Yep, this perfume didn't come to fuck around. It's an assault in the opening, and as others have said it smells like a peaty Islay scotch, but this quickly calms down and makes way for a very dry, dark, serious oud with woody, incensey vibes rather than barnyard funk. Having read the other reviews here I was expecting too much vanilla, but I can't say it's giving me that. On card I smell the vanilla more and it reminds me of Fall Into Stars, but on skin it's totally different. It's very complex, every sniff gives me something different, and the oud is strong and real. Indeed, I find myself thinking 6 sniffs out of 10 that it smells like pure oud oil, but then I get a waft of booze and/or vanilla and some swirling amber (albeit still bone dry). It's a love, but it definitely won't be a perfume for nonchalant daily spritzing. Update: I'm way into the drydown now and it's very addictive. I can understand the negative comments and see why people wouldn't like this, expecially if they're into the frilly, sparkly ouds from this brand, which I also love, but this scratches some sort of specific itch for me, that desire for the darkest, most oudiest oud, well this is it. If you get fed up with being told, "yeah this is oud, but don't worry because it's really accessible and blah blah blah" THIS is the oud for you. This is an oud which will burn the hairs out of your nostrils and smoulder away in your thoughts after you have worn it, but without being brash, offensive or synthetic. It's a class act, but one with a bold presence. It's not leathery but I can imagine it will appeal to those who love really strong, noble, leathery scents.
The opening of this is intense.
I don’t mean to sound like a fragrantica twat with a story but this really did evoke a visual reaction so credit to the master Bish.
It’s like standing outside a car factory. There’s metal, there’s rubber, there’s leather, there’s fumes coming at you. It’s not giving BO like a lot of others mention.
But behind you is a field full of roses. Damp, sweet, green, floral roses.
The apple and lychee add sweetness to what could just be described as a jammy rose, but they also add some contrast and tartness.
I do love a rose fragrance. It’s one of my favourite notes. From the name and bottle I wasn’t expecting rose.
The cumin isn’t specific to me right away but it’s likely adding to the powerhouse opening.
The bouquet of chemical at the start does fade quite quickly and what’s left is dark rose oud with the memories of leather and earthy cumin.
A wild ride of an opening That settles into something more dark and familiar.
I was so curious about this scent but something made me hesitate and I didn't blind buy it like I used to do when adding Amouages into my collection. This is quite different from the overall style of Amouage but I have to admit that I haven't tried so many from an old Opus Collection, I do have around 40 Amouages though . This is one of the most realistic rose perfumes which I have tried. It's beautiful and fresh but to my nose it's almost like a solifore. There is a light noticeable metallic undertone and for some people "Varnish" effect can be too much but I was thinking that it would be clearly noticeable. I thought that in this scent that note would make this perfume strange (in a positive way) and utterly unique experience but it didn't. It's hidden on my skin like is the leather and I'm thinking now how a leather note performs in Amouage's perfumes. Even Oud is only in far away background and it doesn't bring any animalic vibe here. I was thinking that this is challenging as well but it's not. For me this was a disappointment, unfortunately. I don't have yet Opus XII - Rose Incense | Amouage which I love a lot and this didn't took it's place as a best Amouage's rose scent. Ingredients here are high quality, it's not synthetic to my nose but for me it lacks creativity and complexity, it's not an artistic masterpiece which I was waiting to have. It's very pleasant though and it quickly settles down into a smooth and velvety texture with a gentle creaminess from Ylang-Ylang. I love natural aroma of roses and I have some. If you like this Opus X perfume I recommend to try these ones as well, at least these ones are not discontinued. They are not totally same of course but they all have that distinctive natural aroma of roses which is much better than in this scent. Honestly, I love them all more than this one. But all of these are even more realistic Rose than Opus X. Narjesi | The Spirit of Dubai Triad (Extrait de Parfum) | Bortnikoff Zemfira (Extrait de Parfum) | Bortnikoff Khaan | Katana and La fille de Berlin (Eau de Parfum) | Serge Lutens Thank you for reading, I hope you liked my review. I would appreciate if you follow my IG: @ninamariah_perfumes It gives me a lot of motivation to write more. 🤗
The quintessence of elegance in a freshly ironed shirt with a twinkle in the eye.
The opening for me is a bright fizzy sweet and spicy and sour aldehydic cirtrus - almost like a fizzy vitamin tablet you dissolve. I'm guessing the ginger has its part to play in that.
The pumpkin note isn't heavy but there's definitely richer sweetness in the back.
The bright opening seems to go quite quickly and I was left with a sweet musky floral.
This is 10/10. Not a direct dupe for shalimar millisme tonka though. This to me is a combination of guerlain shalimar millésime tonka/iris fused with Van Cleef & Arpels Reve De Cashmere. This has that baby wipes faucet to it but I love this frag.
Coriandre has got the hazy, soft-edged quality of an old Polaroid left too long in the sun. A warm, grassy summer day recalled through the yellowed veil of memory. There's a brittle, bitter dreaminess threaded through it, like dusty butterfly wings pinned to a bed of soft, curling moss. It's dry and woody and musky and I think it smells a bit like a lovely little secret that you might never be ready to share - the kind that quickens your heart and warms your skin just for keeping it.
Imagine the most potent headshop you've ever visited and up the ante with the patchouliest fortune teller you ever met. Imagine this scent driving all your friends and loved ones away. That's OK, you smell marvelous.
Black night forests frozen in time; tarry, resinous pines and greenest firs and crisp midnight air, tiniest pinpoints of starlight. Woodsmoke and loam, lichen and fern, and musty mosses creeping, creeping over fallen logs and worn stone paths. Spiders webs tangling high in the branches, dust settling on the strands. Time has slowed and finally stood still in this forest while the world outside advances and evolves and moves along as is the world’s habit whether one interferes or not. This is a still, solemn, forgotten wood, without any birth or growth, and yet undying
Straight up Bánh mì. It sprays on a promising, yet vaguely astringent oriental, but within seconds it is the various components of a Vietnamese sandwich. Cilantro, daikon, pork belly, chiles, pickled vegetables, right down to the yeasty tang of a crusty baguette. There must be something wrong with me; no one in their right mind would make a fragrance that smells like this. However, sometimes one is just in the mood for a sandwich, and this is certainly complex and delicious.
Safran Troublant by L’Artisan Parfumeur is a wonderfully restorative, heart-warming/heart-opening scent. There’s a comforting sweetness to it, though not at all sugary or syrupy or cloying. A bedtime ritual beginning with custardy spoonfuls of sandalwood pudding and vanilla bean cream, a lukewarm bath infused with a concoction of milky musk and delicate pink rosewater, and a marvelously grounding, magically enveloping hug. You’ll sleep the soundest and deepest of sleeps, and you will be visited by the loveliest midsummer dreams.
It's really lovely ! I'm a sucker for rose anyway!
It's not too sweet, a little metallic. Like green rose stems you've pricked your finger on. Orange brightens it up a little.
A little spice comes later and in the drydown.
Really like it
There’s something about Craft from Andrea Maack that feels sleek and reflective, like the soaring chrome spires of a retrofuturistic sci-fi megastructure and its mechanized cybernetic inhabitants. It’s a cool, bloodless scent, like frost flowers on glass, and wintry chilled metal. I hadn’t read the description prior to writing down these thoughts and now I’m simultaneously pleased and peeved because I picked up on this perfume’s vibe to such an extent I’ve almost quoted the website’s copy about jet packs and robots right back at you. This is one of those instances when it seems the concept and the execution align in an almost preternaturally perfect way... like the android overlords have implanted these ideas directly into my brain!
Targhee Forest from Rogue Perfumery is the earnest, delighted musings of a daydreaming bryologist gnome who writes wistful poems of the pensive creepings of mosses, lichen, and fern. These literary herbariums are the inspiration for their side hustle, where they saponify the loamy greenery and gently mix in an essence of white musk to create charming soaps that smell of moss-covered stone basking in a beam of sunlight.
If you've ever smelled Hermès Ambre Narguille and thought, wow, this stuff is so sweet it's actually going to kill me...I think you might want to give Tartan a try. In reality, I don't know that they're all that alike, other than a rich woody tobacco-y October vibe, but while Ambre Narguille really leans into that syrupy apple compote, Tartan is balanced by acrid leather and an embossed flask of peaty, smoky whiskey. I smell a different aspect of it every time I wear it, but when I close my eyes it conjures wooly earthen moss, the molten gold of autumn, and skeins of snow geese low on the horizon.
Imagine, if you will, that Madame de la Rougierre, the exceedingly creepy and exquisitely cruel governess in Le Fanu's gothic tale Uncle Silas, was taken to task for her evil ways and, as divine punishment, was reincarnated into a brooding French bisque portrait poupée having to endure dusty shelves and grubby little hands for eternity. That is what the smolderingly honeyed orange blossom, wickedly animalic. waxily aldehydic, musty-powdery melancholy of Caron Narcisse Noir smells of. In a good way? Or...as good as it gets for our delightfully nasty Mme de la Rougierre, I guess?
Corpalium is the chilled earthen blooms of a sunless, subterranean iris, wrapped in a velvety feathered cloak of woodsy musk and honeyed, balsamic smoke. It’s a dark bird of myth, a single ebony plume plucked from flame, an unblinking amethyst eye, crystalline and plum dark under the cobweb veil of the pale winter sun’s sweetness. This is heart-stoppingly stunning, and I don’t think I have anything in my fragrance wardrobe quite like it
POV: you are a brooding pencil, prone to bouts of melancholia, that only scribbles at midnight and has only ever been used to draft architectural sketches of gargoyle-adorned gothic cathedrals and crumbling medieval monasteries and Baudelairian poetry and you listen to a lot of Cold Cave and Chelsea Wolfe.
Ebene Fume with its incandescent glowing cacophony of sunset woods majesty, spider-pronged and prickly tines of moody-fiery black pepper, and the mystical ambiguity of palo santo’s piney/licorice/camphor vibe is a brazenly beautiful scent, perilously intense, and all consuming. Smoky, regal, and fearsome, a tiger queen who set her kingdom on fire rather than see it fall, the incense burned on an altar of protection, invoking darksome saints with flaming swords. Desperate, dangerous prayers granted in gorgeous and terrible ways.
Spirit Lamp by DS& Durga Spirit Lamp is a fragrance that evokes a forgotten corner of a botanical garden next to the highway, where a spirit of untamed wilderness thrives, unchecked and unexpectedly in a slick puddle of illicitly dumped motor oil. The initial impression is a thick, oily green of some swampy primordial reed, the smell of an extinct past that’s closer than we often care to think, its roots tangled in the earth, its leaves exuding an unctuous herbal musk. This greenness isn't fresh and invigorating; it's greasy, thick, almost suffocating. As the scent unfolds, a metallic tang emerges, the scent of rust or singed copper, an aggressively hotwired Dodge Charger counterpoint to the glossy, verdant heart. It's a scent that evokes anachronistic images of forgotten rituals and arcane practices, real prehistoric Fast & Furious living your life one-quarter mile at a time shit, a potent concoction brewed in the junkyard-slash-abandoned car lot cauldron of nature's darkest recesses.
While the notes listed for Apocalypstick, violet, rose, mint, (I thought I saw macadamia listed somewhere?) sound like a pleasant enough combination, what the perfume smells like to me is a village of small children infected with a vast malevolence of pure evil. This cloying candied floral doesn’t just tiptoe on the precipice of sweetness and decay; it’s not just a playful saccharine innocence masking a sinister undercurrent of rot. It is an immediate and overwhelming assault of viciously poisoned sugarplums stuffed with razorblades served to you by sticky fingers and pale faces with sharp teeth. It lingers, sickening on the skin like a toxic premonition, like a perpetual stain, an indelible mark of repulsion.
“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.” What perfume were they wearing? Kurt Vonnegut Jr. never really got into that in his satirical dystopian science-fiction short story “Harrison Bergeron,” but I suspect it was Them, by Neandertal, a fragrance distilled to its most minimal, stripped-down DNA. A radical exercise in simplicity, a deliberate erasure of complexity. It’s very essence, a complete and total absence. A void, a vacuum, a nothingness. Olfactory egalitarianism in a bottle, where no note dominates, not a single note is even discernable. Wear it not to make a statement, but to embrace the scent of unadorned equilibrium—a radical olfactory utopia where no note rises above the others, and every aromatic expression is rendered equally silent.
Tell Me About The Forest (You Once Called Home)is fir and spruce and juniper and is an immediate love. I have a huge fondness for fairy-tale forest fragrances, but so many of them are sticky, a fairy forest syrup that you measure a bar spoon into for some sort of Hansel and Gretel cocktail. This doesn’t have that treacly quality; it’s…dryer? Maybe a bit bitter. I feel like it’s a bit of a hermit-ascetic with an acerbic wit and a love of irony. It reminds me of dense, darkened thickets in the midnight woodland art of Tin Can Forest.
