Mind Games Double Attack Extrait

Description

Double Attack treats dark chocolate as a woody material rather than a dessert. Perfumer Christelle Laprade built it around the different textures cacao can take, the bitterness of the nib, the creaminess of Madagascar vanilla, the dryness of the wood that surrounds it, and then cut the sweetness with orange bitters, pimento and pink pepper up top. The result smells expensive rather than edible: a bitter-citrus and peppery-spice opening, a warm agave-and-cinnamon middle, then cocoa, vanilla, bourbon vetiver and Indian sandalwood underneath. Mind Games names its fragrances after chess concepts, and a double attack is a single move that threatens two pieces at once, a fair description of the bitter-and-sweet split running the length of this one.

How It Differs From Mind Games Queening

• Queening is the creamy one: soft vanilla gourmand, comfortable and rounded, the sweeter side of Christelle Laprade's work for the house.
• Double Attack is the bitter one, dark chocolate and spice over vetiver and sandalwood, drier, sharper at the open, and considerably less sweet than the note list suggests.
• Choose Double Attack if gourmands usually read too sugary on you. Choose Queening if the comfort is what you want from a gourmand.

Scent Character

• Spicy: 30%
• Woody: 30%
• Sweet: 20%
• Floral: 10%
• Fresh: 10%

Translation: there is no chocolate column in this breakdown, which is exactly why the spicy-and-woody majority is the useful signal here. Cocoa is the headline note, but sweetness is a minority share. This reads as bitter cacao and dry wood, not hot chocolate. The small fresh and floral slices are the orange bitters and geranium keeping the opening from going straight to dessert.

Fragrance Pyramid

Top: Orange Bitters, Pimento, Pink Pepper

Heart: Agave, Cinnamon, Geranium

Base: Dark Chocolate, Madagascar Vanilla, Bourbon Vetiver, Indian Sandalwood

Performance

• Longevity: 7–9 hours on skin is the realistic middle, but wearers genuinely disagree about this one. Some report it going all day with strong projection; others find it surprisingly restrained for an extrait at this price. Skin chemistry appears to matter more than usual here.
• Sillage: moderate to strong in the first couple of hours, then noticeably more intimate. Expect to be asked about it early rather than all evening.
• Projection, around two to three feet at the open, settling to arm's length and closer as the cocoa-vetiver base takes over.
• Worth saying plainly: if you need guaranteed all-day performance, sample this before committing to the bottle. It is the single most divided point in the reviews.

Best Occasions & Season

• Season: Fall and Winter. Cocoa, cinnamon and vetiver want cool air; in summer heat the spice can turn sharp.
• Occasions: evening, nights out, dinners, leisure. It is dressy enough for an occasion and dark enough not to suit a bright morning.
• Skip for: hot weather and close-quarters offices where a spicy gourmand may be too much for the room.
• Gender: unisex. Catalogued for women and men, and the bitter-citrus opening keeps it from leaning either direction.

Concentration & Provenance

Concentration: Extrait de Parfum
Perfumer: Christelle Laprade
House: Mind Games. The chess-themed niche house
Year: 2022
Family: Gourmand / spicy woody
Size: 3.4 oz / 100 ml retail bottle, $299.99

Try Before You Commit

At $299.99 for the full bottle, and with performance reports as divided as they are on this one, sampling first is the sensible move. Hand-poured decants start at $6.99 for 1 mL and $31.99 for 5 mL. Enough wearings to find out whether the cocoa reads rich or bitter on your skin before you buy the bottle.

100% Authentic

Every bottle is verified for authenticity and ships exactly as it left the house; decants are hand-poured from those same bottles. Over 200,000 orders shipped, rated 4.9★ on Trustpilot, free US shipping on orders over $100, and hassle-free returns.

FAQ

Does it actually smell like chocolate? Yes, but bitter dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate or cocoa powder. The vetiver and sandalwood in the base pull it dry, and the orange bitters and pimento in the opening keep the first half-hour from reading sweet at all.

How strong is it? Divided. The realistic average is 7–9 hours with moderate-to-strong early projection, but some wearers report all-day performance and others find it too polite for an extrait. This is a genuine skin-chemistry variable, not marketing hedging.

Is it for men or women? Unisex. The bitter-orange and spice opening reads neither masculine nor feminine, and the house catalogues it for everyone.

Why is it called Double Attack? Mind Games names its releases after chess ideas. A double attack is one move that threatens two targets simultaneously: here, the bitter and the sweet sides of cacao working at the same time.