a similar lightly sweet and aromatic but slightly more woody and ambery skin scent. It’s also a bit longer lasting than PM — 10 hours later and I can still faintly pick this up. Even though it doesn’t have the cardamom of PM, this one somehow comes off thicker and heavier, and I don’t think it would be as good a choice in the late spring and early fall - but it’s just luscious in cool weather.

Tested this fragrance yesterday, and here is my review based on one full wear. The opening is a blast of nutmeg and pepper. At 15 minutes I am picking up some of the sweetness from the Orange note, alongside some of the spiciness from the Pepper. At 30 minutes the transition to the heart of this fragrance is amazing. Sweetness and muskiness coming from the Labdanum but still a tinge of spiciness remaining from the opening. At 60 minutes into the wear the sweetness from the Amber and Labdanum is the predominant accord with a warm richness coming from the Tobacco. The dry down of this fragrance is just as good as the EDP; if not better. Sweetness from the Amber alongside a rich and warm Tobacco scent that provides a hint of pungency. Then add just a hint of woodiness coming from the Vetiver. The scent profile from this fragrance is excellent. Performance: Projection of his fragrance is OK, with it creating a scent bubble of about 18” for about 2 hours. Sillage is also OK with the fragrance creating a scent trail of about 2 feet for about 2hours. Unfortunately, on my skin the Longevity of this fragrance is not much better than the EDP. I was able to get about 5+ hours of wear with the fragrance becoming a skin scent about 2.5 hours into the wear. This is slightly better from the EDP where I get about 4 hours of wear. That being said, if this is going to be a date night fragrance, then it does the job. To me getting 5 hours out of the wear is fine and I am happy that I picked up the bottle. IMO, owning both the EDP and the Parfum can be redundant, unless you are collecting the line.