Songes

I bought a sample of this as I'm on the quest for the perfect frangipani/plumeria scent. This is close, but no cigar. However, I do still like this. The problem is that I only get the frangipani from this after about an hour of wear. Before that, it's just very sweet ylang-ylang and a mish-mash of solar florals. It's also extremely strong, almost headache-inducing, at first, but then barely lasts 3 hrs total on skin. It does smell very high-quality though, lacks the screechiness of synthetic florals.

Nice mixed floral but, alas, nothing too arresting or interesting to my nose. I say this with some trepidation as I see Songes is from the 2000s, but I think there have been more interesting mixed white/yellow florals before and since. To my nose, Songes smells like the florals of Musc Tonkin (Parfum d'Empire) plucked out and beautified, with much of the animalic skank removed. There's a touch of cumin in Songes, and the overall sensation is warm, floral, tropical and heavy. Yet, I think in the absence of woods, animalics, moss, even musks etc., Songes ends up a little formless - a Gaussian blur of frangipani flowers which opens, lives, and dies on the skin rather monotonously. Pretty, but not evocative.

i feel what most may find difficult with this is that its animalic, devoid of citrus and coconut, no saltiness evoking sunscreen or watery undertones . its Floral it smells very white and yellow, sweet warm polleny nuances throughout, but in the opening scent every flower indolic even the tiare which is rarely showcased in this way . the sweetness from the plumeria and vanilla carry out mid-wear till the end, and the subtle spicy amber makes an appearance but not so glaringly like the EDP would . the ylang is on 10 and begins almost rubbery until it mellows out along with the other flowers its honestly so serene but a bit chaotic, as much as id love to i cant wear it everyday despite it being a very “me” scent

I love Songes. But of course I do, because I love jasmine. I have jasmine growing in my backyard and during the late spring and early summer you can find me near it more often than not as I take in its gorgeous scent one breath after another. Songes is the jasmine I know and love dialed up to Spinal Tap 11. But this isn’t rock n roll. This is the sound of a rich and emotional bossa nova ballad played by a guitarrista infected with saudade during a languid afternoon while you lay on a hammock in the tropics, heat and humidity kissing skin balmed by the occasional breeze, perfectly ripe tropical fruit in a bowl next to you for snacking letting loose the fragrance of its oils and sugars and juices into the air, the smell of your high quality tanning lotion occasionally making its way to your olfactory receptors. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, like a breeze all of their own perhaps from along the tropical forest tree line or the well-tended garden of your resort: jasmine, frangipani, and ylang-ylang. The smell is intoxicating to the point you almost cannot stand it. The crafted cocktail in your hand has nothing on the effects created by this fragrance on the breeze. As I smell it now for who-knows-what-number time, it still makes me weak at the knees, a sigh and moan leave my chest, eyes roll to the back of my head, a tingle spreads down my scalp and up my back - sorry, this is getting inappropriate isn’t it? Ok, switching gears, on to the technical stuff. Songes is a lot like No. 5. Songes is very obviously a jasmine evocation, white and musky floral with many dimensions, but the frangipani and the ylang ylang have a lot to say too, making this a floral amalgam much in the way No. 5, Joy, Arpege, and all of those other classics are that have won our hearts and noses. Speaking of Patou, this reminds me a lot of Chaldee. Songes wouldn’t be Songes without the frangipani with its white, rich, sweet, coconut fragrance that is certainly present at a Spinal Tap 11; without the ylang-ylang with it’s yellow, banana and tropical fruit and citrusy notes; without the richness of the vanilla, cinnamon, or musks bringing an extra layer of sweetness, animalic purr, and earthy depth that makes the perfume feel like a beautiful caress that goes on forever. Sorry, never mind, I’m incapable of doing an objective analysis of this. It’s too good for me to give a damn about that. Excuse me while I go melt into a hammock in a tropical flower garden.

One of my favourite scents and a great performer. It immediately drowns you in an avalanche of tropical flowers. Tiare is the most prominent on me, then ylang-ylang, frangipani and jasmine. Vanilla enhances them in a great way. Depending on the season and time it can juggle the dominant flowers. One summer evening it was all about jasmine! It is strong, but I feel good in it. It feels natural. It lasts all day. The flowers are full of sunshine, full-bodied, slightly waxy with powdery facets at times. They are seductive, irresistible, a narcotic blend. I even have a backup, it is too good to be without it and I reach for it often. It is the best Goutal and it has something different for every season. I enjoy it in winter and in summer alike. But it is a free time blend. Bottled sunshine and gorgeous floral vegetation.

I sampled this hoping for the ultimate tropical floral, but this is slightly too heavy for me, I do think it has a powdery quality, and perhaps slightly too intoxicating. Very banana-like, and the mix between vanilla and white florals is gorgeously done, but not for me.

I have the VINTAGE bottle and No way does it smell like POWDER .

Fresh floral, then powdery sweet floral (ylang that is kind of banana/cloying and jasmin in the background) ends with powdery vanilla.

Smells like Halston. My grandmother used to wear it, so I may be biased, but it has an “old lady” powdery smell to me for sure. Very strong and mentholated.

(review of the older bottle/formulation, liquid inside is red) This one is like a soft cloud of sweet tropical flowers following you wherever you go. I get none of the skank/animalic notes describes in some comments. None. To me this fragrance is just delicious vanilla and tropical flowers. And well done tropical flowers. I cannot compare with the real thing (I'm not from a tropical region) but it smells pretty natural to my nose. It has better staying power than other Goutal fragrances and last hours on my skin even during hot Summer days. Last all day in my hair. There's one comment below comparing this one to CSP Aloha Tiare and I must admit that both are quite similar this is true. I find Songes to be softer and sweeter than CSP AT though and this might be the reason why it has better reviews (?). I do like CSP AT but find it too strong for day to day wear. This is not the case of Songes at all. For example I wear Songes to go to the office but I would not wear Aloha Tiare. I now cherish my little vintage bottle of Songes :)

Songes by Goutal is a masterpiece in execution and each note blends perfectly together, giving me an undulating bouquet of tropical white and yellow flowers that unfurls and blossoms on my skin as it opens. A slightly latexy and sweet frangipani is the most noticeable on my skin, followed by the buttery and oily ylang ylang, the slightly heady jasmine and the frutiy tiare flower. I only get a hint of sensual and almost gourmand vanilla in the base. It reminds me of what would happen if both Terracotta by Guerlain and A Chant For The Nymph by Gucci had a love child... it would most likely smell like Songes. Songes is less sweet than A Chant For The Nymph, but sweeter than Terracotta. I can imagine wearing this equally both for work or on vacation, since it is very tropical but still ladylike. It has a certain reserved quality about it that is still flirty and yet sweet, like something made for Ariel from the Little Mermaid. Very beachy and enchanting. I think that you could wear it anytime, except during winter. Sillage was about moderate, but the longevity on my skin was only barely so. I only got 4 hours wear time all up on my skin, which was slightly dissapointing for me. I was lucky to get it for only $45 AUD though as a set of ten 1.75ml vials from a seller on Ebay... basically an entire small perfume for very cheap! Considering everything above, I'd give Songes an 8 out of 10. It has brilliant execution and the ingredients are of an incredible quality, but it just needs more staying power. It also can't compete with my beloved Terracotta... Terracotta is still the queen bee of tropical white and/or yellow floral scents for me!

Songes EDT is on par with Ylang Ylang Nose Be by Perris Monte Carlo as the best Ylang Ylang fragrance from my collection! Two absolutely memorable perfumes for this scent profile! A couple of summers ago I fell hard in love with the note of ylang ylang. I am not quite sure if I recovered because to my nose, there’s no flower that smells more divine and heavenly than ylang ylang. Lilacs included in this comparison. It was one of Demi Rawling’s videos where she was talking about Perris Monte Carlo’s scent what made me want to get my nose on perfumes featuring heavily this tropical flower. Songes was a very happy discovery, blind buy to be more precise, when an online retailer decided to reduce all Goutal’s perfumes for half off on their website. The rest is history, I cannot explain in words how beautiful this perfume is! As soon as I sprayed it on my skin I was instantly hooked on Songes. The ylang ylang note is paired here with another loves of mine, frangipani and tiare flower. A dream come true for tropical floral lovers. The jasmine note is not a stand out note in Songes. But the creamy, sweet, gourmand vanilla is perfectly blended with the flowers and creates one of the most intoxicating and addictive tropical florals scents I’ve smelled in my entire existence! If only I would have known how gorgeous Songes EDT is, I would have bought three bottles for half price off to have it for the rest of my life! For an EDT it’s not a bad performing scent. Projects strong for the first hour and last for days on clothing!

I have the older packaging. I wanted to love this so badly, but I just can't. I get so much of the jasmine and so little of the other florals. It's just a slightly dated, lotiony, vanillic jasmine on my skin. Still hoping I'll come around and get to see it's beauty.

This smells delicious and tropical to me without that coconut note I absolutely love and adore this fragrance took me ages to track another bottle and found that the goutal website delivers to the uk and has this fragrance still this fragrance is a stunner and I have never smelled anything similar to it it’s just delicious 🤤

There's something dirty at the opening. Stinky. However, the perfume dries down to a scent of clean laundry after maybe half an hour. I'm not understanding the hype. IMO there are better white florals and better jasmines out there.

This is an old-school perfumey perfume. I think it's the ylang. It's lovely in a sort of heavier way than current styles. For me, this will be a date night type scent. I'm a huge fan of pretty much everything Goutal releases so I'm glad to have this one in my wardrobe, even if I don't find it as everyday-wearable as my favorites.

If you’re looking for a tropical flower scent without coconut, this would be my pick - though kind of by default. I like that in this I can finally get a sense of what tropical flowers smell like without being buried under standard white florals or distracting coconut. That being said, it’s a bit flat. I wish I could find a tropical flower dominated scent that’s balanced with some strong basenotes and a just slightly perceptible citrus. I definitely like Songes better than NR Ambree though. I’d be happy to pass along my sample for just the cost of shipping or work out a deal for a batch of different samples.

I smell like I just dusted myself with tropical flower powder. There is an effervescent quality to the fragrance that lifts it off of my skin and diperses the powder. It keeps the florals nicely tucked so that it never becomes cloying. I notice the spices mostly in the opening. I don’t notice them much in the drydown as the florals occupy most of my attention. It is all held together with a beautiful creamy vanilla. I love Songes EDT. I love wearing it in the spring and summer. I couldn't say which flower dominates. It is all so beautifully blended. It is a tropical floral without any hint of coconut or sunscreen. The longevity is great for an EDT and lasts for over four hours on my skin. The production date on my first bottle is 2019. I’ve already purchased my back up bottle. I don’t want to be without it.

I unfortunately ended up with EdT instead of EdP and I'm not sure how to feel about this fragrance. I like the unexpected cumin note. Some people will find it gross, but it's very sexy to me, and after this perfume has dried down sufficiently, it's fine. Unfortunately, that takes hours or days. What I can't really get behind here is a strange synthetic plasticky note. It's a sickly sweet plastic smell. I get a very nice quality jasmine, but something underneath is just not working. In general this perfume is too sweet for me. Somehow it's just overwhelming. Maybe it's too warm and humid where I live trying to test this. Maybe you need to barely apply it, but even a single spray is too intense. I'm not usually one to complain about a fragrance being strong, but I guess something here is just too solid and cloying for me. Maybe my bottle is off. It is an older bottle, not like the one pictured here. I had read that the EdT is more floral and "green" or "fresh," but there is absolutely nothing fresh or green here. It's like the most decadent dessert ever, very dense. I can't imagine how much richer the EdP must be.

I am so confused by this. I really love it but I never like straightforward heavier feminine florals like this. This has a very subtlecumin spice base that gives the vanilla and floral a dry warmth. I would say this is a Floral Amber more than a white flower scent as it does not have the sharpness of many WF and the yellow flower note is strong. Very rich creamy creamy floral with soft powdery amber base. Surprisingly, light enough for warm weather and not overly sweet but not a casual scent. Mature?? Not sure

Yet another heartbreak. My original bottle was purchased by Annick Goutal. Now, they have changed the website to Goutal Paris. They have changed the bottles. They have changed the descriptions. Before, the descriptions were long and detailed, almost poetic, now it is just a short retail blurb, not a mention of Annick Goutal, has she been scrubbed from the website? The beloved original scent has been lost forever. The original Songes was the stuff of lovely dreams, just as the name implies. It lasted hours, and even longer on some fabrics. To me, notes in the opening through to the dry down depended on how close the nose is to the fragrance. The jasmine might have called to you from afar, but when you approach, the frangipani is what you find up close, and a hint of vanilla, and on and on, warm and sometimes heady. At times, it is just a little too much for the wearer, but to the person experiencing it on someone else, it is enticing and alluring, magical. At least, that is how my man describes it. Each time your olfactory ponders, you find as many questions as answers. It is truly dreamlike, always fleeting, changing, whispering. But now, what is the pale juice in this redesigned bottle? Is it the same? I sincerely doubt it. There is no such thing as a signature scent, unless you buy a hundred bottles at the same time, and guard them for life. Reformulations make people buy new perfumes. They don't want us to have loyalty to one scent. So, they reformulate and force us to buy a dupe of the scent, or something "close", something "new". They've taken an art form and turned into a quick turnover profit. I will enjoy the rest of my bottle. I will search for original bottles. I will mourn when it is gone.

Very floral and sweet fragrance, beautifully made. The frangipani and jasmine are so well blended, it smells like a really pretty bouquet. This is the type of perfume you use when you're dressed to the nines. Long lasting and amazing sillage, it's a worthwhile purchase.

When I smelt this on a testing paper , it was a beautiful floral that I was so excited to try on my skin. Opposite effect on my skin , such intense , animalic florals that speaks to me of mature ladies that overspray and could be suffocating . I blind bought Annick Goutal’s in Martin Orage and Gardenia and didn’t like the perfumes at all. Maybe it’s my skin but they all seem to have the decaying flowers scent happening and it’s projection is enormous ! I’ll steer clear away from this perfume house from now on .

I have an older bottle formulation if anyone is interested. NIB. I was looking for a perfume similar to vintage Chantecaille Frangipane and unfortunately this is not it for me. Edit-sold it and no more blind buying! Yeah right.

This is definitely the most expensive smelling fragrance in my collection. The main note to me is the frangipani, but with the ylang ylang it becomes sweet and soooo cozy. Mind you this is not sweet in an edible, gourmand way. Rather it is sweet in a warm, floral way. However, despite feeling warmth from this scent this is a nighttime fragrance to me, like a warm night at a Hawaiian beachside bungalow with the windows open to the wonderful flowers outside. I think the name Songes is so appropriate for this because this scent is hazy and dreamlike!

So they updated all the bottles and listings ? So all the old reviews below- are for the older formulas ? OK.......

Just. Wow. This is the perfect tropical floral! No faffing about with coconuts and sunscreens and pina coladas. This one means business. Solar frangipani, ylang ylang, jasmine and indoles galore. Don't let the indoles scare you away! They are kept entirely classy. They simply give the perfume a bold, old-school aura. I can see the resemblance with Terracotta, but whereas Terracotta is cute, this one is glamorous. If you want to be an exotic boss b*tch, then you need this in your life.

It smells like one delicious, sweet beautiful flower. I don't know which one, some perfect dream made of tiara, jasmine and frangipani. One perfect flower. A simple and beautiful perfume. EDIT: I remembered what a flower reminded me of! On that little pink carnation, short and tiny. Beautiful, creamy, fairytale. Yes !!! it's that perfect scent :)))) So, so, so natural, one perfect flower!

Not sure what happened. Initially, I LOVED Songes EDT so much I hunted down the EDP. Then, I started to notice the cumin note more, which is for some reason not listed on Fragrantica, and now it is overpowering the gorgeous notes that ARE listed. Here are the notes according to the official Goutal website: Frangipani flower, Tiare flower, Sambac Jasmine, Ylang-ylang absolute, Bourbon Vanilla over-absolute, Benzoin, Patchouli, spices (cinnamon, cumin, black pepper). By the time the cumin has let up on my skin, the fragrance is barely a whisper. It is a Monet for sure in the sense that from far away it's quite lovely, but up close it is a mess. I'm actually quite sad because I initially thought this was the most gorgeous tropical masterpiece. And now I get a dirty skin scent and not much else :(

This is totally tropical. Yes, and very beautiful, however, despite the strangely bad reviews for CSP Aloha Tiare, it’s better, in my opinion. I’ve been using CSP for many years now. I’ve gone through several bottles. It’s one of my all time favorite fragrances. CSP has less jasmine, and there is no skank at all. But it’s nearly exactly the same fragrance as Songes, just, in my opinion, a far better representation of what Songes is trying to do. This one definitely smells like pencil shavings, and rather strongly. CSP has none of that. CSP is a truly dreamy, “pink cloud” of a fragrance. Heady, too, like Songes. It is also quite strong and has the most longevity of all of my frags. So I will just say: This is beautiful, for sure. But it’s very skanky, and that’s from the heavy natural jasmine (indolic). If you want less jasmine, and you want heady tropical flowers with zero skank, try CSP Aloha Tiare instead. And if you have, and love, one of these two already, you don’t need the other. I have one wrist CSP Aloha and the other Songes, and yeah, they are nearly identical. The reason this is so, is that these are very specific combinations of tropical flowers meant to invoke the air in tropical islands. You will find this scent recreated many times in life, because it’s a well known thing. There is simply nothing on earth like this familiar island bouquet flower scent. It gets recreated often because it’s a stunning scent. Songes is, in my opinion, not as well balanced as CSP, and the skank in it makes less bright. Suffice it to say, I’ve got all I could ever hope for already in CSP Aloha Tiare.