oh no, so sorry to hear your signature scent got discontinued! :(( it's such a betrayal, i hope you can find something new you like just as much!

i live somewhere that's a 2h30 flight away from any perfume stores other than what's available in supermarkets and pharmacies, so i get samples directly from the brands' sites whenever they offer them, discovery sets can be fun! if not available, i'll order from perfume shops that offer decants; in portugal/europe there are a few, search for ones local to you! if i'm truly desperate and out of options, i'll order from the big decanters in the US. my favourite is scentsplit, but there are others, just pick a trustworthy one (always look for reviews of the decanter, there are a lot of scam sites!). also, whenever i have the chance to visit a perfume shop in person, i always ask for samples. if you live near a sephora you should be able to get tons of them there for free.

so all this time i have studiously avoided xerjoff, admittedly out of snobbishness. the bottles look incredibly tacky to me, and it doesn't help that i only ever see their perfumes peddled by the most tasteless individuals on instagram. but i asked the sales associate at a niche perfume shop for her recommendations for me, and gibeon by xerjoff was one of the samples she gave me, so i thought what the hell, i'll keep an open mind and give it a try.

well, i'm never doubting myself again. this is far too sweet! truly as if so much vanilla sugar was put into it that it's crystallizing around the edges of the scent; i get vanilla, tonka, and powdery orris, as if it's trying to do a take on vintage classic but doesn't trust its audience to 'get it' without heaping tablespoons of sugar to sweeten the deal. lots of patchouli too; any florals get crushed under the weight of these notes. i swear there's oakmoss in there too. the base is a musk-powder bomb, at this stage it reminds me of baby wipes.

there are perhaps beautiful subtleties to be appreciated here, but the initial spiciness (clove, cinnamon, maybe even star anise?) overwhelms them so thoroughly that all i can think of is old-fashioned men's aftershave or cologne, with a hint of camphor that is reminiscent of tiger balm. i'm usually happy to wear masculine scents, but in this case 'curmudgeonly old man with joint pain' isn't what i'm aiming for. i was hoping for more androgyny, smoother, serene wood notes, but this fragrance is too loud to be meditative. it has very powerful sillage early on, though it did chill out by mid-afternoon, thankfully, at which point i layered it with tam dao and realised the latter does what i had hoped hinoki meditation would accomplish, while smelling a lot less dated and commonplace.

don't get me wrong, it isn't wholly unpleasant, especially as i get less of the spicy volatiles and more green woodsiness. i think someone with the right swagger could pull it off and dispel the grandfatherly associations, but it just isn't for me. that's two for two 'no thank you's with d'annam, damn.*