Agar Aura‘s Layali has achieved something that I haven’t experienced in years with a modern fragrance: It has left me simultaneously at a total loss for words from sheer stunned, overjoyed impact and also gushing with so many hyperboles that I don’t know how I can do the scent justice without sounding like a blithering, stuttering idiot.
Photo: the fantastic fashion photographer, Kristian Schuller. (Direct link to his full website is embedded within.)
Bortnikoff‘s Santa Sangre showcases authentic fragrant sandalwood in all its glory. Not only does Mr. Bortnikoff use the very best, most luxurious version, Mysore sandalwood, but he and his co-creator add to the verisimilitude of the bouquet through a plethora of other ingredients that help to recreate the bouquet of a santal tree from the ground up.
Sandalwood. Source: styx.odessa.ua
As a tuberose lover, I was eager to try Bortnikoff‘s Sir Winston, a pure parfum whose notes included oud, ambergris, tobacco, and green tea. After trying it, I think you should not be misled by the name because, in my opinion, this is not a masculine fragrance focused on the many things associated with Sir Winston Churchill like, for example, cigars. Instead, it is a unisex, dense, candied floral vanilla amber gourmand dominated by tuberose and loads of real ambergris.
Photo: my own.
I have a great love for vintage Coty fragrances, so I thought I’d look at vintage Paris today. Most vintage lovers know all about Emeraude, a fragrance that was, arguably, the template for Guerlain’s Shalimar, but few people seem to know about its vintage sister, a stellar feminine floral bouquet with notes of lilac, hyacinth, violets, rose, and more.
“Turmoil” by Spinella Art. (Direct website link embedded within.)