Perfume Review – The People of the Labyrinths A*Maze: Sulphurous Rose

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Kafkaesque

The Dutch fashion house, The People of the Labyrinths, are best known in the perfume world for their 1998 hit, Luctor et Emergo. According to Now Smell This, the fragrance became “a cult classic, having first been nominated for cult status by Style Magazine in 2002.” Nine years later, in 2007, The People of the Labyrinths released their second — and, thus far, only other — fragrance called A*Maze (or, sometimes, alternatively, “A.Maze”). I like the clever pun on the name of the house, but I don’t like the perfume. In fact, I find it far from amazing. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

A*Maze Eau de Parfum.

A*Maze comes in both eau de toilette and eau de parfum concentration. This review is only for the Eau de Parfum which is centered around a highly liqueured rose, in conjunction with oud and saffron. It is something we’ve seen time and time again, now, in 2013, but it was a lot less common back in 2007. Fragrantica says A*Maze was “composed as the first fragrance [for the brand] with 100% natural ingredients,” a claim that no doubt stems from People of the Labyrinths’ themselves and one which I highly doubt. For one thing, the perfume has musk — which is unlikely to be all-natural these days due to the animal ethics issue. For another, I smell ISO E Super in the fragrance. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

According to Luckyscent, the notes in A*Maze include:

Henna, Saffron, Taif Rose, Orange Blossom, Wardia Rose, Agarwood, Sandalwood, Musk, Civet.

Red Rose wallpapers from Zedge.net.

A*Maze opens on my skin as a rose jam. It is a beefy, meaty, dark rose much like that in Tom Ford‘s lovely Noir de Noir. The potent, dense, almost fruited rose is really the only thing that the two fragrances have in common, as A*Maze has quite a significant amount of agarwood in it. Theoretically, so does the Noir de Noir, but it is really negligible and I highly doubt anyone would really classify the scent as an agarwood one. A*Maze, in contrast, is most definitely an oud fragrance and one which has closer similarities with something from Montale.

Saffron.
Source: FoodandFarsi.com

Accompanying that black-red, jammy rose are two other key notes: saffron and henna. The former is sweet and nutty, but with a strongly spicy kick to it. It’s red, fiery, and very far from the dessert-like saffron that you might expect. Lurking right behind it is the henna which adds a dusty, quiet earthiness to the fragrance, though it’s extremely subtle. The same description applies to the oud at this stage which is quite light in nature and swirled into the rose. Less than five minutes into the perfume’s development, the saffron-rose combination takes on a sharp, almost fiery tone that is quite biting. It isn’t metallic at this point, per se, but it goes far beyond the merely spicy. Underneath, there is something that really smells quite waxy and, simultaneously, quite citrusy. Katie Puckrik compared it to “lemon floor wax” which I think is both genius and incredibly accurate.

YSL’s Paris.

At the thirty minute mark, A*Maze is an incredibly concentrated rose fragrance with a kick. Elements of citrusy wax and fiery saffron are joined by a note that resembles violets. When mixed with the jammy, fruited, dark rose accord, A*Maze turns into something that feels a little like a liqueured, syrupy version of YSL‘s classic Paris. There is no powder, but that violet-rose accord feels quite similar.

Unfortunately, there is also something else: a sulphurous, metallic, almost tin-like element to the perfume. It almost feels like potent honey concentrate, but it’s probably just the highly liqueured, gooey edge to the roses. It’s painfully sharp and burns my nose — more and more with every passing minute — before it triggers a mild throbbing behind my eye. I’m not generally one to fall to my knees with worshipful love for a rose fragrance, but headache-inducing, sulphurous, burning roses definitely won’t do it.

Things don’t improve at the end of the first hour. As the oud gets stronger and more potent, A*Maze takes on a tell-tale peppered, medicinal, antiseptic accord that is a dead giveaway for ISO E Super. I’m not a fan. In conjunction with that sulphurous rose, I’m wondering if the skin inside my poor nose has been burnt to a shred. I ponder whether to wash the whole thing off, but I persevere and, to my relief, the whole nasty shebang starts to eventually go away. Exactly three hours into A*Maze’s development, it is just a saffron-rose (without sulphur) along with dry, earthy henna atop peppered oud and light musk. It’s not fantastic, but it’s not pure misery any more, either. Perhaps it would have been helped by a touch of animalic musk or civet to make it more interesting and less linear, but neither accord showed up on my skin in any noticeable manner. At the start of the fifth hour, A*Maze is a simple rose scent with some dusty accords and a touch of oud. An hour later, it vanished entirely.

A*Maze has incredible potency in the forty minutes. This is not a perfume to spray with abandon, especially if you’re wearing it to a conservative office environment. The projection matched, at first, before dropping off sharply and becoming quite moderate after an hour. Thereafter, the sillage dropped even further and A*Maze remained quite close to the skin. As for longevity, it lasted just over 6 hours on my perfume consuming skin.

All in all, I wasn’t a huge fan of A*Maze. Parts of it at in the opening moments were interesting — even bordering on lovely (perhaps) with that beefy, dense, liqueured rose — but then it became extremely unpleasant, before ending as something rather commonplace and banal. Maybe in 2007, I would have been more wow‘d by the notes, but not now, in 2013, overwhelmed by the plethora of perfumes with some combination of rose, saffron, and oud. And did I mention the sulphurous aspect to the rose? Bah.

Tania Sanchez in Perfumes: The A-Z Guide was a little bit more impressed — but not by much. In her 3-star review, she wrote:

A*Maze delivers an excellent, bright, powerful, liqueur-like spiced rose as its top note, but as time goes on, the clove aspects of rose dominate and the woody amber gets ever louder. It feels like a halfway point between the intense, truffled woody rose of Edouard Fléchier’s Une Rose and the resinous-spicy rose of Michel Roudnitska’s Noir Epices (both Frédéric Malle), but not quite as good as either. [Emphasis added to the names.]

Frédéric Malle‘s Une Rose also came up in a considerably more positive, enthusiastic review by Katie Puckrik who not only adored A*Maze, but who also went out and bought a full bottle. In an interesting “pen-pal” exchange with someone on the issue back in 2010, she described the perfume as follows:

A*Maze has the thick rose density of Frédéric Malle Une Rose, with something of Amouage Homage Attar in its fruity-oudy-citrus richness. And all my other old friends are on board: saffron, sandalwood, musk, civet. [¶] It’s certainly different to a Montale rose — more fruity, less dry. […]

I’m mesmerized by A*Maze’s conflicting sensory triggers: its jammy rose starts to make my mouth water, and then the lemon floor wax dries up the drool. And then the drool-to-dry cycle repeats. I’m a regular Möbius strip of saliva. […]

A*Maze has an odd, herbal side, and I’m wondering if that’s to do with henna, one of the listed notes. […] There’s also a honey cast to A*Maze, an animalic floral niff that marries the saffron/rose/floor wax to the skin in a salty, sensual way. I’ve got the parfum version of A*Maze, and though it comes out swinging, it suddenly quiets down dramatically after about a half hour.

I’m in thrall to A*Maze’s oddness.

Meh. I’m far from mesmerized or in thrall to A*Maze. In fact, I’m not impressed in the slightest.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: AMaze is available as either Eau de Toilette or Eau de Parfum. This review is for the latter. Both concentrations come in a 100 ml/3.4 oz bottle. On the POTL website, the price is €125 for the Eau de Toilette and €170 for the Eau de Parfum. In the U.S., you can find AMaze at Luckyscent which sells the Eau de Parfum for $215, along with samples for $5. Both concentrations of A*Maze are available at Beautyhabit. In the Netherlands, POTL has shops in Amsterdam and Arhem, with the locations listed here. You can also check to see if some of the stores which carry POTL clothing world-wide have the fragrance as well. Those stores are listed here. Samples are not available at Surrender to Chance.

Perfume Review – Santa Maria Novella: History & Ambra Eau de Cologne

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Kafkaesque

As some of you know by now, one of my greatest passions in life is history. And perhaps few perfume houses have a greater history than Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella (or “Santa Maria Novella” for short). It is not very well-known, alas, so this review will be as much about the Santa Maria Novella’s impressive past as it will be about one of their colognes.

Santa Maria Novella. Pharmacy salesroom today. Source: MuseumsinFlorence.com

Frescoes on the wall of Santa Maria Novella Pharmacia. Source: Milay Mail newspaper at MMail.com.

Santa Maria Novella is one of the oldest pharmacies in the world and, according to many accounts, the real, true source for the birth of cologne. A fully functioning pharmacy in Florence, it was founded in 1221 by Dominican friars. As the fame of their potions grew, the pharmacy was opened to the public in the 1400s and the Grand Duke of Tuscany conferred his patronage upon them, along with a gift of the Medici coat of arms.

In 1533, Santa Maria Novella’s fame exploded when they were commissioned to create a signature fragrance for the young, fourteen-year old Catherine de Medici upon her marriage to Henry II of France. As one magazine article explains:

Catherine de Medici, niece of Lorenzo the Magnificent (of Medici), in middle age. Artist: Unknown. Painting in the Uffizi Gallery, via Wikicommons.

Known as ‘Acqua della Regina’ or ‘Water of the Queen’, the resulting citrus-based cologne water of Calabrian bergamot could be interpreted as being the world’s first celebrity fragrance. It served to popularise the concept of perfume to the French royal court… The royal essence soon became a sweet smell of success wafting across the most fashionable courts – including England’s under Elizabeth I. The Officina’s original scent sensation helped lay the foundations for both the French and English perfume industry. In the West, the trend for scent was then maintained by other Italian perfume lovers, including Cosimo de’ Medici, Isabella and Alfonso d’Este, to Lucrezia Borgia.

The impact of “Water of the Queen” did not stop there. When a young perfumer, Giovanni Paolo Feminis, moved to Cologne, Germany in 1725, he took the scent with him and re-produced it to great acclaim. It was named Eau de Cologne in honour of the city, thus heralding the birth of the perfume concentration known today. The original Acqua della Regina scent is still made today by Santa Maria Novella and really deserves the true credit for creating “eau de cologne.”

The pharmacy is still in operation and still creating their perfumes based on formulae that are hundreds of years old, including their world-famous potpourri. The original workspaces and sales rooms are now part of a museum (which you can see in stunning photos here), and the perfumes are sold world-wide.

There is history in every fiber of Santa Maria Novella. An admiring article in the New York Times (written in 1986) talks about how little has changed at Santa Maria Novella since the 1400s:

In the pharmacy, one of several in Florence that dispense herbal potions, light filters through stained-glass windows onto the rows of essences: lime-colored heliotrope, myrtle like liquid sunshine and the nut-colored Marescialla. This last was named after the Marquise d’Aumont, wife of a French marshall, one of the last women ever to be burned at the stake as a witch. She used the essence to perfume her gloves.

Since the 1400’s, the Pharmacy of Santa Maria Novella has been making all kinds of perfumes, potions, powders and pomades, and nothing much seems to have changed in the intervening centuries except for the installation of a modern cash register; ”It’s hideous, isn’t it?” says Fiametta Stefani-Bernardini, one of the family of two sisters and a brother who run the pharmacy. ”But we have to have it, by law.”

Source: Italymag.co.uk

The original monastery infirmary and pharmacy used to be in the rooms adjoining today’s shop, and you can ask to visit them, preferably when there are not too many customers in the pharmacy.

Here in the Sala Verde, or Green Room, and in the blue-and-gilt pharmacy, the clock stopped 400 years ago and the glass retorts, pestles, scales and measures once used by the monks are still in their cabinets, as well as bottles designed by Leonardo da Vinci. The pharmacy opens onto what used to be the cloister, now the parade ground of the local carabinieri detachment.

Some of the products are as old as the pharmacy itself, such as the Aceto dei Sette Ladri, or Seven Thieves’ Vinegar, named for a band of seven looters who would strip the bodies of the dead during the plague and who protected themselves from infection by rubbing this so-called vinegar over themselves. Today the aceto is sold as smelling salts, for which there seems to be a thriving market.

Between the scent of a Maréchal’s aristocrat wife who was one of the last women burned at the stake (in Paris in 1617), and the Seven Thieves’ Vineger intended to protect against the Black Death, my jaw dropped. May I emphasize once more that all these products are still available and made in the exact same formulation?

Equally impressive to me is the fact that supposedly “none of its products are tested on animals.” In fact, not only are the products “never tested on animals” but Santa Maria Novella even has a large Cat and Dog Grooming line. Lastly, whether it’s soaps, candles, bath products, lotions, or cologne, each batch is still made by hand and primarily from natural products. As one article points out, the “vast majority of the medicinal herbs used in its products are grown locally on the hills around Florence” and the products consist mainly of natural oils or essence.

Ambra.

With all this history (I really should have gotten my PhD in the subject, instead of being shipped off to law school), I naturally had to try one of the fragrances. I opted for Ambra which was first made in 1828 and which is categorized as an Oriental. Fragrantica describes it as follows:

a slightly dry composition of amber and with birch wood accents. Top notes: bergamot, lemon, bitter orange [bigarade] and neroli. Heart: jasmine, lavender and rosemary. Base: amber, birch, sandalwood and benzoin.

Birch is really the key to Ambra, a most unexpected, unusual, and, frankly, perplexing fragrance which was absolutely nothing like what I expected. Usually, I can get at least a vague sense of a perfume by looking at its notes. Not here. Ambra is primarily a herbal, woody birch fragrance, and only tangentially anything ambery or oriental. And it’s largely due to the birch note which runs through the life of Ambra’s development. According to Fragrantica, the odor of birch

comes from the literally “cooked” wood, as in birch tar, a phenolic, tarry smelling ingredient mostly used in the production of leather scents, some chypres and some masculine fragrances.

Silver birch tree. My own photo. Fjällnäs, Sweden.

On my skin, Ambra’s opening is birch, more birch, a little more birch, and then some neroli. Bitter orange with bitter birch. It’s a fascinating combination, and a little bit odd, because the tree note smells simultaneously woody, smoky, minty, and a little bit mentholated like eucalyptus. At times, it almost feels a little bit like shoe polish cream. At other times, there are fleeting hints of something like diesel gasoline.

Minutes later, the strong pungent combination of bitter orange bigarade with that unusual woody element is joined by bergamot, lemon and lavender. The latter is a very strong and herbaceous, feeling a little like a lavender absolute or oil. Now, I’m not a fan of lavender but, here, the birch injects it with smoke and a tarry element, transforming it to something quite different. In fact, the twist on neroli and lavender brought by that powerful birch tree accord is quite inventive. Christopher Sheldrake has mentholated, camphorous eucalyptus as his signature for Serge Lutens fragrances, infusing it in everything from tuberose to patchouli, but you have to remember that Ambra’s formula is almost 200-years old and far preceded Mr. Sheldrake!

The smoky, woody, tarry, mentholated lavender-bigarade (neroli) combination is… disconcerting to me. I’m honestly not completely sure what to make of it. Something about it fascinates me and keeps drawing me in, despite my general loathing of lavender. It’s that incredibly smoky, woody feel which transforms the pestilential purple plant, my nemesis, into something oddly mesmerizing.

Just when I think I’ve decided that the cologne is almost verging on the soothing, it suddenly morphs into something else. Ninety minutes into Ambra’s development, sandalwood shows up! It happened both times that I tested the perfume, almost on the dot. The sandalwood is light and subtle, but it’s there. More importantly, the pungent, smoky, mentholated birch drops in volume by a significant degree, as if someone has flipped a switch. The perfume is now primarily neroli orange, infused with lavender, on a base of light sandalwood, smoke, and mentholated birch. I never smelled any jasmine or rosemary. There is the start of a light musky, almost powdery, note, but it is extremely faint. Ambra remains that way for another 90 minutes, slowly becoming lighter and more faded, turning mostly into a quiet, sheer amber. It dies completely just after the start of the 5th hour.

As noted above, Ambra is an eau de cologne, but it was surprisingly rugged for such a minimal concentration. I ascribe it all to the birch and the very potent orange neroli. Yet, despite that, Ambra has low projection. It hovers only a few inches above the skin for the first hour, before becoming a skin scent around the second hour. It is always incredibly light and airy in feel, but it was much stronger than I had expected.

There are few reviews in the blogosphere for Ambra. One admirer is The Perfume Critic who described Ambra as “[a] surprisingly long-lasting amber eau de cologne with noticable birch notes.” He wrote:

Pros: I love the addition of the birch note which adds an almost leathery tone to the composition; beautiful packaging and bottle.

Cons: Make sure you also purchase the spray adapter for your bottle so that you don’t have to use it as a splash! This adapter does not come with the bottle. [… ¶]

Reminds me of: Andy Tauer’s Lonestar Memories; Kolnisch Juchten. [¶]

… Although SMN considers Ambra an eau de cologne, I felt that there might actually be a stronger concentration of perfume oils – perhaps it’s really an Eau de Parfum? Maybe it was because I sprayed myself 6 times, or maybe it was because of the heat in the room where I was sitting, but this morning I found myself wondering what that amazing smell was…only to realize that it was me!

Wearing Ambra, I felt as if I should be stepping down from a stallion, riding crop in hand, having just returned from the hunt. I’m on my way to the library where my fellow hunters are milling around smoking their sweet pipe tobacco while sipping Scotch in crystal goblets: Ambra definitely has a vintage, old world feel about it. What most sets it apart from other amber aromas is the lack of the sweet vanilla note so often added to amber scents. Additionally, the birch tar note lends the feeling that both leather and smoke notes are part of the composition. […]

You know, I can completely see his scenario of the horseman returning from the hunt, before retreating to a smoky room to sip scotch. Ambra really does have an outdoorsy character, along with an old world feel. Now, it didn’t last quite so long on my perfume-consuming skin as it did on his, but then I didn’t use anywhere close to 6 sprays! I suspect that Ambra might easily have lasted longer had I used a greater quantity.

I think those who love neroli, lavender, and woodsy notes should try Ambra. Don’t expect a true amber fragrance, because you’ll be disappointed; the birch and aromatics are too dominant in the perfume’s development. On the other hand, if you’re looking for an unusual neroli or lavender — something that is quite soothing and relaxing at times, but with a twist — and a very airy, lightweight perfume that is ideal for hot temperatures, you may be very pleased. Ultimately, Ambra wasn’t for me because I struggle too much with lavender (which makes Santa Maria Novella’s Imperial Lavender completely out of the question), but I definitely would like to try their Patchouli, Opoponax (frankincense), and Orange Blossom colognes.

Even if Ambra doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, I would urge you to at least check out Santa Maria Novella’s enormous range of cruelty-free products, from personal care items to bath and body products, candles, children’s shampoos, room accessories, potpourri, and, even, olive oil! Because, seriously, how cool is it to have products once made by Dominican friars almost 800 years ago and associated with everything from Catherine de Medici to marauding thieves who fought off the Black Plague?!

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Ambra is an Eau de Cologne that comes in a 100 ml/ 3.3 oz splash bottle and which costs $125. In the U.S., it is available directly from Santa Maria Novella’s US website which offers free shipping for orders over $150. Remember, you may need to buy an atomizer spray to go with the bottle. Santa Maria Novella also has numerous other sections worth checking out. All items are cruelty-free and have not been tested on animals. The Pet Section includes everything from Lemongrass Anti-Mosquito repellant in lotion form to No Rinse Cleansing Foams, and more. Santa Maria Novella also has stores in 5 U.S. cities from L.A., to New York, Chevy Chase, Dallas and Bal Harbour, Fl, and you can find those addresses on the website. Also, Lafco, on Hudson St. in NYC, supposedly carries the entire line. I checked the LAFCO website, and I don’t see any Santa Maria Novella’s products on it, but I think they may carry them in-store. In terms of other retailers: Aedes seems to carry a good selection of some Santa Maria Novella products, from candles to soaps, along with Ambra for $125. Luckyscent carries a very small selection of the company’s colognes, soaps, bath gels and shaving creams, but Ambra EDC is not part of them.

Outside, the U.S., you can turn to the Italian Santa Maria Novella website but I’m having a little trouble navigating it and somehow the photo of the perfume doesn’t look like the one I’m used to. There is also no pricing that I can find. The Farmacia has a number of European off-shoots: stores in London and in Paris. I can’t find an address for the Paris store, but the official distributor for the company’s products is Amin Kader Paris which has two stores in the city. Again, I can’t find Euro pricing information for the fragrance. On a side note, on a Fodor’s site, I read that Santa Maria Novella has shops in the following cities: Roma, Venice, Lucca, Forte dei Marmi, Bologna, Castiglione della Pescaia, London, Paris, and Livorno.

As for samples, I obtained mine from Surrender to Chance which carries Ambra starting at $3.99 for a 1 ml vial.

Review En Bref: Qi by Ormonde Jayne (Four Corners of the Earth Collection)

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Kafkaesque

As always, my reviews en bref are for perfumes that, for whatever reason, didn’t seem to warrant one of my full, exhaustive, detailed reviews.

Qi is an eau de parfum and part of Ormonde Jayne‘s 2012 Four Corners of the Earth Collection. The collection pays homage to the different parts of the world that have inspired Ormonde Jayne’s founder, Linda Pilkington, and is the result of collaboration between Ms. Pilkington and the perfumer, Geza Schoen. I had the opportunity to sample all four fragrances — Tsarina, Qi, Montabaco and Nawab of Oudh — courtesy of Ormonde Jayne, and have already reviewed Tsarina, Nawab of Oudh, and Montabaco.

The press release describes Qi as follows:

‘Qi (pronounced “key” or “chi”) means Breath of Life. It’s an ancient word that permeates the Chinese language and everyday life. This perfume is inspired by the Chinese people’s love for the lightest and most delicate scents. Qi is constructed to make no great statement thus offending no-one, it does not tear down any great walls but is rather something more spectacular, like an amazing dawn, a softly-scented fragile breeze, Qi is an honest, open and natural perfume, it makes its mark for those who don’t want to be too obvious but may feel unfinished without it.

The perfume’s notes include:

top: green lemon blossom, neroli, freesia.
heart: tea notes, osmanthus, violet, hedione, rose.
base: mate, benzoin, musk, moss, myrrh.

Qi opens on my skin as a lemony, soapy floral with a synthetic, white musk base. There is fizzy, green hedione, light lemon, and sweet freesia, which are eventually joined by the subtlest whisper of rose and apricot-y osmanthus. There is also the merest suggestion of orange but it is strongly subsumed by the lemon notes, both from the citrus blossom and from the hedione.

The perfume remains that way for about 40 minutes, slowly shifting to incorporate a green tea accord. By the end of the first hour, Qi smells strongly of creamy, green tea ice cream with freesia, other amorphous florals, and synthetic musk. Later, there is a hint of a mossy undertone, but the perfume never really changes from its core essence nature: a slightly green, rather abstract, amorphous floral musk. The whole thing is light and airy, with moderate sillage for the first hour, then low projection thereafter. It was primarily a skin scent, and its longevity clocked in at just a fraction over 5 hours.

Qi is exactly as described: constructed to make no great statement thus offending no-one. And that is one of my main problems with it. But one can hardly blame the perfume for being precisely what it was intended to be. Unfortunately, being utterly inoffensive and banal are not the only problem. Even if I liked clean, fresh, soapy scents — which I most categorically do not — Qi doesn’t smell luxe to me at all but, rather, like an artificially constructed concept of “clean femininity.”

I’m also a bit dubious about continuing the old, out-dated cultural stereotypes regarding the Chinese as not wanting to make any great statement whatsoever. I saw a vast number of young people in my travels throughout China who certainly wouldn’t fit that generalization, though I concede that it may have been historically true at one time. That said, the press release language is neither here nor there.

The real problem with Qi is that it is a very generic scent. Places like Sephora, Macy’s or your average department store abound with similar offerings, from Chanel‘s Chance Eau Tendre, to floral fragrances by Estée Lauder, Ralph Lauren, Kenzo, Marc Jacobs, and Victoria’s Secret (not to mention, numerous celebrity fragrances). In fact, Roger & Gallet has fragrances that are centered around osmanthus or green tea, while Elizabeth Arden has 12 different green tea fragrances, many of which are floral in nature and one of which (Green Tea Lotus) has yuzu citrus, osmanthus, other florals and green tea over white musk. Given the variety of similar offerings out there and Qi’s explicit goal of not making a great statement, the perfume seems enormously over-priced to me at £260.00.

Yet, the market for light, unobtrusive, “fresh, clean” scents with minimal projection is (alas) massive and never-ending. I’m sure Qi will please those who fit the target perfume profile and who want the caché of something more high-brow.

Disclosure: My sample of Qi was provided courtesy of Ormonde Jayne. As Always, that did not impact this review. My primary commitment is, and always will be, to be as honest as possible for my readers.

DETAILS:

Price & Availability: Qi is an Eau de Parfum which comes only in a large 100 ml/3.4 oz size and which costs £260.00 or, with today’s exchange rate, approximately $402. Neither Qi nor any of other Four Corner Collection are currently listed on the Ormonde Jayne website, but you can find all of them in the Ormonde Jayne stores, as well as at Harrods. Unfortunately, Harrods’ website says that this perfume is not available for export. Ormonde Jayne’s two London boutiques are at Old Bond Street and Sloane Square with the precise addresses listed on the website here. As for samples, none of the perfume decant sites in the U.S. currently offer any of the Four Corners of the Earth collection.

Perfume Review: Parfum d’Empire Aziyadé

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Kafkaesque

Constantinople, 1876. An illicit love affair between a French officer and an 18-year old harem girl. The heat of the city matching the heat of their passions. Forbidden, dangerous, exotic and sexual.

Aziyadé by Pierre Loti was a very influential novel in its time and, in 2008, became the inspiration for the tenth perfume by Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, the founder and nose behind Parfum d’Empire. Aziyadé, the eau de parfum, explicitly attempts to replicate that moment in time, back in 1876. As the Parfum d’Empire website explains:

An elixir blending the aphrodisiacs of many cultures throughout history, Aziyadé draws us into a sensuous feast where the pleasures of love are intimately entwined with those of the palate. More than a fragrance, Aziyadé is a flavour. The flavour of the yielding flesh of Aziyadé, the heroine of Pierre Loti’s eponymous novel, the story of a harem in the twilight of the Ottoman Empire. [¶]

Aziyadé , a quintessence of carnal pleasures. A fruity, spice laden oriental, Aziyadé opens with a splash of pomegranate juice before yielding candied date, prune and orange notes. Its cornucopia of aphrodisiac spices draws us into a sensuous feast where tears of incense melt into musk, cistus and carob.

Aziyadé: an outrageously carnal perfume.

The full story is laden with history, sensuality, flashbacks to the Greeks, Romans and even Queen Hatshepsut, displaying “her naked body, rubbed in incense, to honour the god Amun-Ra.” Honestly, with my tastes and life-long obsession with history, how could I not be tempted? Was it not guaranteed that I would love Aziyadé?

And, yet, I don’t. Aziyadé a lovely perfume, but it didn’t bowl me over or wow me. And I definitely don’t think it’s for everyone — not by any means. Only those who love cumin; very naughty, animalic skank; and dark, musky, sometimes leathery, labdanum should try Aziyadé.

Luckyscent offers Aziyadé’s list of notes which include:

pomegranate, crystallized date, almond, orange and prune, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, Egyptian cumin, carob, frankincense, vanilla, Madagascar vanilla absolute, patchouli, musk, cistus [or labdanum].

Source: ifood.tv

Aziyadé opens on my skin with zesty citrus, cumin, musk, and animalic, leathery labdanum over honey, dates, ginger, prunes and seemingly every single spice known to a Moroccan spice vendor. It’s truly an explosion of scents, all bursting out on the scene within the very first second like a stampede of elephants. In less than a minute, however, the initial blast of very animalic, dark, almost masculine and very dirty labdanum settles a little, softening under a wave of rich, heavy honey. The cornucopia of spices separate, becoming more distinct, and cumin takes the lead. Dried fruits and juicy plum also become more noticeable. And, to my surprise, there really is a subtle note of pomegranates. The perfume is extremely boozy, beautifully complex, layered and rich, but it is also surprisingly airy in feel.

Moroccan Tagine of Lamb, Prunes & Apricots. Source: DimaSharif.com. (Click photo to be taken to website where you can find the recipe.)

As the minutes pass, the perfume starts to change. The labdanum loses a touch of its heavily leathered, dirty facade, turning slowly nuttier and sweeter, thanks to the growing infusion of honey. The cumin also becomes a little less top-heavy, swirling into the eddy of spiced notes and blending in a little better. On my skin, it’s very much like the cumin in a curry — fragrant, aromatic and a little dusky — rather than the cumin associated with body odor. The plum and dried fruit tonalities rise to the surface, followed soon thereafter by two polar opposites: smoky frankincense and rich vanilla extract. The smoke serves to add some dryness, undercutting the sweetness of the strong honey notes, while the vanilla adds a subtle, custardy depth to the foundation. The whole thing becomes a swirl of: juicy orange and citrus; dark, stewed, dried fruits dominated by prunes; molten honey; strong cumin-heavy spices; swirls of smoky frankincense; nutty, almost masculine, labdanum amber; and a touch of sweet vanilla.

Shop in a Moroccan bazaar. Source: Moroccansouk.org.

A strong vein of animalic musk runs underneath it all. It’s not akin to dirty, unwashed panties on my skin, but it definitely smells a little raunchy, a little naughty. The combination of the leathery labdanum, the musk, and the cumin create a very sexual undertone to the scent, though I have to say I was never transported to the Sultan’s harem. Instead, I was constantly reminded of a Moroccan souk or market. Neither the sweetly zesty citrus notes nor the smoke have the smallest chance of competing with those spices, dried fruits, dirty notes, and honey that are the essence of Aziyadé.

That core essence remains fundamentally unchanged with the passage of time. Only the honey note shifts, taking the lead and becoming the starring note as the cumin fades away. On its heels is that perpetual stewed fruit accord, infused by dirty labdanum and musk, all over a subtle trace of orange citrus. By the fourth hour, the honey becomes even richer and deeper, before eventually taking on a slightly powdered feel. By the eighth hour, the drydown has begun and Aziyadé is a sweet blend of frankincense, vanilla and amber with the sheerest touch of powder. It remains that way for several more hours until it finally fades away.

Frankly, I was astounded by the longevity of this incredibly sheer, lightweight, low sillage perfume on my voracious skin. Aziyadé essentially lasted 12 hours, but I could still detect minute spots of it here or there on my arm well over the 14th hour! It would be jaw-dropping with a stronger, heavier perfume, but for something so sheer? On my skin? Astounding. However, not everyone fared quite so well, and there seems to be a split in opinion about the perfume’s duration. On Fragrantica and elsewhere, some people report that Aziyadé died on their skin after a few hours, while others found it to last an enormous period of time.

There are a few perfumes which Aziyadé called to mind, though they are not very similar at the end of the day. The extremely boozy nature of the perfume’s opening hour strongly reminds me of the start of Hermès’ Ambre Narguilé, only with cumin and animalic notes as a strong vein instead of fruited pipe/hookah tobacco. The late stages of Aziyadé with the slightly powdery, very airy, honey note infused with dry smoke and light musk made me think of the late stage of Serge Lutens’ Chergui which has a very similar honey combination. Chergui, however, is never animalic or skanky, and has tobacco in lieu of leathery labdanum or spices.

Actually, the Serge Lutens fragrance to which Aziyadé is most frequently compared is his Arabie. I have not yet tried it, so I can’t comment, but perhaps this comparative assessment from Now Smell This (“NST”) would be helpful:

Aziyadé is another specimen of the stewed fruits + curry spices genre, although the stewed fruits are mostly in the top notes, and they’re given some lift and tartness here by the pomegranate. Once the top notes fade, for a time it’s nearly a straight-up spice fest. The dry down is woody and only slightly vanillic (it’s more dry than sweet), with mild incense and amber.

It could be a pared down Arabie, but it’s pared down in a very different way than El Attarine. Aziyadé is closer to spicy-foody than El Attarine, and the woods aren’t as velvety-smooth. It’s lighter and drier than Arabie, and possibly more wearable: that all depends on how you feel about cumin. I’m hard pressed to say which fragrance has more cumin — one day it seemed to be Arabie, the next, Aziyadé. I will say that because Aziyadé is a less foody-rich scent than Arabie, the cumin seems to stand out more, and it deepens considerably as it dries down.

The reaction to Aziyadé on Now Smell This, in a review quoted within, and in general assessments throughout the internet are all extremely polarized. NST didn’t like it, and not only because Aziyadé’s drydown turned primarily into “cumin-infused pencil shavings” on Robin’s skin. She likes pencil shavings; she does not like cumin. At all.

There is no doubt in my mind that how you feel about Aziyadé will depend not only on your feelings about cumin but, also, about skanky, animalic perfumes. Those who don’t like the former will consider Aziyadé to smell just like “an old woman’s sweaty armpits,” to quote one disgusted commentator on MakeupAlley, or “yucktastic” and “nauseating” to quote another. By the same token, those who hate animalic notes will find the perfume to have the hint of “dirty panties” and to be the embodiment of “vulgarity,” as one person wrote on Fragrantica.

Yet, those who can tolerate both notes love the perfume and find it exotic, mysterious, or, quite simply, evocative of Christmas. Christmas actually comes up quite a bit in the context of Aziyadé, with a few such references on Fragrantica, like the one below from “sky76sky” who writes:

Aziyade took me straight back to Christmas…not my festive week but one amped & ramped up to theatrical standards -red & gold, velvet, jewels, spangle, spices, candied fruits, brown sugar, … eat up eat up!…..mulled wine, burning logs, pot pourri, fancy linens, oranges studded with cloves, port, plums in brandy [… ¶]

If she were a woman she would be large & sexy, with red lipstick, an artsy scarf, slightly drunk, bejewelled & festooned in glamour from head to toe, the life & soul of the party, dahhhrling,

And the same Christmas feel is mentioned on MakeupAlley, too:

Boozy loveliness, come from a long line of lineage that is Dior’s Dolce Vita and Serge Lutens’s Cedre. Love the combo of cinnamon, spices, dried fruits and dates. Plumier than plums. It gives me flashbacks of biting onto a plum that is ripen to the point that is just before decay, and the juices flowing down the corners of my mouth. A wearable mulled wine &/or apple pie. I would love to wear this to a Christmas Fair!

I enjoyed Aziyadé quite a bit, but I didn’t love it — and my reasons have nothing to do with cumin or animalic notes. In fact, I don’t mind cumin, so long as it doesn’t turn sour or sweaty; and it did not do so here, on my skin. Plus, I thought its honey was truly lovely; gorgeous, in fact, and beautifully balanced with the rich spices and that nutty, leathery, labdanum amber. Also, the price is fantastic for a high-quality, well-blended, niche perfume: $75 for a 1.7 oz/50 ml bottle. No, the reason why I wasn’t enamoured is due primarily to the perfume’s texture and weight.

“The Pashas Concubine” by Ferencz Eisenhut.

For me, the airy, sheer feel of the perfume simply wasn’t a good match for those potent notes. If you’re going to have such strong, intense, spicy accords, then you should commit fully and go all the way with a perfume whose texture is opaque, molten, baroque, hedonistic, and decadently rich. If you want carnality, then the perfume shouldn’t be so damn airy and translucent. It should be more like the fabulous Absolue Pour Le Soir by Maison Francis Kurkdjian, a perfume that fully and completely evoked a Sultan’s harem for me, even though it is much less skanky and dirty. That is an animalic, spicy Oriental which conveys sensuous carnality and forbidden passions — not Aziyadé which merely took me to a spice seller’s stand in Morocco’s ancient souks.

I have to wonder if the sheerness of Aziyadé was some sort of compromise intended not to completely terrify those who may struggle with cumin or animalic skank. Perhaps Parfum d’Empire thought the notes would be too much if the perfume were heavy as well. But those who would love and wear a perfume like Aziyadé are those who like potent, opaque, deeply resinous perfumes to begin with. Everyone else will run away from the cumin and the “dirty” notes, regardless of whether the perfume were sheer or heavy. For myself, I far prefer the magnificent Absolue Pour Le Soir, though I would certainly wear Aziyadé on occasion if a bottle fell into my lap.

If you loved honey perfumes with richly spiced, stewed fruits and, more importantly, if you can handle both cumin and slightly dirty, leathery, animalic skank, you should definitely check out Aziyadé. But, if you can’t, then you should stay very, very far away.

DETAILS:

Aziyadé is an eau de parfum and is available on Parfum d’Empire’s website where it costs €92 for a large 3.4 oz/100 ml bottle. You can also find it at Luckyscent which sells the smaller bottle in a 1.7 oz/50 ml size for $75, in addition to a sample for $3. MinNewYork sells that same 50 ml bottle for $100. Canada’s The Perfume Shoppe sells the large 3.4 oz bottle for $120 which is a great price, especially if it’s in Canadian dollars. (The Perfume Shoppe website always confuses me a little.) In Europe, First in Fragrance sells the large 3.4 oz bottle for €115, along with samples, while Premiere Avenue sells it for €92. In Australia, Libertine sells Aziyadé for AUD$150 for the 50 ml/1.7 oz size. For all other countries, you can find Aziyadé at a retailer near you using the Store Locator on Parfum d’Empire’s website. To test Aziyadé for yourself, Surrender to Chance sells samples starting at $3.49 for a 1 ml vial. Parfum d’Empire also offers two different sample sets directly from its own website. The first Mini Sample Set is for 3 fragrances of your choice in 2 ml vials for €6 or €10 (depending on your location) with free shipping, while the Full Sample Set of all 13 Parfum d’Empire fragrances also is for 2 ml vials with free shipping and costs €14 or €22 (for the EU or the rest of the world).