Nightingale By Zoologist Extrait de Parfum

Believe the advertisement, it feels very Japanese. It also feels like a silken purple and pink kimino worn on a midnight walk.

It smells dusty, mentholated and sweet but in all the good ways. A very good showcase of patchouli with heaps of plum blossom and rose.

Plus, this is something I’d happily consider a fruity chypre but still somewhat a spicy oriental. This is wonderful and feminine.

Opening is a bumpy ride through a field of sharp citrus and florals. Dry down is smoother, but the scent is wearing me out and I’m tired of the struggle—immediately I know this isn’t my style.

Nightingale is a vintage chypre with powdery fruity and floral notes. I’m not able to isolate which notes in particular are creating that sensation. Remarkable performance for this grande dame of a perfume. But she’s too heavy for Spring, I think this would work better in colder weather.

Glad I got to sample Nightingale. My favorite from Zoologist continue to be Civet, Dodo and Bee. I can imagine this working on the right person, but a pass from me.

Edit: I should know to not form an opinion until after a proper wearing. My husband loves this scent— and good silage as I just walked through our house a few times and we were never in the same room. After the opening I did grow to like it. I think the trick with this perfume is to spray on my wrist or behind my knee as I don’t like the scent up close. Indifference to a firm “like”.

When I was 20 I did have a pet nightingale for several years; exactly as the one in the bottle – a Pekin Robin (Leiothrix lutea). The little thing could never stay put, motionless, would jump and hop all day long.
This fragrance from the demicrazy-bold house Zoologist pays good honor to aethereal jumpiness, subtle little feet and nuance shades of feathers and song. I love this Nightingale Parfum, I admire its complexity and utter delicate construction. The Japanese plum and violet come immediately to me (actually more so than the head notes described by Zoologist)… the moss, musk and ambergris keep on hopping back for very long. I really believe these notes are hopping, rather than evolving linearly as a mere commercial fragrance does.
With Nightingale we can experience notes unveiling and veiling a little again, only to signal their presence later on, and again.
Love the geisha kimono and rose-tinted juice that clearly target women, and yet make it so deliciously transgressive to wear it as a man and allow a different skin chemistry (allegedly) play tricks on this bouncy little Jack*. No Zoologist fragrance is, in my opinion, truly “for men” or “for women” as compositions are just too wild for that! Which is refreshing.

I totally see the comparison between Nightingale and Mitsouko: there's quite an overlap between their scent profiles, except in Mitsouko you smell peach and there's a sort of sourness/moldiness which is absent in NG. I'd say NG smells like wearing Mitsouko while visiting a Lush shop.

Not sure how this creation made it into the Zoologist collection but it's a very nice one and I like it slightly more than Mitsouko.

Smells definitelly feminine, but I can see myself wearing it if applied lightly.

The fact that some female users here find it masculine leaning speaks volumes about how the perfumes of one particular era inform your tastes and, ultimately, your sense of smell: for someone constantly smelling caramelly gourmands this perfume (and Mitsouko) smell "odd", alien if you will. So whenever we smell something we cannot clearly put into a cathegory of our olfactory data base, we tend to attribute it to the other sex.

I've spent the last week in a glorious Zoologist fog after finally succumbing to a complete sample set direct from them, amazing service and sweet handwritten thank you from Victor.

I think this will be my full bottle though, it's utterly beautiful.

It opens like Refreshers sweets, really fizzy and fruity, then I get an old-fashioned soapy vibe somewhat like Imperial Leather (sorry if these UK references don't make sense). If that all sounds a bit prosaic, it's actually wonderful as it has an atavistic quality. The dry down is soft sweet amber perfection.

I'm also particularly overjoyed with this as I've often longed for a vintage style soapy, powdery or makeup type scent but they never work on me normally.

The artwork is sublime.

I wanted to buy something with the money my aunt left me recently that felt like a tribute: she was very much an old-fashioned lady who smelled of powder and good soap. This will be perfect. Love you Sylvie,