Aftelier Perfumes Bergamoss: The Sunny Chypre

Source: overnature.com

Source: overnature.com

Close your eyes, and imagine a morning walk through the country on a summer’s day. You start in a small forest glade where moss creeps up ancient trees and their gnarled roots. Leaves lie damp under your footsteps, crushed into earth that is dark, loamy, and a little sweet. Tender green shoots and fresh herbs climb out of the ground, peeking their heads around the moss, joining the forest’s morning song. The sun glints through the trees, seemingly half awake and still a little pale, but it quickly shakes itself to shine brighter and warmer, moving rapidly over the turquoise sky.

Your walk quickly takes you to a meadow on the other side where clover and soft grasses form a soft, downy blanket covering the lands. You find yourself a tree at the edges, near an adjoining field of hay and a farmer’s small herb patch filled with sage and thyme. You place a blanket and pillow on its mossy roots, lie back, and let the country’s summer pageant engulf you. The sun has woken fully now, shining warm and bright, enveloping you in its soft embrace. It’s a reverie of greenness that feels infinitely warm and happy without ever losing its innate, ineffable sense of elegance. 

Source: crazy-frankenstein.com

Source: crazy-frankenstein.com

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Rania J. T. Habanero

Source: pinstake.com

Source: pinstake.com

Each of the fragrances of Rania J. Parfumeur showcases a different raw material, and it is the turn of tobacco in T. Habanero. It seeks to give the dark, black note the spicy fire of hot Cuban nights and the aroma of Havana’s famous cigars, but it is more complicated than that for me. Honeyed sweetness, black frankincense, Middle Eastern oud, synthetic sandalwood, and leather all play a part in T. Habanero’s dance, resulting in scent which took me to some surprising places. There is a stage where T. Habanero is a drier, deeper Killianesque Back to Black tobacco that is more suited to an aristocratic, private club in London frequented by Prince Charles and captains of industry than to a wild tango in Cuba. At other times, the scent is like Cuban cigars by way of bedouins in the Sahara, thanks to the barnyard funk of authentic, Middle Eastern oud. And, in the very end, it is a simple trip to overly smoky, arid, blackened woods. It is the last stage which is my problem.

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Rania J. Oud Assam

"Camels and Desert 3" by Mahoor Shah on Fine Art America. (Direct website link embedded within.)

“Camels and Desert 3” by Mahoor Shah on Fine Art America. (Direct website link embedded within.)

A mix of East and West lies at the heart of Oud Assam which showcases and highlights a true, authentic Middle Eastern oud in many of its complex facets before giving a nod to the West through touches of vetiver greenness and neo-chypre-like elements. It is not a scent for everyone, particularly those who have only experienced Western “oud,” a different animal entirely, and your reaction is going to depend on your familiarity with and appreciation for the more challenging aspects of the genuine article. On the other hand, if you love cheesy, creamy, musky, smoky, and slightly barnyard-like oud, Rania J.’s creation is one for you to try.

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Guerlain Myrrhe & Delires: Many Faces, No Name

There are faceless men in Game of Thrones, men who go by no name, have no set identity, are fluid in their ability to take on different guises, and who worship the Many-Faced God. Guerlain‘s Myrrhe & Delires reminds me a lot of them: many faces with a fluid identity that is sometimes quite elusive and often quite forgettable.

Source: cosmoshopping.ru

Source: cosmoshopping.ru

It’s a fragrance which I first tried a few years ago, but I never got around to writing about it simply because it frequently slipped my mind. It’s all too easy to forget about Myrrhe & Delires, which is actually part of the problem. Or the biggest problem. Every few months, I made the resolution to cover the scent, but something interesting invariably came up, something which moved me for better or for worse, or triggered some sort of emotion. So, my little decant went back on the shelf. From time to time, I would see it and would struggle to remember what exactly Myrrhe & Delires smelt like because, you see, that faceless quality leads to an all too forgettable nature. I could vaguely recall a fruity, rose-y-ish gourmand with licorice smokiness, but that’s about it. It left no real impression at all. Even now, after re-testing it for the umpteenth time, it’s hard to describe its exact specifics because, on my skin, Myrrhe & Delires is the fluid Many-Faced Guerlain that has no real face at all.

Image by Monsieur Guerlain via monsieur-guerlain.com

Image by Monsieur Guerlain via monsieur-guerlain.com

I had forgotten entirely about Myrrhe & Delires (as usual) until a few days ago when the blogger, Monsieur Guerlain, announced on his Facebook page that the fragrance was being discontinued, and that Guerlain had confirmed it. Monsieur Guerlain states that the Myrrhe & Delires will only be sold in stores while stock or supplies last. In rounding up my retail links for this review, I noticed that the fragrance is already off the one Guerlain website that always allowed online purchases, the French one. Typically, all the Guerlain sub-sites permit you to put their niche fragrances on a wish-list, but only Guerlain France  consistently permits online purchases of their higher-end releases. That is no longer the case for Myrrhe & Delires, a definite sign of discontinuation, so I thought it best to review the scent while supplies last for any of you who may wish to try it.

Guerlain's L'Art et La Matiere Collection. Photo/Source: Fragrantica.

Guerlain’s L’Art et La Matiere Collection. Photo/Source: Fragrantica.

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