A Guide To Vintage Parfum d’Hermès — Part I: An Enduring Love

Posted on November 20, 2017 by Kafkaesque

Photo: the fantastic fashion photographer, Kristian Schuller. (Direct link to his full website is embedded within.)

A shape-shifting chameleon, a night rider traversing through a verdant chypre valley to lay claim to a rubied rose atop a pile of oriental treasure, and an unabashedly 1980s-style “take no prisoners” floriental-chypre hybrid, Parfum d’Hermes is many things but always, in my opinion, an under-appreciated classic masterpiece in its earliest formulations.

Age is key. Depending on the year of the bottle you try, it might exude such a naturalistic, heady, and complex 3D rose that it feels as though bucketfuls of beefy Ta’if flowers had been drenched with rich Nombre Noir-style damascones — a rose so grandiose, riveting, and naturalistic that it brings a rose hater like myself to my knees with awe. Then again, with another bottle, it might simply be a green-red damascena rose wafting a crisp, cool hauteur. In both versions, though, it gradually turns gothic and dusky, withered with frankincense and myrrh before being sheathed in a masculine gauntlet of smoke and leathered resins. Well, that is unless you have a bottle from the end of the 1990s, in which case things go in yet another direction still….

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Perfume Review – Amouage Jubilation 25: Scheherazade & Seduction

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Kafkaesque

In The Thousand and One Nights (also known as The Arabian Nights), Scheherazade tricks her new husband into saving her life by enchanting him with a different tale each night. The powerful Persian king had become bitter and enraged by the infidelity of his former wife, so each day he would marry a virgin, only to behead them the next morning before they could betray him. Eventually, the kingdom ran out of virgins and the Vizier (or Prime Minister) was at a loss to know how to placate his bloodthirsty, vengeful king. The Vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade, offered herself as a volunteer; she had a plan to tame the king and stop the bloodshed destroying the land.

Scheherazade spent her wedding night by telling the king a story but, cleverly, she Sch2 never finished it and stopped at the most exciting part right before dawn, the time of her impending execution. The king, determined to know how the story ended, was forced to delay her sentence. That next night, she finished the tale but began an even more exciting story. Once again, she stopped exactly midway shortly before dawn, and the curious king spared her life so that he might hear the conclusion. This continued for a thousand and one nights, as Scheherazade weaved her magic through stories of Aladdin and the Genie, Ali Baba, Sinbad and many more. By the end, the king had fallen in love with the clever Scheherazade and made her his queen.

If the bewitching, enigmatic, intensely feminine, aristocratic Scheherazade were alive today, she might very well make Amouage’s Jubilation 25 her signature scent. As I wrote in my review for the sibling fragrance, Jubilation XXV for Men, the royal perfume house of Amouage would be perfect for a fairy tale or Greek myth. (Or for The Arabian Nights itself.) Amouage is the official royal perfume house for the Sultanate of Oman, and created at the order of the Sultan himself. It seeks to evoke the magic of the Middle East at the hands of master perfumers, who are given all the riches in the land — nay, the richest ingredients in all the world — with a no-expense spared budget.

Amouage Jubilation 25 (left) and Jubilation XXV (right).

On its 25th anniversary, in 2007, Amouage launched two celebratory eau de parfums under the guidance of its artistic director, Christopher Chong. The men’s version was called Jubilation XXV and was created by Bernard Duchaufour; the women’s version was named Jubilation 25, and was made by Lucas Sieuzac. Both versions are eau de parfum concentration.

Jubilation 25

On its website, Amouage describes Jubilation 25 as follows:

Jubilation 25 captures the magic of timeless eternity with rich top notes of rose and ylang-ylang in which myth and reality are expressed using the finest frankincense from Oman.

This fragrance will appeal to the elegant, enigmatic and sophisticated woman who lives her life as an art form – evoking the time, place and cultures she inhabits with the mystical allure of amber, musk, vetiver, myrrh, frankincense and patchouli.

Jubilation XXV is classified on Fragrantica as an “oriental floral,” but it would be much more accurate to call it a fruity chypre. “Chypre” is one of the main perfume families. As a basic rule of thumb, a chypre perfume starts out with citrus-y top notes, has labdanum as part of its middle notes, and has a base that includes oakmoss. The oakmoss is traditionally the main key, but the base also often includes patchouli, musk or some sort of animalic note. (See the Glossary for a full explanation of the chypre family of fragrances, its general composition, and the range of its sub-families.)

Jubilation 25’s notes are listed as follows:

Top notes are ylang-ylang, rose, tarragon and lemon;

middle notes are labdanum, rose, artemisia and incense;

base notes are amber, patchouli, musk, vetiver and myrrh.

The perfume opens and I think to myself, “So Parisienne!” It’s a definite fruity chypre and a very heavy, mature scent. The opening notes are citrus and oakmoss, with a strong touch of tarragon and cumin. Unlike others, I don’t smell any significant amount of ylang-ylang from the start. Instead, what I get is a cumin-infested rose and peach note that is uncomfortably intimate. The peach comes from the davana flower which helps create the slightly fruity nature of the opening. It also evokes Guerlain’s Mitsouko, the standard bearer for fruity chypres, and a perfume which similarly calls to mind female intimacy and cumin. There is also a definite element of sweat which adds yet another type of intimacy to the scent. I can’t help but think of a woman in a slight state of arousal. There is a soft kind of blossoming and earthy fecundity which bring to mind a woman’s panties and… well, “intimate” is the only way I can describe it politely.

The cumin note is subtle at first. It’s not like the cumin in Serge Lutens Serge Noire but the earthiness is such that I have to wonder how the perfume would smell on me if worn at noon during the height of summer. The thought worries me a little. (Okay, a lot!) I can’t begin to imagine how this would smell in 110 degree heat!

A few more minutes in, the tarragon fades away as does a portion of the citrus-y note, leaving a very dry but pungent oakmoss scent. Officially, there is no oakmoss in Jubilation 25. None of the notes listed on the Amouage website (or, indeed, anywhere) list it. But it is there. Read any review of Jubilation 25, and you’ll see a plethora of references to oakmoss and chypres. The ingredients may not list it — just as they don’t list cumin — but dammit, it’s there!

Oakmoss is a tricky scent to describe or convey. It looks and smells similar to the lump of dried litchen that is often stuck at the top of flower pots or in floral arrangements. And, calling it “mossy, herbal and woody” doesn’t really seem adequate. To me, oakmoss has a dry, musty, dark green-grey smell that is dusty and almost mineral-y as well. It is often astringently pungent and a lot like a very damp, earthy forest. But a damp forest that is definitely musty and a bit dusty as well.

Twenty minutes in, the cumin (or whatever skank-ladened note is replicating cumin’s smell) is flitting in and out, making me feel, at times, that it’s actually quite delightful in its uncommon juxtaposition with rose and lemon. At other times, however, I have to resist the urge to sniff under my arms in alarm. It’s a bit of intellectual genius to combine the natural earthiness of cumin with the inherent earthiness of oakmoss, but it’s also rather disturbing.

There is a funky ripeness that makes me fear I am not brave enough for this scent. And, suddenly, I understand Luca Turin’s comparison of Jubilation 25 (which he very much liked, by the way) to Dior’s outré Diorella. Diorella was created by the legendary nose, Edmond Roudnitska, who also created the other monster of funk that Jubilation 25 is often compared to: Rochas’ Femme. (Jubilation 25 is compared to the reformulated, post-1989 version of Femme that had actual cumin added in.)

Femme

Femme is repeatedly described as far more than just merely animalic but, rather, flat out “intimate.” And a good chunk of the ingredients in Femme are also in Jubilation 25, even if the latter doesn’t officially list cumin. (It really should!) The same story applies to Guerlain’s equally “intimate” or “skanky” Mitsouko, which is the third fragrance to which Jubilation 25 is often compared. Mitsouko’s peach, rose, ylang-ylang, oakmoss, vetiver, amber and musky notes are the same ones in Jubilation.

In slight contrast to those “intimate” female scents, Diorella has been described as “fruit on the verge of going bad” by Luca Turin. The perfume blog Yesterday’s Perfume, elaborates on that Turin metaphor saying that Diorella “at its heart, … smells like garbage on the verge of going bad that someone has thrown a pile of flowers onto” but swears that it “shows you how to find beauty in the intersection of garbage and flowers. I know this doesn’t sound like an endorsement, but it is!”

Jubilation 25 combines aspects of all the aforementioned perfumes into one. I think that the last part of Yesterday’s Perfume’s quote about Diorella could really apply to Jubilation 25 if slightly altered: it “shows you to how find beauty in the intersection of [bodily funk] and flowers.” It just takes a little time to become enchanting (or, perhaps, a little less alarming).

But it is, unquestionably, a fascinating scent. It gets in your head with its juxtaposition of soft, feminine florals, earthy dampness and mossiness, and bodily funk. It’s got a little bit danger, and a whole lot of enigma. I can’t decide if I like it, or if I am repelled by it. As time goes on, I am less repelled than I was at the onset, but I’m still completely at a loss on how to assess this scent. It’s that bodily funk aspect that is all woman; it is both the fascination and lure, and the source of my continuing alarm. True, it’s less blunt, forceful, and sexually ripe as compared to Femme where, if memory serves me correctly, it clobbered you on the head. Here, there is just a sheer hint of it. Sheer, like Salomé’s seventh and final veil which was closest to her damp, slightly sweaty, naked

Sir Arthur Streeton’s “Scheherazade.”

body as she danced before the king she wanted to seduce and manipulate into committing murder.

I feel a little trapped and paralyzed by my polarized reactions to Jubilation 25. In fact, I feel just like a fly quivering on a spider’s web, as competing thoughts run through my head. From utter revulsion at the scent, I slowly feel some grudging fascination, then back to alarm as a particularly strong whiff of armpits flashes by before receding again. I scrawl, “Oh no. This is too much!” in my notes, followed a few minutes later by, “I think I like this???” Jubilation 25 is like Scheherazade luring into her mystery, her web, her tales, before trapping you with her enigma, and making you want more.

The soft dry-down doesn’t help free me. It’s all musky rose with a touch of sweetness from the myrrh and amber. For some odd reason, the ylang-ylang is stronger now on me, as is the peach from the davana and the patchouli. Perhaps they were just hidden by that huge burst of overwhelmingly skanky funk? The latter is still there but it is just a faint shimmer now, almost imperceptible. (Well, most of the time. It tends to come and go at this point, almost like a ghost.) I really like the dry-down, though it’s nowhere as fascinating as that opening which lasted a good two hours on me.

Unlike the king in A Thousand and One Nights, however, I do finally manage to break free of the enchantment. I don’t think I would buy Jubilation 25, even if I could afford it (which we will get to shortly). It’s just too mature, heavy and intimate a scent for me. I don’t mind heaviness if it’s resinous ambers or spice, but heavy oakmoss is a bit harder for me to handle as a frequent choice of scents. But it’s the intimacy issue which is more dispositive. I have faint images of slightly ripe panties and earthy underarms that continue to plague me a little. Yes, I don’t think I would wear it. No, on further thought, I think I would. Yes, I would. I can’t get it out of my head and I’m utterly fascinated by its dangerous, alarming elements. I don’t think it is just intellectual fascination, either. There are a lot of scents that fascinate me intellectually and theoretically — such as Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle — but which I’m not interested enough at the end of the day to actually want to wear them.

Jubilation 25 is different because it really has gotten inside my head. I can’t stop sniffing my arms, though I always do so with a healthy dose of trepidation. I could see this as the scent of a dangerous woman, a black widow, or a diva. I think of Angelina Jolie’s character in any number of her films but, especially, in Gia (one of my all-time favorite movies). I also think of Angelina Jolie herself in Alexander, where she met and bewitched Brad Pitt. I think of such diverse people as: the legendary icon, Ava Gardner; the racy, imperious, very sexual but haughty Princess Margaret of England; or the steely, hard, but manipulatively charming Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s former Iron Lady.

What finally breaks me free of the spell and the madness is the price of Jubilation 25. I am simply too much of a cheapskate to spend $300 (or approximately $330 with tax) on one single perfume. I just can’t do it, even if I could afford it. The most commonly available size of Jubiliation 25 is 3.4 fl.oz/100 ml and costs $300, £190.00 or around €220. There is a smaller 1.7 oz/50 ml version that costs $265 or £160.00, but a cursory review of a few US websites shows it is not available on any of the usual or big perfume sites. I found the smaller size only at Beauty Encounter, but it’s really not a good deal given that double the quantity (or 3.4 oz) costs only $35 more.

No, Jubilation 25 is just too expensive for me but, oh, how it tempts me. This is not an ordinary, cheap or generic scent. It smells haughty, regal, luxurious, feminine, and infinitely intimate. It’s dangerous and enigmatic. It’s Mata Hari, Salome and Scheherazade all wrapped into one. And it probably would have brought Scheherazade’s king to his knees far sooner than a thousand and one nights…..

DETAILS:

Sillage & Longevity: Heavy sillage for the first 2 hours before becoming slightly closer to the skin. It becomes fully close to the skin about 3 hours in. All in all, it lasted about 5 hours on me. On others, it is reported to have great or, even, huge longevity.

Availability & Stores: In the US, Jubilation 25 can be purchased online at Aedes, Four Seasons, Luckyscent or Parfums Raffy. (Google and Parfums Raffy state that it is the authorized retailer for Amouage and that it provides free shipping.) If you want the smaller 1.7 oz version, you can go to Beauty Encounter. Samples of Jubilation can be purchased from all those places, as well as from Surrender to Chance (the decant site I always use) where the smallest vial costs $3.99. In London, I’ve read that Jubilation 25 is available at Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, Les Senteurs or the Amouage boutique. In Canada, I’ve read that it’s available at The Perfume Shoppe. In Germany, at First in Fragrance. And, of course, it is available world-wide on Amouage’s own website. The website also has a “Store Locator” for about 20 countries which should, hopefully, help you find Jubilation somewhere close to you.

Perfume Review: Amouage Jubilation XXV: An Oud Fit For A Sultan

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Kafkaesque

The royal perfume house of Amouage would be perfect for a fairy tale or Greek myth. It would be the story of King Midas, and all he touched would be perfume gold. It would The Arabian Nights have Ali Baba and a cave filled with treasures of scent and spice, incense and frankincense — not stolen by thieves but given freely by the Sultan with the order to create the most luxurious scent in all the land. Or, it would be the story of “Perfume” without serial killers and death, and with a happy ending.

As the renowned perfume critic, Luca Turin, said in a 2007 German magazine article:

The story of Amouage is remarkable. Twenty five years ago an Omani prince decided that his country, renowned since Egyptian times for the quality of its frankincense, home to the unique Green Mountain rose and on whose beaches half the world’s ambergris lands at random, needed a perfume firm that would take on the world’s greatest.

So, in 1983, His Highness Sayyid Hamad bin Hamoud al bu Said was ordered to do just that by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the ruler of the Sultanate of Oman. As the perfume store Aedes explains, they wanted “to tell the world about the ingredients particularly found in Oman – the rarest frankincense from Dhofar in the south of the country and the rarest rose of all, the rock rose harvested high up in the mountains of the Jebel Akhdar range towering over the Sultanate’s beautiful capital, Muscat.”

A Thousand and One Nights.

Consequently, Amouage tends to use very Middle Eastern ingredients such as oud or agarwood, rose, incense, resins like labdanum, and spices. It also hires some of the most famous “noses” in the perfume world to create its fragrances, supposedly with an unlimited budget. No expense spared. And the result is some of the most expensive perfumes in the world, even if no longer the most expensive. (It amuses me that the Amouage website describes its offerings as “The Gift of Kings” because it truly means that – both literally and figuratively.)

The Sultan of Oman with Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in Oman.

On its 25th anniversary in 2007, Amouage launched two celebratory eau de parfums Amouage 2 Jubiliations under the guidance of its artistic director, Christopher Chong, and created by the famous orientalist nose, Bertrand Duchaufour. (“Orientalist” is Luca Turin’s description, not mine.) The men’s version was called Jubilation XXV and the women’s version was Jubilation 25. Both versions are eau de parfum concentration and both are essentially considered to be unisex fragrances. Certainly both genders seem to wear the different versions. I have both and plan to review Jubilation 25 tomorrow. For now, let’s focus on the men’s version.

Jubilation XXV is classified as an “Oriental Fougère” fragrance for men, which essentially means its a woody, aromatic oriental. (See the Glossary for a full explanation of the Fougère family of fragrances.) Fragrantica lists the notes as follows:

Top notes are orange, coriander, labdanum, tarragon, olibanum and blackberry;

middle notes are guaiac wood, cinnamon, bay leaf, honey, orchid, rose, clove and celery seeds;

base notes are opoponax, patchouli, myrrh, cedar, musk, oakmoss, ambergris, agarwood (oud) and immortelle.

Amouage describes the perfume’s evolution as follows:

With the grandeur of a great epic, Jubilation XXV opens majestically with notes of the finest frankincense from Oman.

At its heart are elegant notes of rose, orchid and smoky gaiac wood, evoking the philosophy of the enigmatic man carrying the essence of his sophistication across all eras and cultures.

Like the magic of a spellbinding epiphany, notes of musk, myrrh, cedarwood, ambegris, patchouli and immortelle resonate in the depth of the fragrance expressing his longing to travel far, across all continents, to find the ethereal unknown.

Jubilation XXV.

I don’t see it. Jubilation XXV opens with a massive bear hug of oud, concentrated honey, sweet myrrh, a touch of saffron, an almost imperceptible whisper of blackberry, and a strongly boozy amber accord — all under the strong auspices of balsam-heavy orange amber. It is incredibly reminiscent of Hermès’ Elixir de Merveilles, a fragrance I truly adore and which I reviewed here. It is all bitter Seville oranges which, just like in the Elixir, are wrapped in bitter black chocolate (compliments of the patchouli), salt, amber and woody balsam. I find barely any of the supposedly massive blackberry accord that a vast majority of the people have noted. There is a miniscule hint of it seconds into Jubilation’s opening, but it is mere seconds for me. The real fruit that I smell is, as noted, orange.

I was so astonished by the similarities that I tested it out a second time, late in the evening, with a different perfume on each arm. The only difference between the two openings is the touch of oud but — bar that — they were essentially identical. I’m extremely surprised that no-one else has noticed, but I suspect that most men don’t realise the Elixir is really unisex, and perhaps the average Elixir woman isn’t likely to try a seemingly “men’s” oud fragrance.

The oud note is extremely interesting in Jubilation’s opening hour. It is a fleeting, flickering thing; a darting ghost that pops up unexpectedly for a little while before vanishing from sight. Numerous commentators have said that Jubilation is a ghost as a whole: one minute it’s here, the next it’s gone, then it’s back again. They say the scent keeps disappearing, before reappearing. I haven’t had that experience with Jubilation as a whole, but I have had it with the oud element. Sometimes, it feels as though there is absolutely no oud in Jubilation and that I somehow accidentally sprayed on my Elixir. At other times, it appears with an almost mentholated note that cools down and cuts through the narcotic headiness of the warm, boozy resins, the rich heavy balsam-infused orange, and the peppery, smoky frankincense.

The oud in Jubilation is not the sharply screechy, metallic clang of the very synthetic-smelling Montale Aouds that I’ve tried. Nor is it the more medicinal oud of YSL‘s M7. It is slightly closer to the softer ouds in the By Killian Arabian Nights collection (though, at this early stage, not to Kilian’s Pure Oud). No, the oud in Jubilation is too tamed and softened by the smoky resins and the balsam-infused orange. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it merely means that Jubilation’s first stage is not oud-dominant. (That comes later.)

Nonetheless, as a whole, Jubilation lacks the edge and hardness of some oud perfumes. It certainly lacks the more extreme aspect of oud scents like M7 (in its original formulation) which have resulted in descriptions like “dangerous.” Jubilation is a complex, nuanced, layered, very high quality and extremely expensive, rich scent. But it’s not dangerous, if that is what you’re looking for. And, dammit, it smells a lot like an oud version of Hermès Elixir for the first hour! It even has the latter’s unusual salty quality; a hint of the sea air mixed with saltwater taffy.

I checked to see how many of the same ingredients they share; both perfumes have cedar, orange, patchouli, resins, ambergris and incense. Jubilation has a ton more notes than the Elixir, but many of those separate notes come very close to replicating the accords in the Elixir. The myrrh, opoponax (sweet myrrh), labdanum (resin), olbanum (frankincense) and immortelle all have sweet, smoky, incense-y notes that parallel the Elixir’s patchouli, Siam resin, caramel, sandalwood, tonka bean and incense. Immortelle, in particular, has a maple-syrup, honey, caramel aspect that is definitely echoed in the Elixir. (See the Glossary for more details and definitions of these various notes and perfume ingredients.)

The real differences between the two scents begin after the first hour. Jubilation start to lose that sweet head, and the full roar of the woods start to appear. The lingering and final traces of orange are mentholated now, not caramelized. There is also far greater smoke. I smell hints of the Guaiac wood whose scent is described by Fragrantica as “smoky, tarmac notes” and which one Basenotes commentator finds to have a “rosy, honeyed-sweet and slightly smoky and waxy-oily slightly rubbery aroma. The Guaiac wood is subtle, especially under the much more overpowering oud notes, but it’s there. I don’t smell the coriander, orchid, bay leaf, tarragon or celery seeds listed in the notes. I cook extensively, and I know what all those herbs smell like. And they’re not appearing on me.

After a few hours, Jubilation turns into an intimate frankincense and oud party. The oud is much, much stronger now. It’s as though the top notes had muzzled it but now, it’s free to soar. The smell evokes a wintery outdoors, a large stone campfire among the dark, dry woods, with a brisk, chill in the air and the smell of burning leaves. There is stone-like coldness, with sharp black pepper and a definitely leather undercurrent to this oud. As such, it is very reminiscent of By Kilian’s Pure Oud. There is also that rubbery, almost plastic-y but medicinal aspect to the oud that calls to mind the pink plastic sides of a bandaid. That part evokes YSL’s M7. I wonder at times how much of this is the oud and how much is the Guaiac wood with its tarmac, rubber, pepper and smoke notes that others have found. Perhaps it really is just the oud itself combined with the incense, smoke, and biting pepper of the frankincense.

It doesn’t matter. The final result is that the two overarching smells alternate between a gentle waltz, an intimately fiery tango, and a loud cha-cha-cha. They weave in and out of the room. Sometimes, they are snuggling in the dark shadows of the alcoves – just out of sight. At other times, they tango back into the room and the rat-a-tat-tat of their heels stomp up my arm and to my nose. Then they vanish again. It’s bewildering. If I hadn’t read all those comments about the perfume’s on-again, off-again vanishing act, I would think I was hallucinating or that my nose had gone wonky.

The ghost act makes it hard for me to assess the sillage of Jubilation. Its projection for the first hour is as big as everyone says, but then it becomes much more difficult to ascertain. More than one person has wondered if Jubilation was just so strong at the start that their nose “got used to it” for large stretches of time. I will say that, on me, Jubilation does not have the massive longevity that most report — but that is hardly anything new. All in all, Jubilation lasted about 5.5 hours on me, with the last 3 being close to the skin.

All in all, I liked Jubilation XXV, but I’m hardly tempted to share in the mass genuflection and obeisance for the fragrance. Much of the adoring, worshipful praise seems — to me — to stem from those lovely opening notes that some have compared to spices and dates (the fruit) in a Turkish bazaar. Believe me, I know how utterly divine those notes can be; I raved about them extensively for Hermès’ Elixir de Merveilles. I suspect the Elixir is precisely why I’m not more overwhelmed and passionate about Jubilation; I’ve already had the experience. But, for one who hasn’t and who is seeking an oud fragrance on top of it, then I suspect Jubilation XXV will make you rather weak at the knees. It is not an overwhelming, crushing oud fragrance but a very luxurious one that feels expensive. Which is just as well, given that it is expensive.

Bloody expensive, in fact! The usual bottle is 3.4 fl.oz/100 ml and costs $290, £170.00 or around €210. There is a smaller 1.7 oz/50 ml version that costs £140.00, but a cursory review of a few US websites shows it is not available on any of the usual or big perfume sites. I found the smaller size only at Beauty Encounter where it retails for $245. It’s not a particularly good deal, given that double the quantity (or 3.4 oz) costs only $50 more. (As a side note, the women’s version of Jubilation is slightly more expensive in general: $300 for 3.4 oz, instead of $290.)

Amouage Gold in actual gold.

So, is Jubilation XXV worth getting? As always, that is a subjective and personal decision, but the cost of Jubilation makes it a bit more complicated than that equation usually is. Amouage may no longer make the most expensive perfume in the world — that was Gold in 1983 — but it’s still not a walk in the park. Yet, for a large number of people, Jubilation XXV is a scent without compare, one of their all-time favorites, and completely worth every golden penny. I would suggest testing it out via a sample. If it steals your heart, wonderful. If not, then perhaps you can always layer one of your existing ouds (particularly if you already own one from By Kilian) with the significantly cheaper, but always marvelous, Elixir de Merveilles.

DETAILS:

Availability & Stores: In the US, Jubilation XXV can be purchased online at Aedes, Four Seasons, Luckyscent or Parfums Raffy. (Google and Parfums Raffy state that it is the authorized retailer for Amouage and that it provides free shipping.) If you want the smaller 1.7 oz version, you can go to Beauty Encounter. Samples of Jubilation can be purchased from all those places, as well as from Surrender to Chance (the decant site I always use) where the smallest vial costs $3.99. In London, I’ve read that Jubilation XXV is available at Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, Les Senteurs or the Amouage boutique. In Canada, I’ve read that it’s available at The Perfume Shoppe. In Germany, at First in Fragrance. And, of course, it is available world-wide on Amouage’s own website. The website also has a “Store Locator” for about 20 countries which should, hopefully, help you find Jubilation somewhere close to you.