Unum Opus 1144: Divas & Powerhouse Classics

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Kafkaesque

Source: Pinterest via Pierreherme.com pinterest.

Source: Pinterest Pierreherme.com

Fans of floriental powerhouses in the classical tradition, take note, Opus 1144 is one for you to try. It is a bold, complex fragrance with a divaesque character that harkens back to the great Guerlain legends, Shalimar and L’Heure Bleue, in their most concentrated vintage parfum form, as well as to modern creations by Mona di Orio and O’Drui. At its heart, it’s structured much like a millefeuille dessert where tart, lemon curd custard lies sandwiched between layers of dark, smoky styrax and balsamic-coated, musky leather, all dusted with vanillic powder in a haze of jasmine and iris floralcy.

Jean Patou couture, circa 1969. Source: pinterest.

Opus 1144 is many things, sometimes all at once. It is a lilting choral extravaganza where grand, bold opulence and monumental density dip into airiness and delicacy without ever losing strength. It’s a chiaroscuro of light and dark, masculinity and feminine, gourmand and oriental, hard and soft, acrid and sweet, cloying and beautiful — and I’m not completely sure what to make of all that, no matter how many times I wear it. In all honesty, there are many times in the first four hours when Opus 1144 leaves me simultaneously repelled and riveted, drawn in compulsively and with great admiration, but also put off and hesitant. One thing is undeniable: it’s something that any fan of the classics and of powerhouses in the floriental genre should try for themselves.

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Tauer, Tom Ford, Euphorium Brooklyn, Morph & Elisire

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Kafkaesque

I’ve tried a number of fragrances that didn’t work for me over the last eight months, but not all of them were actually bad scents. Although I scrubbed all of them off, a few were things that I actually think some of you might like quite a bit. The problem in each case (for me) was that the fragrance had one or more elements which pushed one of my hot button issues, and did so in a way that not only felt imbalanced but, quite frequently, also made the scents physically difficult to test.

Perfume reviewing is a wholly subjective thing that is dependent on individual tastes, experiences, and skin chemistry, but it’s not easy to write about scrubbers in exhaustive detail, one after another. (And I’ve gone through a lot of scrubbers in the last 8 months that I haven’t talked about.) For many of the fragrances mentioned in this post, I lacked the heart and will to write thousands of words for one of my usual reviews, and didn’t want to cover them even in one of my short(er) Reviews en Bref because I wasn’t keen to relive the experience. Yet, as I said, some of you might like a few of the fragrances quite a bit — like the new Cilice from Euphorium Brooklyn which should appeal to lovers of dark, smoky, woody, and campfire fragrances. Two of the scents are things that I would sincerely recommend to people with a very particular taste set to try for themselves.

Cilice from Euphorium Brooklyn. Source: Twisted Lily.

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Amouage Epic (Man)

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Kafkaesque

The Silk Road’s legendary spice route from China to Arabia winds its way across the face of Epic for Men from Amouage. It is a very unisex fragrance that is an enjoyable swirl of spices, woods, incense, golden sweetness, and creaminess, but it is neither the fragrance that I expected nor very “epic” in nature. Not now….

Original poster for Turandot. Source: Wikipedia.

Original Turandot poster via Wikipedia.

Epic Man (hereinafter just “Epic”) is an eau de parfum that was created by Randa Hammami and released in 2009. The inspiration was two-fold: the legendary Silk Road and Puccini’s Turandot opera which is set in China but based on a tale involving a Persian princess and a deadly riddle. First in Fragrance has the company’s complete press description:

The theme of this latest Amouage fragrance is the legendary aria from Puccini´s unfinished opera, Turandot. The legend says that one day the composer Puccini completed the opera and then buried the completed work somewhere in the sands along the Silk Road. The last act of the opera, it is said, was an incomparable aria, which could not possibly be sung by a human voice…

The legendary city of Ubar in Oman is the starting point for a journey in search of this missing aria, which leads us along the Silk Road through the Orient and over the highest mountains in the world – to China. The way of the ancient caravans, that carried silk and other treasures over many hundreds of miles, where tea, gold, pearls and jade from China where exchanged for precious silver frankincense from the Oman – a legendary land where the valuable raw materials can be found that were used in the composition of this new Amouage fragrance.

Caravan on the Silk Road via uzcaravan.com

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La Via Del Profumo Oud Caravan No. 3 & Cuba Express

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Kafkaesque

Yesterday, we visited Tarzan in a forest of oakmoss vetiver but, today, we’re going on Oud Caravan No. 3 in the Sahara before taking the Cuba Express. Those are two fragrances from AbdesSalaam Attar (“Dominique Dubrana“) of La Via del Profumo, and I’ll look at each one in turn.

OUD CARAVAN No. 3:

Source: fanpop.com & pinterest.

Oud Caravan No. 3 is an eau de parfum and the final part of a trilogy that was originally created in conjunction with a 2011 Basenotes project called the Oud Caravan Project. On his website, AbdesSalaam Attar explains that No. 3 is a true, authentic agarwood fragrance and, as a result, its opening and head notes are not for the faint of heart, even though the oud’s fangs have been muzzled here as compared to the first two entries in the line. He also elaborates on the nature of true, Middle Eastern oud which I think might be important for those of you accustomed to the very inauthentic or diluted Western sort which, frequently, isn’t even real agarwood at all. I’ve taken the liberty of formatting AbdesSalaam’s single-line description into paragraphs for reasons of space and it reads, in relevant part, as follows:

Oud Caravan via La Via del Profumo website

For those who want to know the real Oud. […] Oud Caravan N° 3 is the last and final version of the Oud Caravan project. A rich, lushful fantastic Oud. It is an authentic Oud, wild and full fledged, hose animalic notes have been at last tamed.

Real Oud is not a perfume for all. It is not an easy scent to wear, you must have a lion’s heart. He is somehow like the mythical Dragon, if your inner force is too weak you will not bear it. In the Oud Caravan N°3 the Dragon has been briddled and saddled, made ready for you to ride him.

Sourc: alamy.com

Oud is the perfume of the Bedouin princes of the desert. I have tempered with exotic fruitty notes the aspect of excessive power that caracterize the head notes of a good Oud. A good Oud must be excessively powerful and long lasting. The initial heaviness is a natural characteristic of a quality Oud but the beauty of this essence is in its heart and end notes.

The head notes of Oud have to be overcome by the wearer and not all have the energy for that, but thesse notes are indeed those who give the greatest joy to the real Oud lover. My aim was to smooth and temper the initial notes and to control their energy in order to make the scent real Oud accessible to a greater number.

Oud is comparable to the date tree of the Arabs, difficult to climb because of the dangerous needles of its leaves, but when you overcome this, you reach a treasure of sweetness, the ripe fresh dates. It is more easy to enjoy the date tree sitting under its shade than by climbing it and eating its dates, likewise it is more easy to smell the sillage of a prince wearing real Oud than to wear it oneself. Oud Caravan N° 3 is like a date tree where the leaves have been cleaned of their sharp needles so that the treasure of sweetness of the fresh dates is easily at hand.

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