Frederic Malle • Dans Tes Bras • Fragrances

CobraRose on 4/5/2013 5:46:00 PM more reviews by CobraRose

Age: 56 & Over   Skin: Very Oily, Fair-Medium, Neutral   Hair: Brown, Straight, Medium   Eyes: Hazel    

I just checked the review I wrote (as Wyrmiax) when I first tried this. I thought it smelled muddy and sweaty and strange. Now, it's none of those things. No mud, no sweat, and not especially strange. It's like the EDP of L'Eau d'Hiver, but with a sweet skin musk instead of caramel. The heliotrope is less pronounced than it is in Hiver, but it provides a pleasant accent with the violet, making for an unusual musk fragrance.

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chessablue on 2/18/2013 7:30:00 PM more reviews by chessablue

Age: 30-35   Skin: Sensitive, Fair   Hair: Brunette   Eyes: Green    

I love violets and loved this in the store... gorgeous, transparent violets, laundry and a salty skin smell that tempered the sweetness. I liked it enough to make an impulse buy, which I don't usually with perfume. I couldn't stop sniffing it all day. What came out of the bottle I brought home with me, however, smelled like a sweaty armpit that dried out and was then sprayed with cheap perfume on top. I don't know if I got a bad batch or what but I've only worn it a handful of times since buying it and might actually hate it.

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SmellyFaerie on 9/1/2012 10:28:00 AM more reviews by SmellyFaerie

Age: 36-43   Skin: Combination, Fair   Hair: Brunette, Straight, Fine   Eyes: Brown    

With Frederic Malle’s Dans Tes Bras, Maurice Roucel wanted to recreate the scent of warm, salty skin… mission accomplished! Dans Tes Bras means “in your arms” and the name suits it perfectly: it is a very intimate, personal fragrance. To me, it’s like having my soul rubbed on my skin’s surface. For this reason, I don’t see it as a crowd pleaser, but maybe I am wrong here, who knows.


How does it smell like? At first sniff, violets. But not the kind of powdery violets we usually find in perfumes. This violet is metallic, adstringent, almost an alien, but also beautiful in its own weirdness. It’s almost like it grew up in the same kind of soil that would only grow mushrooms. I’m not a garden person, I don’t even know if this is possible. All my life, I’ve only seen violets in vases.


As the scent dries down, the violets become more subdued, but never leave the stage. The cashmeran takes over, though, and this may be a deal breaker for some people: Dans Tes Bras, in the drydown, is a cashmeran overdose disguised as a perfume. The result is a salty skin scent, not exactly sweat-salty, but like clean, sundried skin after a bath in the ocean. Is it beachy? Well, only if you see the island of “Lost” as the perfect place for a tropical resort.


Dans Tes Bras needs to be handled with caution. It has lots of silage and one of the best lasting powers I’ve ever seen. It will also transfer to almost anything you touch and stay there forever (or at least until washing).


The notes include: bergamot, clove, violet, jasmine, sandalwood, patchouli, incense, cashmeran, heliotrope and white musk. I don’t see it fitting in a scent group box, but it wouldn’t be wrong calling it a woody-violet scent, grounded with a lot of musk. It is dry without being powdery, it is a skin scent, but it is “loud” (in terms of silage). Some say it is the most “intellectual” of the Malle’s, I say it is a paradox.

10 out of 11 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

*TOP REVIEWER* GucciDiva on 8/5/2012 8:53:00 PM more reviews by GucciDiva

Age: 18 & Under   Skin: Combination, Fair, Neutral   Hair: Brunette, Straight, Fine   Eyes: Blue    

I love this, it fits my skin and personality perfectly. I am 17 years old, I really love to be outside, I'd say that I'm sophisticated but I am not grown up enough to wear many of the perfumes that I like. (Une Fleur De Cassie, Iris Poudre)
On me, this smells like walking in the woods and smelling violets and getting a tiny bit sweaty (not in a body odour way, but salty skin). It smells lovely and natural and melds with my skin. It doesn't have tons of sillage which I like, it's really easy to apply. 2 squirts is the perfect amount. Full bottle worthy for me.

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*TOP REVIEWER* yum_yum on 4/5/2012 8:51:00 AM more reviews by yum_yum

Age: 36-43   Skin: Other   Hair: Other   Eyes: Other    

I'm not one for subtle perfume with low sillage. This is, in many ways, an overpriced skin-scent. Sometimes it deserves full marks and at other times it's held back a year. It's not really 'me' -- but I enjoy it.

So I'll be a sport and review the full marks version. Gothic girls will love this if they smell what I smell. I'm talking quiet, bookish, grown-up gothic girls -- not necessarily the goth-next-door. It's much better than Messe de Minuit because, on my skin, DTB has a similar emotional vibe (don't let my language lose you here!) but with more of an interest factor. DTB's more crypt-like, damp and earthy than the Etro. Not projection heavy, it wears close to the skin and in about an hour becomes a charmingly synthetic musky skin scent to which I'm sometimes (sadly) anosmic. Lasting power for a niche perfume is dire -- that usually makes me take a lippie or two off...but...it's Roucel, it's conceptual, intellectual, ephemeral, artificial and natural all at once -- and you can try it and not buy it...so.... The cashmeran-blond-woods-muskiness is obvious in the dry down and, to me, from time to time, more significant than the ever-so-slightly-salted-violet aspect.

The synthetic and the natural are comfortable together, taking turns. Sometimes I smell it and think 'modern, artificial, almost ozonic (yes, I said the dreaded 'O' word) intellectual' and at other times (usually the first 15-30 minutes) I think 'naturally aged, end-stage decay, sweet, cerebral'. So either way, it's clever. It's a puzzler. That's one of the main reasons I can't give it anything less than full marks: it keeps me guessing, wondering whether I did the right thing in wearing it, trying to catch each stage of the change, thinking: is it hormones? is it perception, is it anosmia (sometimes a huge issue, I suspect it's the cashmeran) -- that makes this fragrance so hard to pin down? Has Roucel pulled a fast one on me because he knows I like his work? Is this a creation experiment gone horribly wrong...but on the second take, has an incredibly beautiful face? Does DTB want to be human, does she really? Does she need to be defined?

The rest of the review discusses more associations, not so much with other scents but with random things: characters, films, mental images and so on.

First time I smelled it, it smelled of mildew and violets. Brilliant! The cashmeran was in the backgorund and all I got was the surreal image of violets growing in a crypt, covered in a fungal caul. I almost saw the salt-dusted violets shimmer with life under a shroud of fungus. Beautiful. Very 'life vs. death'. It wasn't decay so much as 'a taking over'. But then I considered 'the decay aspect' -- it's more like the aftermath of the ripe, rotten period of decay, when all that remains is a musty shadow of the original organism. Peter Greenaway's wonderful time-lapse shots of decomposition from A Zed and Two Noughts flashed in my mind. Magic!

Then the scent develops. After the stealth-fungus, something amazing happens: the violets rise from the stone floor of the crypt, break through a carpet of mould and stretch up into the dark. For me it's a fragrance with two vivid, visually antithetical notes struggling for supremacy. I didn't put my money on the violets, but they win, eventually driving the mould underfoot. A perfect dirty-pretty dance.

This is Marla in Fight Club smoking a cigarette. Wearing a second-hand, one dollar bridesmaid's dress. Talking about Christmas trees and sex crime victims on the roadside. Dan Tes Bras is something you might find down the rabbit hole...if you took a wrong turn.

And with a shrug, Marla said, "Slide..."

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*TOP REVIEWER* rebemdee on 11/10/2011 2:00:00 AM more reviews by rebemdee

Age: 36-43   Skin: Normal, Cool   Hair: Brunette   Eyes: Brown    

It isn't overtly floral but it's a bit too sweet for me and it smells slightly soapy, which is one of my least favorite perfume notes. It is soft and elegant, sophisticated. There is nothing cheap or brash about this scent, it just isn't the right one for me.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

*TOP REVIEWER* ccspringer on 9/27/2011 10:25:00 AM more reviews by ccspringer

Age: 19-24   Skin: Other   Hair: Other   Eyes: Other    

Dans tes Bras is a very strange fragrance. I can barely describe it, so please bear with me. The opening is a burst of earthy, pungent violets. It is not a crowd-pleaser, so I usually let it settle before I go out. The drydown is heavenly and mysterious and unusual. The quality of this scent is evident in the drydown, which brings in a soft skin-like musk that never veers into cheap white musk territory. Slightly salty and woody, the violets always remain prominent. The strangest part of Dans Tes Bras is its texture, which I can only describe as waxy yet soft, like the residue of a scented candle you were just holding.
This is a scent that I would never have thought to try on my own, but thanks to the aggressive spritzes of an SA, I discovered Dans Tes Bras. While I thought it was too strange at first, a few hours later, I was entraced by the scent wafting up from my wrist, and I'm very glad I sought it out again.

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*TOP REVIEWER* Beaumonde on 1/14/2011 3:07:00 PM more reviews by Beaumonde

Age: Unknown   Skin: Combination, Medium, Warm   Hair: Brown, Wavy, Fine   Eyes: Blue    

Having just purchased a bottle of Musc Ravageur, I was given a sample of Dans Tes Bras.

Which I found to be tepid and all over the place. The copy is beautifully written and evocative of cafes and tea-shops. I do wish the perfume came close to emulating the warmth of the advertising copy but instead we have a perfume that is lacklustre and charmless. The inital notes are acrid and smell vaguely of chemicals and it didn't get better in the middle and base notes. I couldn't wait to scrub my wrists.
Marcel Roucel concocted THIS? Much sniffing couldn't detect the many accords listed in the chart. All I found was insipidity.


By what irony do the perfumes you don't care for linger on in a way than the ones you really like - seldom do?


For me, Dans Tes Bras is a rare clunker in the Frederic Malle line up. But with all perfumes, I try to remember that much of it is skin chemistry and subjectivity. Each to his or her own...

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lisat on 2/25/2010 12:06:00 PM more reviews by lisat

Age: 44-55   Skin: Dry   Hair: Brown   Eyes: Blue    

I don't know that much about perfumes as far as the fancy lingo I just know that I like this. I got this as a sample and it is sexy. I can detect bergamont which is one of my favorite notes. This exudes pure sex. DH loved it as well. I don't detect any floral notes just spicy, sexy fabulousness. LOVE IT!!!!

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tricksi on 1/1/2010 2:29:00 PM more reviews by tricksi

Age: 36-43   Skin: Sensitive, Fair-Medium, Warm   Hair: Brown, Wavy, Coarse   Eyes: Brown    

Eww, at first application smelled like florally animal pee. The first minute was tough! Softened with the dry down. Salty and pungent- like a closed room after a night of wild sex. A bit metallic. As it wore, it was more & more pleasant and even sexy right close to the body. But ultimately, not for me due to the parts I don't like.

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bohi on 6/2/2009 4:01:00 AM more reviews by bohi

Age: 30-35   Skin: Dry, Medium   Hair: Brown, Straight, Medium   Eyes: Brown    

A beautiful fragile, transparent violet accord - 5 lippies. Alas, somebody has smeared laundry soap (the old kind from before the era of washing powders) over the gentle flowers - subtracting 4 lippies. What a pittly...

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beautyqueeny on 1/10/2009 10:05:00 AM more reviews by beautyqueeny

Age: 44-55   Skin: Sensitive, Fair-Medium, Warm   Hair: Blond, Curly, Medium   Eyes: Blue    

I must give this 5 lippies. And now for the story...
I got a sample and spritzed a little and got nothing I couldn't make heads or tails of. I swapped it away.
But I kept reading on the board how it was loved by others and ended up with another sample. I sprayed this like I really meant it and went on my way for the day. Yowza! I kept smelling something that smelled almost like a secret. I kept smiling whenever I got a whiff, and I was smiling all day!
Hours later I was at Banana Republic at the checkout and a woman said "oh what is that good smell? She proceeded to open a 5ml bottle of some mens BR cologne and sniff it. (I had already sniffed it myself and no it did not smell good...generic and cloying) She didn't smile and feel satisfied that she had found her source.
I just smiled again! I wanted to say "Oh it's me!", but I had my teenage son with me and he despises my perfume obsession so I kept quiet and just smiled...
I bought a 10 ml decant to be sure and then a FB...
Still smiling...

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

*TOP REVIEWER* LipstickLil on 1/7/2009 12:28:00 PM more reviews by LipstickLil

Age: Unknown   Skin: Normal, Medium, Cool   Hair: Blond, Straight, Fine   Eyes: Brown    

Dans Tes Bras - sadly this perfume does not live up to its lovely, romantic name on my skin! Yes, there are some beautiful violet topnotes but no jasmine or any other floral notes. Instead patchouli rears its ugly head and totally overwhelms any other notes that might be in there! It is a particularly strong, pungent, dirty-smelling patchouli with a distinct metallic edge! Horrible! As Dans Tes Bras dried down I could smell a little musc, but even this note had a sickly quality. Sorry, Frederic Malle, but it's a scrubber!

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

*TOP REVIEWER* reikigoddess on 12/5/2008 8:05:00 PM more reviews by reikigoddess

Age: 36-43   Skin: Sensitive, Fair, Neutral   Hair: Blond, Wavy, Fine   Eyes: Blue    

This is one strange scent. I was really looking forward to trying this but it's not working for me at all. I see the nod to the past in this w/the violet yet it's the nod to the future I'm disliking-very synthetic & "fuzzy" & smells like cleaning products or laundry detergent. It does smell better on the blotter than on me, but just slightly. Oh well, more $ in my pocket! I would be interested in seeing how this works on a man though...UPDATE 11/11: Decided to try this again & received a sample from a great SA at the Seattle Barneys. I was so getting into it for a couple of days-it's still different but I can wrap my brain around it a bit more and I was really enjoying wearing it. I'm really loving the new violet scents & for a Malle this was a good amt. of sillage & longevity (the majority of the line tend to be just too much for me-completely overwhelming) & the violet was so nice. It was sexy & comforting (more for me in a male presence way-well, I guess that's the point right). Someone somewhere said that it reminded them of how your skin smells after taking a bath & I totally get that. However, just when I was ready to buy a bottle, I wore it and just hated it. Must be a chemistry issue, maybe hormones, but I just couldn't scrub it off fast enough. So sad. I'm going to try it again though before I give up completely on this scent. To note, I do think this would be great on a man (I also think Portrait of a Lady would be too).

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*TOP REVIEWER* condesadepitimini on 11/20/2008 8:54:00 AM more reviews by condesadepitimini

Age: 30-35   Skin: Combination, Fair, Warm   Hair: Blond, Fine   Eyes: Green    

Gorgeous…. Refined, elegant, understated and a typical comfort scent, warm and cozy like the arms of a mother or your loved one.
I loved it at first spritz.
The notes are like the other reviewers said: it is a fresh, green violet with a salty note, that lays on warm heliotrope & white musk base. It is a clean scent, but very “human” in the sense that it is like a warm clean skin (not clean as a detergent!). I do not get much of the Patchouli nor the jasmine at the beginning.
It reminded a of Après L’Ondée… but also it reminds me of childhood memories, baby powder and
Everything is so well blended. so balanced … a little masterpiece. The only thing I regret is the staying power, that is, alas!, quite poor.
_____________________________

Notes as per Osmoz

top notes Bergamot, Clove, Jasmine
heart note Violet, Frankincense
base note Heliotropine, Sandalwood, Patchouli, White Musks

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

*TOP REVIEWER* proximitythe53rd on 11/7/2008 1:11:00 PM more reviews by proximitythe53rd

Age: 25-29   Skin: Acne-prone, Fair, Neutral   Hair: Brunette, Wavy, Fine   Eyes: Green    

Dans tes Bras starts off very smooth and soft and sweet; actually in some ways the lightly powdered violet and (to a lesser degree) iris remind me a bit of a couple other Frederic Malle fragrances - Iris Poudre and Lipstick Rose. The violet fragrance in Dans tes Bras is very much a green and powdered violet. It's not sweet like Lipstick Rose is sweet (not even close), instead it's very soft and gentle (but not as soft and gentle as Iris Poudre).



This is one of the only fragrances I have ever smelled that DOES manage to smell a bit salty. Not salty in a foody way, but rather just a touch of the smell of sweat on clean skin. Not stinky sweat, and I smell no cumin in this composition, just a bit salty, clean, and a bit human. This aspect of the fragrance really makes it melt into the skin and allows (if you wait a bit for the drydown) the amazing illusion that you're not wearing a fragrance at all, but rather that this lovely smell is just what you smell like naturally.



After starting all sweet and warm, Dans tes Bras takes a bit of a cooler turn as more green sorts of notes and heliotrope work their way in. The heliotrope in Dans tes Bras is just a bit reminiscent of L'eau d'Hiver, it's a bit nutty or wheaty.
As the fragrance dries down, it really seems to sink into the skin. On me the lasting power is pretty good, and it's a relatively low sillage fragrance. Sometimes I pick up on some woody notes, especially in the drydown.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

*TOP REVIEWER* Wyrmiax on 10/27/2008 4:49:00 PM more reviews by Wyrmiax

Age: 44-55   Skin: Very Oily, Fair-Medium   Hair: Brown, Straight, Medium   Eyes: Hazel    

Some violets, some mud, some salty sweat--not the pungent armpit sort of sweat, more like sweat on your forearms that's dried. This composition at least sounds natural, if unpleasant, but actually, the fragrance smells very synthetic. I really want to love Frederic Malles--I appreciate the idea behind them, and even the packaging--but they tend not to work on me. Too much like perfumers' laboratory experiments. The only one that works for me, oddly, is the famously difficult Une Fleur de Cassie.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

debrsl on 10/24/2008 11:20:00 PM more reviews by debrsl

Age: 44-55   Skin: Dry   Hair: Brown   Eyes: Brown    

It's an intriguing, modern, salty violet. I was not sure what I smelled in the first opening second(s), but then I smelled heliotrope rushing by, then sweet violet, then salty violets. It stayed in there in a delightful manner for a little while and then it....disappeared. The persistence isn't great. It has a unique quality to it--luminous, swirling--I'm not sure how to describe it.
This is getting a "4" because of its unique nature; otherwise the lack of persistence would get it a "3".

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fantasmagoriana on 10/16/2008 9:26:00 AM more reviews by fantasmagoriana

Age: 30-35   Skin: Normal, Fair   Hair: Red   Eyes: Hazel    

It it light, in both the sense that it is not heavy AND it smells like sunlight filtering through the tops of forest trees. Sort of woodsy (but not woody)and earthy (but not dirty) and flowery (but not floral). Maybe like violets and iris and birches. Like ...elves. And dryads maybe. A being that flits through a forest, brushing up against leaves and bark and air unbesmirched by smog and smoot. Maybe what their skin might smell like at the end of the day when they drop into their mossy bed, the gentle moon smiling on their faces as they sleep.

7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No

*TOP REVIEWER* DebbieB43 on 10/10/2008 3:06:00 PM more reviews by DebbieB43

Age: 36-43   Skin: Dry, Fair   Hair: Brunette   Eyes: Blue    

If you are a lover of Iris, you owe it to yourself to at least sample:)
The initial opening of this is very similar to Odori Iris, but quickly becomes earthy Iris, but still with a touch of sweetness.....woods pop out, with maybe what feels like a twinge of a metallic note. Violets dance about with musk...in a dry sense....I get zero sandalwood or patch on my skin. Very unique...nothing reminds me of the scent...at the present!
Notes:
Bergamot, clove, violet, jasmine, sandalwood, patchouli, salicylates, incense, Cashmeran (a mix of musk, woods, and resin), heliotrope and white musk.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.     Was this review helpful to you? Yes   No