Nobile 1942 La Danza delle Libellule Perfume Review
Nobile 1942 La Danza delle Libellule Eau de Parfum seems like it would be most suitable to gourmand lovers and those who want their apple so amped up that if it ended up being so intense that it had to be coming from something synthetic, that wouldn’t be a deal-breaker. There was no suggestion of apple here; it was syrupy, caramel apple through and through, only marginally cut by lemony tartness for a brief time in the opening and then later extra sugared vanilla custard. In the end, the clean musk won out, which did shift the scent more dramatically than I anticipated based on the first six hours of wear!
- top notes: apple, bergamot
- heart notes: cinnamon, cocoa
- base notes: cedarwood, vanilla, musk
Imagine the ripest, juiciest red apple possible, and the opening smelled like the taste of first bite. Within two minutes, the apple sweetened considerably, almost liked it had been cooked in vanilla and spiced with cinnamon and left to reduce to an ooey-gooey apple compote before adding a splash of lemon juice. The apple regained some of its crispness and was less caramelized, which seemed more the result of lemon coming through.
The cinnamon was considerably subtle in the composition than I’ve come across previously, so it was a sprinkle for warmth and adding nuance to the fragrance without making it truly spiced. Instead of it being like apple compote, it was more like hot apple cider–a little lighter, fresher, less syrupy. After a half hour, someone drizzled caramel on top of the cider and let it melt through as everything sweetened again.
As the base notes developed and seeped in, they created an undercurrent of decadent vanilla custard, which served to give the lightly spiced apples and caramel a creamier, smoother base to sit upon and cut some of the sugariness, but it was still incredibly sweet, sugary, and heavy on red apple. A clean musk made its presence known after six hours of wear, reminiscent of fresh laundry, and though it took another couple of hours, eventually subsumed a lot of the apple.
Application
For testing, I used half of a 1ml sample vial dabbed to the underside and topside of my wrist area on my left arm. I used an unscented moisturizer prior to applying the scent as this is also my swatching arm (aka, incredibly parched at any given moment) as I found scent did not hold well here otherwise.Â
Longevity
It lasted for eight hours until it was a skin-scent and about 12 hours before it was quite difficult to detect on my skin. The sillage and projection were moderate with the sillage and started to drop after four hours of wear.
Personal Thoughts
The intensity and sweetness of the apple note seemed almost artificial, which I think could be the wrong side of apple for some, as it was for me. It needed something to cut through the sugar and tone down the over-the-top apple. I wanted to squeeze more lemons over it to add freshness and tartness!
Available Sizes
- 75ml for $135
- 0.7ml sample for $4
Okay. So I absolutely love the smell of baking apples and how wonderful they smell fresh out of the oven, BUT; I don’t think that this is something that I would want to walk around smelling like! I think I would have to try this one on in-store to see what it does with my own chemistry before completely nixing it, though.
How about some new men’s that you would sample for Mr. Temptalia? You could do the notes and he could contribute to the personal thoughts. I realize you still have many to review for the ladies, but some for the gents would be greatly appreciated.
I’m not reviewing by gender, actually, since I don’t think perfumes should be classified in such a binary way, IMO! I don’t pay any attention to how a scent is classified when I purchase or when I review. Many of the houses I’ve reviewed so far don’t classify fragrances by gender actually! 🙂
As much as I love apples, I do not want to smell like apples. LOL! I imagine if this was a candle, people would go nuts for it.
Sugared apples sound good to me! I’m a lover all things gourmand. Caramel apples are yummy. Liebellule sounds like a perfume I’d wear in the fall.
I’m actually wearing this fragrance today so I was excited to see this pop up when catching up on the website! I can totally understand how this could be too much for someone, especially someone who doesn’t like sweeter or more gourmand fragrances. As someone who usually prefers more rich and even “masculine” leaning fragrances (scent has no gender in my mind, wear what you like), in the past I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed this, but over the last few years I have become more open to sweeter scents as long as they are well blended. For me this is so lovely if I’m in the right mood, like a caramel apple at an outdoor fair in the spring, and it is definitely a compliment getter as well. I will say this had a different character when sprayed than when tested with a dabber. I got a sample of this from Luckyscent before comitting to a full bottle and when I tested it dabbing it was much more syrupy and had wayyyyy less projection. When sprayed from the full bottle it has more sharpness, the apple feels green and tart over the underlying caramelly sweetness, which I actually prefer. I have run into this issue a lot when using dabber testers, where a fragrance will smell one way when dabbed and another when atomized from a full size spray. There have been a few cases where I loved a dabber sample and disliked the perfume when sprayed (Amouage Love Mimosa I’m looking at you lol), so now I always transfer my dabber samples into 1ml spray vials for testing (as long as the full bottle is a spray) to get a more accurate picture of the scent as it will smell if a full bottle is purchased. The spray vials are cheap on Amazon and it really helps to better understand a fragrance. As a fragonerd I have been loving all these fragrance posts, please keep them coming!
Thanks for sharing how it differed from a sample vial vs. spraying! Always interesting when it changes so much.