For starters.... I love this fragrance. I didn't know I did, because despite being aware of it for years I'd never bothered to seek it out. At this point it's worth mentioning that I own PdM Oajan which is a very similar, I'd say louder to the point of spinal tap, more honied, spikier more obvious cinnamon, just more of everything and that came nearly a decade after Jean Claude Ellena created this little beauty. So this has the Cinnamon but it's more reserved, an amber like resinous body of benzoin, sweetness from vanilla but the heart is a darker, honied tobacco sort of smell, laden with spice. It's completely adorable and what I like is that it has all the stuff I love from Oajan but in softer focus, not a brutish and more quietly, respectfully humming away. There's a Daniel Josier which to me is an even more dense, less complex version of Oajan and despite all the similarities between these three, wearing (owning) them I suspect it becomes easier to tell them apart. Ambre Narguile appears to be the genesis though and a very lovely thing JCE brought into the world, I'm enjoying it massively today.
Ambre Narguilé from the Hermes Hermessence line gets a lot of apple pie references from reviewers, but I don’t get that myself. A spiced compote, perhaps. Dried fruits–raisins and plums, stewed in honey and rum and cinnamon, and left on the stove very nearly too long. It’s been cooked down to a syrupy essence of its former self, and if you hadn’t pulled it from the flame, the caramelized sugars might have started to smoke and burn. I don't love sweet fragrances, but come October I crave this one; it calls to mind a reading firelight a book you've experienced a million times (like the Secret History by Donna Tartt which I only just read but I loved it so much I'm ready to go at it again) while wearing a cozy oversized cardigan with thick cables and toggle buttons and that you probably inherited from your grandpa. Not to be confused with that awful cardigan in Taylor Swift's video. ugh, Don't get me started on that. That's another conversation for another midnight.