Been a moment since I've done a poll. Long story short, I got some free time tomorrow and two bottles that have been on my wish list forever have become available in one of the Dept stores. So off I go tomorrow, the plan Is to take one of them home for my collection, but which one. Yes I'm gonna test em both out, annoy the hell out of the staff and probably smell a whole lot more. But the goal remains. So which would you pick and why?

Encre Indigo is Annick Menardo‘s unique black tea and vetiver combination from Lalique, arguably the best value-for-money house in the smell-engineering business. A niche house could package and sell this for $200-250. You can get it from discounters for $30-35. It is the best fragrance investment for the smallest amount of money you will ever make, along with its vetiver-infused Encre Noire cousins. To me this is incontestably a year-round fragrance. In the spring and summer it feels like what a drink of tall unsweetened iced cold tea tastes like. In the fall and winter, that same tea note is warming and comforting. I own about 15 backup bottles of my favorite frags. This is one.

This one surprised me. Sauvage Extrait really doesn’t come across like another typical Sauvage flanker to me. It’s much drier, darker, woodier and more resinous, with the patchouli and oud giving it a completely different character from the familiar fresh Sauvage DNA. My first thought was actually Amouage. Not that it smells exactly like a particular Amouage fragrance, but it has that same type of dense, dry, woody, slightly smoky Middle Eastern niche feel. I can especially understand the comparisons people are making to the dry oud character of Amouage Royal Tobacco. This smells much more expensive and serious than I expected from the Sauvage name. Less blue designer fragrance and more like Dior decided to take Sauvage into Amouage territory. First impression: I like this quite a bit. It may actually be one of the most interesting Sauvage releases Dior has done because it doesn’t feel like they simply turned up the concentration. They changed the personality. Definitely a cooler-weather fragrance for me, and I’m looking forward to giving it some full wearings.