Absolutely staggered by this perfume. I'd tried a vintage sample of this years ago and my recollection was 'very nice, rose dominant, Guerlainesque' and this was all I had in my mind but it's sooooooooo sooooooo good. So another great pal sent me a vintage sample recently and I'm blown away by a key element of this perfume, the rose as a fleeting top note. Well it's not fleeting it remains present probably but not in the way I've experienced in any other perfume, it's like a wave of the most beautiful, faceted, sweet but not too sweet, almost cool (temperature wise), perfect rose absolute washes over you and then retreats right the way back so this exotic, powdery, floral mixture with warm vanillic amber tones and inherent, classy, gorgeousness can come to the forefront. It basically flips from fresh, vibrant, rose dominant opening (and super intact fruity pitchy topnotes for the age of this bottle BTW) to all of a sudden a sort of exotic infused, white floral, Lilly of the valley but with a really resinous warm, vanillic (in a good way) ambery base. It's an absolute revelation!!! It's not pungent or commanding in that way old, seen as stuffy, "WOMEN'S" florals can be. I'm absolutely enamoured and looking at the notes list here, rose in the top notes (and it's in the heart too but I'm gonna give Fragrantica some credit here) is really accurate because it's there, then it's basically gone. Working with rose, understanding and experiencing rose perfumes, I've never witnessed this effect, and Jean Paul Guerlain did that. I think it's creative genius and we've not even really got into the base which is one of the most nose nuzzling drydown's I recall experiencing. Listed here is peru balm and I'll go along with that as I've read that used correctly in an amber accord of sorts it creates a playful powdery sort of effect, even though when you smell the raw material or use in heavier doses and you get a spicy, cinnamon/clove/anise inflected heavy balasmic resin effect. Everything about this screams quality to me and has come at a time I maybe needed it as I'm feeling slightly disillusioned with everything at the moment and Nahema has done a great job of lifting my spirits. Fantastic!!! Now comes the hard part... keeping myself away from eBay, Etsy and the like because a vintage bottle of this is likely to set me back a few quid.