Launched by Grès in 1990, three decades after Cabochard, Cabotine is an aldehydic floral by Jean-Claude Delville built around ginger lily, a Himalayan flower captured on the living plant. Mandarin, ginger and ylang-ylang open onto wild hyacinth and tuberose, before a base of patchouli, sandalwood, musk and blackcurrant. Its green stopper is sculpted with flowers.
Fanny Guerin, at Auparfum, sees in it a kaleidoscope of the great classics that came before it; Gaia Fishler, of The Non-Blonde, a bold, somewhat chemical green floral that is best not overapplied.
Olfastory’s review
Fanny Guerin, Auparfum
In October 2022, Fanny Guerin sums up Cabotine as an opulent ginger lily, in a green aldehydic floral she considers little known but still on sale. Next to Trésor, CK One or Angel, born at the same time, it seems to her to belong to the 1980s.
Its soapy facet evokes, in her view, laundry more than skin scents, and the musks combined with patchouli give it an almost contemporary touch. She finds Paris, N°5, Rive Gauche, L’Air du Temps, Amarige and even Shalimar in it: a kaleidoscope of its past.
Gaia Fishler, The Non-Blonde
In April 2010, Gaia Fishler smells a bold, chemical green floral over a sweet ambery base, loud enough to be noticed among the other artifacts of the 1980s, with a good humor that never takes itself seriously.
She finds that the green plastic flowers on the cap look better from a distance, just as the fragrance is best not overapplied, and prefers its drydown, an abstract green with marigolds and vanilla, once a synthetic, screechy top has faded.