Initio Parfums Privés Addictive Vibration Eau de Parfum

What It Smells Like

Initio Addictive Vibration is a honeyed floral fragrance. It is the brightest of The Absolutes, built from just five listed notes: honey, apple blossom, orange blossom, musk and vanilla orchid.

There is no published top, heart and base structure, and the scent is fairly constant from start to finish. The flowers come first. Apple blossom is light and slightly fruity, and orange blossom is richer, with its characteristic mix of clean soapiness and warm, honeyed depth.

The honey is the centre of the composition. In perfumery honey smells sweet, waxy and a little animalic, and here it turns the flowers golden and gives the whole fragrance a warm, syrupy glow. Musk and vanilla orchid sit underneath, creamy and soft, and the musk adds the faint skin-like quality that runs through much of this house's work. Initio describes it as a fragrance where instinct meets delicacy, and that balance between the animal warmth of honey and the lightness of blossom is what you notice most.

Fragrantica's community ranks floral as the leading accord, followed by honey, sweet and white floral. It is rated 4.00 out of 5 from about 1,800 votes.

Who Made It

Maurice Roucel is a veteran perfumer at Symrise, the author of Frédéric Malle Musc Ravageur and Hermès 24 Faubourg, and a specialist in sensual, slightly animalic florals. Pierre-Constantin Guéros is a perfumer at Symrise.

Who It's For

Addictive Vibration is for people who love white flowers and honey and want them warm rather than crisp. Fragrantica lists it for women and men.

If you enjoy orange blossom fragrances and wish they lasted longer and felt more sensual, this is a strong candidate. If honey notes strike you as too sweet or too animalic, it will not be for you. Among the Absolutes it is the most floral and the least dark.

When to Wear It

The Fragrantica votes are unusually balanced. Fall leads narrowly, winter and spring are close behind, and day and night are almost exactly tied. Only high summer scores low.

That makes it one of the more versatile fragrances in the range. Wear it for dates and evenings out, or in the daytime in spring and fall. Parfumo's community rates its longevity as above average.

About the House

Initio Parfums Privés launched in Paris in 2015 with an unusual premise: that scent acts on mood and attraction before we consciously register it. The fragrances are built around materials chosen for that effect, such as musks, woods, resins and the jasmine-like molecule hedione, and they are grouped into collections with a stated purpose: The Absolutes, The Carnal Blends, The Black Gold Project, the Hedonist collection and Supercharged.

The bottles are heavy, square-shouldered flacons with a metal medallion on the front, and the compositions tend to be concentrated and long-lasting. Initio is a boutique-only house at Redolia. It is sold at our perfumery at 92 West Main Street in Somerville, New Jersey, and not through the website. Read how our boutique-only houses work, then come in and try it on skin before you decide.