PRODUCT REVIEW: MONT BLANC SIGNATURE ABSOLUE

I had the great privilege of an afternoon nap today. So what to do now in the dark of the night (10 p.m.), not any where near sleep, but write a blog. I was tempted to write this one on Substack. In somewhat contradiction to my recent promise to get off social media, I started a Substack account. Apparently it's going to be the future of social media. But all I had heard about it was 'a social media platform for bloggers' and I jumped. I enjoy writing this blog in solitude, but I won't deny that sometimes I miss knowing someone is actually reading what I'm writing. I've had Substack for a whole 2 days and I'm already feeling the same jitters I felt with other platforms. The search for followers, the busy feed, the figuring out how to get your work in front of readers. So maybe the solitude of this blog isn't so bad after all. It's just me and my fun pictures and random topics and personalized aesthetic. If you want to read me, you know where to find me, and there is nothing else I need to do other than write. My words will draw the right people.

Today I'm doing a product review from one of my favourite brands (not sponsored. I bought this with my own adult money. There'll be a separate post, maybe next, about why I won't do sponsored content again.) The brand is Mont Blanc. I'll have the audacity to say it - I'm manifesting being a brand ambassador for Mont Blanc one day. Their level of artistry is unmatched and nothing would make me prouder. Mont Blanc, to me, is an art brand, not just a designer brand. Art brands are immersive - not just expensive for the sake of it. While their fountain pens (which I'm also trying to manifest) are out of reach at the moment, the closest I could get for now to the circle of the brand is a perfume. Here are my thoughts:

OVERVIEW 

Product: Mont Blanc Signature Absolue 90ml

Price: R1,900

Smells like: equally clean and floral, hint of citrus

Notes: Top notes - pear, mandarin orange and pink pepper; middle notes - ylang-ylang, frangipani and tuberose; base notes - tonka bean and cedar.

PROS 

As a writer, I have an unusual eye for packaging. I notice every small detail as I unbox an item. I suppose it's also the publisher in me - we work with print materials a lot, so I can't help but analyze what I'm looking at and touching as I open it. This is hands down the most thoughtfully packaged perfume I have ever bought. I've bought a decent number - Hugo Boss, Armani, Burberry - and they were all pretty much a standard box with a glass bottle in it. But again, I say - Mont Blanc stands out to me because it is an immersive art brand. The gold box is textured like leather. When you open it, the first thing you see is a QR code accompanied by the message 'Enter the Inspiring World of Mont Blanc'. What artist won't immediately feel swept away! The bottle is not stuck blandly inside the box. It is further housed by a die cut piece that allows the bottle to sit on a little podium. The contraption can be pulled out of the box and the perfume bottle revealed by a flap. The bottle itself - extremely high quality, of course - is shaped like an ink pot. The brand honours its writing heritage in every way. The perfume colour is gold like a good cognac. 

And of course I like the scent. At first spray, it smells exactly the way it looks. Golden, summery, sparkling. You can tell I have no experience talking about perfume at this point - I'm not sure what words to use. It smells like a quietly powerful person. The dry down is where the clean scent comes in. After about an hour or two, it lingers on your skin gently; unobtrusively. It smells equally clean and floral. Not like cosmetic clean; more like expensive hotel hand lotion, or the lobby of a luxury resort. 

CONS 

I'm reluctant to say anything negative about this product, because it's definitely something I would buy again. And I also know perfume is a highly personal item; it works with each person individually. So you may not have any of the downside experiences I had. 

To me, this perfume lacked significant sillage. I hope I'm using that word correctly... you know, the way a perfume tails in your wake as you move through a space. The projection is also not very strong at the dry down. On my skin, you have to be pretty close to me to get the scent. I would say it's quite an intimate perfume. 

The thing I had difficulty with initially, though I seem to have acclimated to it now, is the very strong ylang-ylang scent as it's drying down. If you're like me and you need a more everyday description of what that means - it's the typical sharp and flowery smell perfumes have. A lot of very generic perfumes smell like this. Once it goes away, the actual scent of Mont Blanc Signature Absolue is a very refined, classy scent. 

So that's my review. Will Mont Blanc see this in the future and make me an ambassador? I hope so, but you can follow my author journey by checking out this blog every now and then. That's how I sign off my Substacks. I'm not usually this salesy. Maybe I need to delete the platform after all. 

For more articles written by Keli H, the author, visit this blog's home page on keli-h.com

 

Keli H is the award winning author of the 400 series, which includes The Four Hundred Club and Splitting an Empire. The 400 series is high brow contemporary fiction revolving around the lives of wealthy circles. Keli's other works include Creating Literary Art. She is also the founder of The KREST House, a storytelling empire.