If you’re looking for a typical bridal scent, Hera from Papillon Perfumery is unlikely to be your girl. It is far from the sort of bouquet that is commonly sought for weddings in the modern era, and it is most certainly not a delicate, demure, almost virginal, fresh floral veil suited to a young blushing bride. However, if you’re looking for a sensuous, lush fusion of a semi-vintage-skewing chypre with a modern floral oriental, then you’ve come to the right place.
Category Archives: Floral Oriental
Oriza L. Legrand Empire Des Indes
Oriza L. Legrand‘s recent release, Empire des Indes, is an addictive delight with many faces: spicy floriental; gourmand amber; ambered vanilla; ambered opoponax incense; spicy woody amber; smoky, sweet, spicy resinousness; and a few more. There is even a stage where the fragrance smells like spicy vanilla infused with dark, smoky French Roast coffee on my skin. While Empire des Indes skews a little too sweet on occasion for my personal tastes, I would absolutely wear it for myself and I want to buy a bottle some day soon. I loved it.
Areej Le Doré Aquilaria Blossom
Aquilaria Blossom is a collaboration between two of the top masters of oud fragrances and oud distillation, Russian Adam of Areej Le Doré (“ALD”) and Taha Syed of Agar Aura. It is a much lighter, more resinous, less oud-y, more amber-scentric fragrance (on my skin) than many of the things that I’ve tried from either brilliant auteur. That makes it a more approachable, easy-to-wear, and versatile scent in many ways, even if it comes across as more simplistic, linear, and less operatic in character on an olfactory level. I enjoyed it, particularly during its cozy, snuggalicious drydown phase.
Agar Aura Al-Jazzab
Roses and oud are a combination tried a million-fold before, but Agar Aura sought to surpass all prior standards with Al-Jazzab, an extrait described as having even more indulgent, extravagant, wildly sumptuous roses than even Layali, his parfum that stunned me blind despite my not being keen on roses in perfumery.