Subtle. At first I was put off by the forward iris, until I started sniffing my skin. Then I got hooked. It is chocolatey, but it's more rooty than I would have thought, and there's depth and complexity. The touch of bergamot on the opening makes it magical. I love anything that mixes sparkle and earth, and this does it sumptuously. If you want to smell expensive and ethereal, this is it. Other perfumes do this too, but this one has no sharp edges. Even the oud, which comes through a bit later, is gentle, with just enough funk to make it real. Projection and sillage are enormous and it lasts forever, so a 15ml bottle will go a long way.
Melt my heart. And every other bit of my body until I'm just a puddle on the floor. That's what this perfume does. It's ABSOLUTELY stunning. I can't really put it into words, one of the most buttery Orris butters one could conceive of, it's really hard to imagine a more opulent scent than the sheer amount of the stuff that is in this fragrance. I have often called orris butter or concrete, absolute etc... high irone content orris root materials as a kind of cheat mode, a sort of thickening and bolstering roux which can smooth out and elevate even the most crappy of compositions, and simply smells divine, pretty much universally loved by all, a doozy, a soft soap. However, it's rare that you get it so affectionately handled in such quantity, favouring the heady more powdery qualities and less so the heavy, fleshy and vegetal sweet 'carrot' notes often describes (it does still have this somwhat) . Everything complements it from the chocolately undertones, to the sweet raspberry topnotes and powdery accord and very, very subdued oud. In fact I'd say out of the lot, this one has the least identifiable oud note, because I think it would clash rather than complement, as it does at it's current level. It's pretty much perfect and I fail to see how orris and iris lovers couldn't rank this among the very best they've smelled, it's certainly the best one I can recall. If we want to lower the tone with talk of performance, I will. It was prominent on my skin 24 hours later. However, it's prohibitively expensive for my budget with the 100ml weighing in at a whopping £900 a bottle. That's not to say that I don't think it delivers 'value' because across the board Strangelove is project which mashes up high end department store, celebrity Nichery and incredible, boundary pushing, next level artisan perfumery with the finest and most expensive materials on the planet. Having seen some OUTRAGEOUS brands charging six grand a bottle for Luxury BS recently, with nowhere near the transparency or artistry of this brand, then by comparison these prices are a steal!!!
When I first saw the notes for MeltmyHeart, I thought it was going to be one of my favourite fragrances of all time - I must say it didn’t live up to my expectations, however is an incredible scent nonetheless. Many people describe this as an overdose of chocolate and orris, but I actually find it to be quite tame. The opening to me is dominated by this refreshing medley of mandarin, ginger and bergamot which takes the lead initially. It’s from here that a dry, dusty and earthy cacao is paired with a beautifully soft, powdery and musky orris root. This scent is stunning, but not as gourmand as I was expecting it to be. MeltmyHeart is the epitome of romance, it’s warming and sensual however I think overall Roja Ti Amo does the whole cacao/orris scent profile much better. I’ve also noticed some differences in scent between my 15ml bottle, and the bigger 50/100ml bottles which seem to be much more focused on the cacao and orris rather than the ginger and mandarin.