AMOUAGE
PURPOSE 50
2024
PERFUMER
Quentin Bisch
bergamot
pink pepper
pimento
frankincense
rose
papyrus
vetiver
sandalwood
saffron
suede
mystikal
akigalawood
vanilla
An Exceptional Extrait flanker to Purpose (2023).
Purpose 50 quickly went from: Okay, this is slightly different and not bad, to: This is Guidance again and why on earth is Purpose smelling Guidance.
The opening is reminiscent of the original Purpose (2023), but even more so leaning into the frankincense. Purpose, from my memory, felt somewhat generic, coming after Essential Parfums Bois Imperial and Marc-Antoine Barrois Ganymede, also made by Quentin Bisch, that I feel both flanked it and both are cheaper and better options to me. Purpose 50 doubles down on that fresh sweet frankincense and mineralic quality, making it differ more from that Ganymede DNA.
For a while, I felt like Purpose 50 was perhaps more akin to Decision, as that is also very frankincense heavy to me and both introduce quite a lot of vanilla along the way, but for the first hour Purpose 50 stayed greener, lighter, the spices more toned down. I got some nutty and forest tinges. And while I wasn’t fully sold on it being to my taste, it felt like a nice, mature fragrance.
After that first hour, it started to morph and I kept thinking…’What does this remind me of?’. And then it hit me: This is clearly the Guidance DNA overtaking the entire drydown. Mineralic, vanillic, slightly lactonic. While not nearly as fruity and a tad less floral, it’s undeniably similar. There’s still a sour tinge that seems to come out of nowhere, and it’s that sweet-sour-lactonic combination that 100% feels like a slightly less feminine take on Guidance. Which… okay, it’s less cloying, it’s not nausea inducing as BDK Impadia or too much Guidance or Guidance 46. But to me, it feels… cheap, that Purpose’s extrait flanker seemingly has been turned into a Guidance flanker.
Wearable, but as soon as I made the Guidance connection, I started to frankly get a bit annoyed by the experience. While I would definitely rather wear Purpose 50 and as with Guidance, it’s easy to see why this DNA has become such a hit, it’s not for me and in my belief-system, it’s not Purpose.