full bottle of la religieuse has arrived and i need to process my thoughts; been hearing that people are smelling aldehydes though they aren't listed anywhere, for me they come through really intensely in place of the often listed bergamot - which now leads me to think of the scent as chanel no 5's goth cousin, they do share a lot of, if not exact notes, note families. and chanel's fashion design in the 1920s in particular leaned pretty heavily on the silhouette of a nun's habit... i don't think i'll ever know whether serge and/or sheldrake did this on purpose what with how tight lipped serge lutens seem to be regarding everything. but while they seem structurally similar, i don't think i've ever smelled a fragrance and gone 'wow that smells sad' before la religieuse; certainly not with chanel no 5. not that that makes no 5 a worse fragrance.