Fidelis Histoires de Parfums

Desirability: Full bottle

Source: Fragrantica.

Not a scent for the fainthearted.

Fidelis is a heavy hitter from the very first spray. I tend to overspray with hefty pumps thanks to my slight anosmia secondary to chronic allergic rhinitis, but with Fidelis I am cautious not to go above two gentle sprays or else I run the risk of engulfing everyone else around me with its monster projection.

Many if not all houses from niche to mainstream seem to have done a rose/oud/patchouli combination by now and we perfume lovers have one if not several favorites from the glut of choice available. Some of us may even be fatigued by it! Enter Fidelis and a break with tradition. 

Unabashedly loud, almost brash, Fidelis is nothing like the smooth, romantic rose/oud combinations I lean towards. THIS is oud. Upon application, this giant of a scent is almost unbearably bitter with a medicinal oud so thick you could imagine cutting the air in front of you with a knife. Saffron, cardamom and cumin are looted from the spice cupboard and applied with a liberal hand. Their spicy harmony provides a dry, crisp respite (a breath of spicily fresh air literally) from the majestic oud. Patchouli enfolds you in its warm familiar vegetal sweetness, somewhat akin to rolling around on damp forest ground. Rose neither delicate nor syrupy blends a floral theme into the bold and earthy mixture and I suspect allows for my more feminine tastes to better enjoy Fidelis. 

An Original in a sea of rose-ouds which takes you on an endless and passionate journey. Fidelis is not a scent I frequently reach for, as truthfully I find it a tad too demanding for my sensibilities for a regular fixture but on the days I want complexity as well as a major case of intensity with my roses, this is a good one. 

La Fumée Ottoman Miller Harris

Desirability: Sample

Source: Fragrantica

This house makes decent fragrances but I haven't been bowled over by another Miller Harris scent since L'Air de Rien. Judging by the notes for La Fumée Ottoman I had high hopes that it would rock my world the way LdR did. 

It starts off with a bright bang of bergamot before taking you into the kitchen where the spices of the Orient exist. The cardamom and cloves are seriously amped up in the beginning and I wish the scent stayed that way, I dig smelling like an aromatic sweaty pig and I mean that in the nicest way possible. However the spices drift away too quickly and the scent evolves into a warm spicy rose backed with sweet incenseand woody notes. The drydown is lovely, the spices are faint shadows of their former selves but still giving an edge to the sweet blushing rose with amber and incense to complete the oriental vibe but it is muted in comparison to the opening and after about two hours it is a skin scent on me. 

The longevity is average but the sillage for La Fumée Ottoman needs to be improved in a major way to make sense of the price tag. A decently made and pleasant fragrance but it's not coming home with me. 

Tango Masque

Desirability: Decant

Source: luckyscent

Phwoar...talk about heady and intoxicating, Tango just blazed its way onto my want list and I want this in a seriously bad way. Fragrantica lists this as an oriental floral but it wears like a spicy oriental on me, where have all the flowers gone? 

Cumin. Cumin. Cumin. Cloves. Cinnamon. Cardamom. Cumin. CUMIN. Cumin in all its wanton sweaty glory, attractive or repulsive depending on whether you like it. Boozy, bold, exotic and rich, Tango has me in a cinch, make that a steaming hot passionate cinch. It continues to smoulder all the way to its drydown, a warm, dense and sweet amber base with resins and dry wood heaped on the molten fire. Monstrous projection and longevity. Sexy beast. 

Vetiver Lorenzo Villoresi

Desirability: Full bottle

Source: Fragrantica

I'm in trouble. This is the 4th fragrance I've tried from the Vintage Collection of Lorenzo Villoresi and I like/love them all. I would like to add at this point that if you are adverse to large doses of cumin, please bear in mind that Vetiver from the Vintage Collection has copious amounts of cumin. Not quite a cumin bomb like Rubj but there's no hiding the cumin in Vetiver. 

For the first time I would say that a scent really does smell partly like an Indian curry and partly like a sweatshop. That's how Vetiver started on me. Lots of aromatic spices and the glacial galbanum making up a mixture that is a combination of- bitter, green, invigorating, metallic (celery is one of my most hated vegetables for its metallic aftertaste and smell!) and the....cumin with its sweaty/BO effect that has always been so appealing to me. A whole lot of notes that are potent and competitive beings and Vetiver could have been a jarring disaster but it's not. Far from it. Everything blends beautifully and all the notes fall into place like a choreographed dance, smooth and seamless. It gets rather dry and dusty in the later stage and befits its name Vetiver better than the spices and galbanum did at the beginning but the green bitterness and the spices remain and contribute to the arid climate that makes Vetiver smell like it were part of an Old Western movie. 

Vetiver is softer than I like my scents to be, I have to sniff myself closely to detect the scent trail but it does have a decent longevity. A definite like which would have been a love if the projection had been stronger. 

Rose 31 Le Labo

Desirability: Full bottle

Source: flairflair.com

X Factor Rose.

The rose in Rose 31 smells like a rose and not a pronounced perfumed rose nor am I distracted by the presence of other flowers. It smells freshly sweet and lightly spiced, the spices gently tickling the nose but never harsh or peppery. The dewy rose seems to be the only source of hydration in this fragrance, Rose 31 for the most part feels dry, like crisp, fallen leaves crackling under your shoes. There is a hint of something sour but not the stale sweat some other fragrance lovers have reported, instead the piquancy gives Rose 31 a bit of bolshiness. 

Rose like a steadfast friend, stays with you throughout the lifetime of Rose 31 which is above average and just when its quieter nature misleads you to think it has left without a trace, Rose 31 sends up almost translucent smoky trails in reassurance. Musty in its drydown it feels like the world is tinted in sepia, the rose joined by musk and wood over time creating a grisaille palette. 

A beguiling blend of a spices, wood, musk and rose, I find Rose 31 easier to wear than its much more challenging friend Rose Poivree by The Different Company, as interesting as Rose Poivree undoubtedly is. 

Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso. Source: http://www.pablopicasso.org/

02 L`Air du Desert Marocain Tauer

Source: www.tauerperfumes.com

This smells like a sibling to one of Lutens' oriental scents like Ambre Sultan. A potent dry and spicy wind. POTENT, you have been warned, I've heard humorous stories on how people have cleared gym locker rooms and crèche facilities from overapplication.

For me, L`Air du Desert Marocain is more of a desert wind than Serge Lutens' Chergui, Chergui being a rich honeyed tobacco on me whereas L`Air du Desert Marocain conveys the dry and dusty vibe of a desert. Instead of being desiccatingly hot like the Sharqi, L`Air du Desert Marocain's warmth comes from its rich spices( the cumin stands out for me), the incense smoke, the sweet amber and resins, woody notes and a bit of animal. The different parts of the scent swirl lazily around each other, initially the dry spices are more obvious and later on the smoky resins and woody notes are more apparent, but throughout its lifetime the scent keeps whirling to show you a different face each time you inhale.

Well-crafted, deep and mysterious, L`Air du Desert Marocain takes you on a journey like Aladdin's magic carpet through familiar notes but in a unique formula. Fantastic sillage and longevity, if you love oriental scents, you must try this. 

A Tale of Two Rubj

Desirability: Full bottle

Recently I stumbled upon my latest fixation perfume-wise, the house of Vero Profumo, established by Vero Kern (who I've added to the list of interesting people I hope to have tea with before I die) in 2007, with the scents Kiki, Onda and Rubj in Extrait de Parfum being the first releases, followed by the trio being released in the Eau de Parfum form in 2012. Mito followed by Rozy were introduced in the following years. The perfumes also come in a Voile d'Extrait version with the first four mentioned scents released in 2013. 

What's in a name? I'm definitely not an expert on this and what follows from here is garnered from my research. 

Extrait de Parfum is also parfum and pure perfume. It's the highest concentration of scent, roughly 20-40% but most are around the 20% mark. The hallmark of extrait de parfum is its longevity, it is meant to be the longest-lasting concentration of the scent. However, extrait de parfum does not necessarily have a big projection to match its longevity. An Eau de Parfum is meant to represent a concentration of between 10-20% and Eau de Toilette between 5-15% concentration. The Voile d'Extrait reigns between the Extrait and the EDP. 

I literally exhausted Google search to find out the difference between Rubj EDP and Rubj Vd'E. I came away still relatively clueless and decided to do my own investigation. If you suffer perfume OCD like me, you might want to know. Just in case. 

Rubj EDP is a cumin BOMB. CUMIN BOMB. If Bush/Blair are still looking for the weapons of mass destruction, they could be found hiding behind Rubj EDP. I like stinky things including cumin (think BO, sweat and curry). However in Rubj, the cumin doesn't play nice with the other notes and does a world domination. So on me it smells like Dictator Cumin trampling on the white flower masses. The rampage calms down and the cumin although becoming more mellow with time, remains as the major player.

Rubj Vd'E on the other hand celebrates the white florals. I distinctly smell jasmine, tuberose and orange blossom. The cumin and musk notes keep this from being just another bombastic white floral hot mess and instead Rubj Vd'E smells like a white floral come-hither siren, sexy and kinky(thanks Cumin).

Micheline Pitt. Source: hausofdeath.com

Verdict? I find Rubj Vd'E to be more wearable overall. It's more polished and smooth on me whereas the EDP is raw and aggressive. Think Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday) vs. Katharine Hepburn (The Philadelphia Story). Both attractive but in different ways and therefore I advise to try all versions before deciding. 

Arabie Serge Lutens

If Ambre Sultan channels sultry warm Arabian nights, Arabie channels...food. Spiced teas and thick coffees, honeyed cakes and flaky pastries, dried exotic fruit and candied orange peel...and the perspiration from toiling over the gourmand feast.

I applied with a heavy hand this morning but don't find Aarbie to be a loud scent despite its potent notes so no fear of smelling like a walking spice bazaar or sweat shop. Arabie settles down to a sweetly spiced woody base and the cumin to shake things up. A luxuriant and flavorful scent with roots in the Orient, Arabie is an animated guide who takes you on a foreign foodie trail and leaves you giddy with pleasure. It is a must try for lovers of the exotic and the East, gourmand fans and those who love cumin in their perfumes (sweaty beast). 

Aziyadé Parfum d'Empire

I am a sucker for romance, enthralled by exotic romances and in love with the idea of love. When I first heard about the inspiration behind this perfume, I had to read the novel of course. Aziyadé (pronounced as Ah-zee-ya-deh) or Constantinople written by Pierre Loti (the pseudonym of Julien Viaud) is about a love affair between a British naval officer and a Circassian harem girl named Aziyadé in Turkey. The 1879 novel is a fictionalised account based on Loti's own diary that he kept while as a French naval officer. Loti falls in lust and subsequently in love with Aziyadé who I imagine to be as beautiful as Circassian women are known to be, she in turn is whole-heartedly devoted to him and the relationship seems to go on his terms. At the end and in true Romeo and Juliet style, he returns to Istanbul after a period spent back in France, only to discover that Aziyadé had died in his absence. Heartbroken he enlisted in the Turkish forces under the name Arif-Ussam and was killed shortly after in battle. 

LAST KISS

Even the most undiscerning nose can feel the Orient in this scent. Even the most unfeeling heart cannot hide from the emotions that spring forth when memories are triggered by the essence of this. Aziyadé opens with a quick ping of citrus that disappears as a poof before cumin enters the stage and the spotlight focuses there for a prolonged period allowing us to soak in the pungent aroma laden with darkness and mystery, before the play unfurls further introducing new characters in the form of dried fruit, amber honey, warm heady spices and smoky incense. From the sweet to the acrid spices, the bright citruses to the smoky haze created by the incense, Aziyadé is truly a bewitching tribute to a tragic and touching love story between a naive young girl and an untamed melancholic male. 

Woman of Constantinople, Jean-Léon Gérôme 

The scent projects decently and longevity wise, Aziyadé is as unwavering as her namesake's love for Loti.

Yes I have a flair for the dramatic but this scent was created with Aziyadé in mind and it would be a poor offering if it were any less passionate. 

As Rod Stewart said "Can't live without passion...Won't live without passion..."

“Il n'y a pas de Dieu, il n'y a pas de morale, rien n'existe de tout ce qu'on nous a enseigné à respecter; il y a une vie qui passe, à laquelle il est logique de demander le plus de jouissance possible, en attendant l'épouvante finale qui est la mort.” 
― Pierre Loti, Aziyadé