Amoureuse Parfums DelRae

Desirability: Full bottle

Source: pinterest.com

The perfume community keeps raving about Amoureuse and siblings over the years that I've been part of it. Unfortunately due to several reasons including that samples are not easy to find and full bottles even harder to blind buy, Amoureuse and I never got together until I received a decant from a fellow fragrance lover in a recent swap.

It reminds me of Mona di Orio's Nuit Noire, both share animalic, white floral and spicy accords but Amoureuse is much more tame than Nuit Noire. Where Nuit Noire is a sweat-encrusted, well-loved  and worn leather jacket, intoxicating tuberose and sumptuous orange blossom, Amoureuse is lush, honeyed lilies and narcotic jasmine enhanced by the beauty of the tuberose. Cardomom is present in both, imparting its sweet and special spiciness, made even more fiery by fresh ginger in Nuit Noire. Amoureuse stays sweeter throughout its lifetime whereas in Nuit Noire, the sweetness waxes and wanes throughout the story, yet never quite reaching the honeyed tones of Amoureuse. Both scents mellow over time, Amoureuse turning into a soft and powdery affair of sandalwood and flowers whereas Nuit Noire is the glowing coals of a warm amber base. Classic and traditional, both Amoureuese and Nuit Noire are full bottle worthy in my opinion. Sillage and longevity are both very good in the case of Amoureuse, my SOTD clinging on into the night.

Coincidentally while wearing Amoureuse today and surfing the net for potential buys, I came across a very affordable deal for a bottle of Nuit Noire instead. Plus the website had the travel sizes for Profumum Roma so I got one of Battito d'Ali. The icing on the cake was free international shipping. Guess who's an even happier chick than usual today? :) 

Divine EDP Divine

Desirability: Full bottle

Source: Fragrantica

I seriously believed I was over my white floral craze having smelt some of the not so great and some of the very best (too smug was I). That is until I met Divine which thoroughly deserves its name and even more. This house was a totally hidden gem for me but no longer. Not after having sampled this gorgeous one and  the siren L`etre Aime Femme (*fans herself), both scents having pushed the competition out of the way to reach the top two spots on my want list. 

Nose-tingling aldehydes make a sweeping entrance. Heady tuberose (the way it should be), milky sweet gardenia and citrus-tinged orange blossom run riot in Divine EDP. Not one flower outshines the others but together create a most glorious symphony. Rose and jasmine are noticeable but my attention was focussed on the white flowers I love best. However the indolic jasmine becomes far more obvious as the scent settles down and develops into a warm, spiced and musky floriental that's sophisticated and sunny. I literally have nothing but praise for Divine EDP. Even from a dab sample, the sillage is huge and longevity is very, very good. 

Bold, bright and beautiful. If you love white flowers, you must try this. MUST. 

L'Aimant Coty

Desirability: Full bottle

Source: Amazon.com

Suffering withdrawal symptoms from my month long holiday, one thing that revived me was the many parcels I accumulated while away. All of them were swaps with other fragrance lovers and many of them were blind swaps, including L'Aimant (the version I have is pictured above). 

A generous yet smooth and gentle dose of aldehydes, fuzzy peaches, dusty florals drying down to baby powder if it is possible to find baby powder smelling of musk and sandalwood. Elegant, warm and so lovely from beginning to end, L'Aimant would appeal to lovers of scents with a vintage flair. L'Aimant doesn't feel like the pink colour it is boxed in but more of a hazy peachy colour, like being enveloped in a loving hug. 

L'Aimant has been compared and contrasted to Chanel No. 5 but personally I won't recommend it as a dupe or a replacement. L'Aimant is easier on the senses than No. 5, with a milder character than the demanding "look at me, look at me" personality of No. 5. I've always felt that No. 5 is a moody if glamorous scent with dark secrets ( well the No. 5 of my childhood that I smelt on my mother who wore the same scent over the years and reluctantly moved on to something else due in part to the reformulations of No. 5) as compared to L'Aimant which comes across bright and joyful. I can't say that this would ever be a favourite as it is more mellow than I like my fragrances to be, but it is a nice relief from the many over the top/sugary sweet perfumes we are overloaded with today.  

A scent that you can wear anytime and to any place in any weather, with decent sillage and OK longevity=Blind swap success! I hate to make negative remarks but L'Aimant as a cologne spray lasted longer than my No. 5 parfum which I bought in 2013 from a Chanel counter (just in case Chanel loyalists accuse me of buying off the grey market). Last but not least let's not forget how very affordable L'Aimant is! Highly recommend!

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. 

Angélique Noire Guerlain

Desirability: Full bottle and back up

Source: www.lesflaconsdeparfum.com

Complete and peaceful. 

Like a recovering addict, I've done my best to steer away from the sole Guerlain counter that carries the exclusive range and even went to great lengths to avoid the shopping mall in which its housed. However I recently bought in on a split of Angélique Noire which I briefly smelt and loved a few years ago. From the line L’Art et la Matière, Angélique Noire and Tonka Imperiale stood out the most for me. Actually I'm pretty crazy about my tiny decant of  Angélique Noire to the point that words and reason failed me when I tried to explain why (the crazy part that is). I'll say it's Guerlain at its best...just call me a groupie.

A pleasantly strange fragrance, vanilla is obviously part of the composition but there's a faint peppery greenness about the vanilla that makes it different from any other vanilla I've come across. Vanilla usually adds some weight but Angélique Noire remains quite...Twiggy-esque for a lack of a better word. Spicy without being fiery, sweet without crossing into gourmand or sickly and aromatic without being too green. Delicate and rarefied but not limp. Musk and faint incense appear in the drydown which feels like a warm golden shawl around your shoulders, conjuring up images of perfect perfectness like the duck scene in The Notebook. Moderate projection and very good longevity.

Source: pinterest.com

Trivia: Angelica or angelica archangelica as an essential oil is purported to be an excellent restorative to help ease anxiety, lift depression and alleviate tension. 

Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue Bond No. 9

Source: nitrolicious.com

Spiced crème brûlée. 

It starts off like a spicy gourmand, a spiced crème brûlée literally making me want to eat my arm. It's as if someone stole the chai latte notes from Five O'Clock Au Gingembre to jazz up the custard. Fresh figs and plums decorate the dessert which smells like a well-proportioned combination of fruit, vanilla and spices, none dominating the others.The sweet and milky sandalwood here reminds me of Le Labo's Santal 33, which is all the sandalwood I need and never fails to garner compliments. As it dries, the scent becomes even warmer and bundles you up in a downy blanket of contentment. All in all Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue is perfectly balanced between woody, spicy and sweet, smooth and rich but not too much, beginning with dessert and ending up with you satiated and comfortable on a cushy sofa all ready for a snooze. 

One common trait amongst the Bond No. 9 range whether I like the perfume or not, is that all the ones I've tried have mega projection and longevity. For example the little spot where I've dabbed Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue is outperforming my SOTD Annick Goutal's Ambre Fetiche. 

On a side note a lovely friend sent me this and I thought I would share it with you in case you ever need a spot of sunshine.

Source: inniepoo.wordpress.com

PG14 Iris Taizo Parfumerie Generale

Source: Fragrantica

Iris Taizo is another almost but not quite gourmand fragrance from Parfumerie Generale. You need to like cardamom to get through the opening as it starts with a blast of spicy green...incense? That's what I smell anyway. With time the potency of the scent decreases and so does the intensity of it, leaving room for a sweet powdery and woody base to be noticed under the spiciness. On paper the powdery aspect of the iris is played up and I much prefer it on my skin where it's more waxy than powdery, an enveloping warmth of spiced honeyed wood.

My only guff is that despite its promising bellow at the start, the scent wanes quite fast and all that's left is a skin scent that sticks around for the better part of  three hours tops. Solution: buy the 100 ml and lug it around for frequent touch-ups.

Tihota Indult

Source: flickr.com

It was Serendipity that brought Tihota and I together. As I'm sworn not to reveal my source, all I can say is I went looking for a sample and got a full bottle of this beauty as a very generous gift. 

This is a perfect, uncluttered and swanky vanilla without any Desperate Housewives plastic surgery done. I find it straightforward but I don't mean boring, think back to CK's clean black and white advertisements of Kate Moss' days. It is sweet without being artificial or callow and smells as ritzy as its accompanying price tag. In the drydown it becomes an incredibly warm and snuggle-worthy vanilla musk that is part comfort and part carnal. A final point is that Tihota lasts forever plus a day and it is loud but not unbearable even for my nurse who hates the smell of vanilla and has made me swear never to wear Dior Addict around her.

Blooming expensive but I can't quite bring myself to say it's not worth its price. If you want a solid performing excellent quality gourmand vanilla and don't mind splashing the cash...this is IT. 

Pentachords White Tauer

Desirability: Decant

Source: Fragrantica

In a nutshell, this smells like a rich vanilla cake with a thick frosting of buttercream and decorated with crystallized violets. The initial part truly does smell gourmand but after some time, a powdery sweet iris emerges from all this richness, in a delicate posy with fresh violets. In the drydown, the powder drifts away to be replaced by warm woody notes backing the suede-like iris and sweet violets.

This is comfort in a bottle, be it stuffing your face with decadent treats or nestling in a rocking chair before a warm fireplace with the smell of an approaching Spring in the cool air. Average projection with good longevity, I get at least eight hours wear. A much more approachable take on iris than Lutens' Iris Silver Mist which I enjoy smelling but not wearing. 

Le Parfum Couture M. Micallef

Desirability: Full Bottle

Micallef does sexy beast.

A far cry from the juicy fruity floral scents that I've tried from Micallef so far and I'm totally loving it. Fans of dark roses with some kink would want to try this, it's a sibling of Frederic Malle's Portrait of a Lady, Ex Idolo Thirty-three and the rest of their alluring kind. 

Sweet, spicy, unrepentantly sexy, velvety rose that starts oh so very animalic as if a big cat just rolled in the rose bushes thinking it was catnip. After the animal gets off the trampled flowers, the smell of spiced woods comes in and mingles with the rose scent, becoming a peppery rose and woody scent. In the dry down, the spicy notes become less obvious but the rose and wood notes prevail and are joined by a warm, salty, musky smell that I've come to associate with ambergris. Average projection and longevity was about six hours on me. The black floral lace stocking material covering the heavy glass bottle gives you a bold hint to the va va voom inside.

Not the most awesome music video, but I'm putting this here for the music which goes well with this Micallef. Those who watched Empire Records would remember this one :)

L'Ambre des Merveilles Hermès

Amber and vanilla must make caramel because that was my first impression on wearing L'Ambre des Merveilles. I love Eau des Merveilles with its invigorating salty sweetness and find Elixir des Merveilles the perfect evening companion to the original, with it's balmy richness but L'Ambre des Merveilles seems to have ventured out of Nature and into the dessert section . 

With a delightful opening of tart citruses, burnt sugar and a creamy vanilla, it starts off smelling like a lovely orange custard with a crisp sheet of caramel on top. 

Source: commons.wikimedia.org

After polishing off the custard, feeling satiated and ready for a siesta, the gourmand notes evolve into a thick warm hazy blanket of soft, sweet wood and a smooth, light amber.  With the vanilla, citrus and amber, it reminds me a little of Guerlain's Shalimar but  L'Ambre des Merveilles is much more tame, less seductive, less passionate. Whereas I would always keep a bottle of Shalimar, I could pass on repurchasing L'Ambre des Merveilles and prefer Eau des Merveilles or Elixir des Merveilles which I find to have more character.  

L'Ambre des Merveilles seems to be the most feminine of the three because of the caramel note but I can imagine this would smell delicious on either sex. All three of the Merveilles series that I've tried have an average sillage but I wish they lasted longer than the four hours I get out of them. 

PG 25 Indochine Parfumerie Generale

Source: Saccani.com

Another scent from Parfumerie Generale that I could fall in lust with. Honeyed spices (cardamom predominant) on a resinous woody base. It starts off with a blast of cardamom (if you don't know what cardamom smells like, smell this and you won't forget it!) which blends beautifully with the honey, both sweet and spicy. The smoke and woods come next, bringing me back to holidays spent in the relative quiet and isolation among the paddy fields of Ubud, Bali, reclining on a veranda and watching the sun languorously descend, its last rays serenely giving way to the impending darkness, a wistful glow caressing every surface goodbye. 

The honey is reigned in by the wood and spices and although sweet, Indochine is more of dry, spiced woods than gourmand on my skin. It has a good sillage on me and average longevity. Lovers of Lutens' Ambre Sultan, Chergui, Five O'Clock Au Gingembre and the like, would enjoy this. I definitely do, Indochine being as idyllic an experience as my remote getaways. 

Fate for Women Amouage

Source: pinterest.com

Fate and Beloved are two oddly comforting perfumes for me. I say odd only because I tend to view Amouge perfumes as luxurious jewels and instruments of seduction not burrito blankets( I learnt a new slang today, thank you Bella).

Beloved I group together with another beloved Shalimar under "classy classics", I find Fate to be more extroverted and gregarious compared to them. Perfume is for anytime and any place of course, but I reach more often for Fate to chill out with in a hole-y tee and Beloved to look presentable for, even though both turn me into a contented, purring cat.

Fate starts a bit sharp and peppery but the sharpness doesn't last for more than it takes the spray to evaporate on my skin, before it turns into a smoky, spicy and woody balm for the soul, that envelops one in a blissful bubble, like sitting and watching firewood burning merrily on a cold weekend afternoon, a mug of something sinful in hand while one shuffles around at home still in pajamas at 4 pm. I get powdery florals as it further dries which gives Fate some vintage charm like Besame cosmetics. The floral powder, smoke, woods, resins and spices all blend smoothly into a complex and sublime scent that shares traits with other Amouage scents (Dia for floral powder, Epic and Beloved for warm spicy florals, Interlude and Memoir for smoky resins) before it but remains unique.

Source: community.sephora.com

I prefer wearing Fate when its cold i.e when the air-conditioning is on as the scent blooms beautifully whereas much of its performance is dampened in heat and curiously enough the sillage/longevity seems to be affected by temperature too. I get amped up sillage in heat but with poor longevity and in colder temperatures, the sillage is still good but the longevity is way better.

* Just to avoid confusion, I refer to the female versions of the scents mentioned above.

Lei, Mazzolari

I've had the pleasure of Lei's company for a number of times and can't decide yet if it will develop into a full relationship. 

I adore patchouli in all its various characters and Lei is chock-full of patchouli, sweet, earthy and dark. I don't smell chocolate or cacao but Lei smells like a chocolate brown to me, something in the spectrum of Serge Lutens' Chergui with its amber hues, not Lei's own pale gold liquid. 

Further contributions to the warm brown imagery, come from the labdanum and vetiver. The vetiver is smoky and woody, like how it smells in Le Labo's Vetyver 46. Labdanum is a multi-faceted gem and in Lei, it plays a role in the balmy quality of the scent, further introducing a leathery note that adds to the alluring glow of Lei. It truly is an oriental scent from the first sniff. 

Lei dries to a citrus-tinged, woody vanilla base, that's as snug as a bug and reminds me of the dry down of Guerlain's Shalimar. It is because of this similarity to Shalimar that makes me wonder if I need Lei in my life. Lei has a bitterness that is downplayed by its overall sweetness whereas Shalimar is a sublime, smoky vanilla without any bitterness. 

The scent projects well from my skin for the first four hours and subsequently remains as a skin scent for much longer.

A La Nuit Serge Lutens

This is the be all and end all of jasmine scents for me. I bought my first bottle in 2007 and have not craved for another jasmine since. 

It reminds me of being a young child of less than a metre tall, curious about my father's garden with hundreds of different exotic plants calling it home. At the back of the garden is a huge jasmine bush, well back then it was huge in contrast to the little me. It is a type of Jasminum Sambac, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the blooms resembles white roses and they open at night, releasing a super potent jasmine scent, much stronger than the single layer ones. Till this day, it is my favourite plant in the garden and it shares its blooms with me to scent my living space with its unique fragrance. 

Jasminum Sambac, Grand Duke of Tuscany, courtesy of flnurserymart.com

A La Nuit is all about jasmine, from the start, you are greeted with an intense jasmine scent, sweet and clear as if smelling from a just plucked bloom. As you enjoy the fragrance you notice behind the floral sweetness, an animalic note that I usually associate with jasmine and tuberose, although it smells different in each. It is as if the flower has just gone past its prime and is one step towards decay. The scent feels warmer and more pungent at this point compared to its dewy freshness in the opening and stays like this for many hours. Like the Grand Duke of Tuscany, A La Nuit has a huge sillage and I can still smell it lingering the next day.

A La Nuit is both womanly and child-like at the same time, uplifting and yet causes a wistful yearning for past happiness, refreshing yet indolic. There is nothing quite like her.

Une Fleur de Cassie Frederic Malle

Desirability: Full bottle and a back up

I was too caught up in my obsession with Carnal Flower and Dans Tes Bras to give Une Fleur de Cassie the attention she deserved but I'm glad she gave me a second chance. A friend recently asked to swap for 10 ml of it and fired up my curiosity, I have always liked it but never appreciated its real magic. Till now that is. Thank you Emilija :)

Time-lapse image of a suntrail. Pekka Parviainen. 

Une Fleur de Cassie is like watching the sunrise to sunset.

 She opens bright, yellow and clear, like the sun shining through the windows in the morning. The initial sharpness gradually turns into a musty golden pollen, sour sweet and woody, like romping in scented fields of flowers and hay, rays of the afternoon sun beaming down, far far away from the any jaded, polluted city.

Magnificent mimosa in a vase. FRAGAL.

Like the soothing calm watching a sunset brings, so does the mellow powdery dry down of Une Fleur de Cassie bring feelings of contentment and happiness shaded by a light melancholy.



You kiss the last rays goodbye and give your loved ones a hug, breathing in the heated musk of skin tinged with sweat from playing under the sun all day.

Just as the happy memories stay with you forever, so does the warm glow of Une Fleur de Cassie stay on your clothes for what seems forever, keeping you in a perfumed personal bubble all day.  

Une Fleur de Cassie is a scent you need to have time for, not something to spray on in a rush. Like a fine wine that you let breathe and sit with to fully appreciate its bouquet, so it is with Une Fleur de Cassie. 

The emotional joyride Une Fleur de Cassie takes you on is magical. Quite the epitome of a perfect fragrance.

Conaffetto Hilde Soliani

Desirability: Full bottle

Bye Bye Alessandro (Mazzolari). Hello Conaffetto. I will start by saying that Conaffetto needs to be sampled on skin not paper, I tried both and on paper the bitter almond is overemphasized and wipes out its companions whereas on skin...it's heavenly...

Bitter almonds galore on opening. The sweetness from both the orange flower and sugar notes starts as a suggestion but as the scent warms on your skin, they warm up as well and the bitterness fades until you have the perfect marriage of bitter and sugar with orange blossoms instead of confetti scattered about. Like I said...it's heavenly...

wedding send-off with confetti

Ok so throwing in some trivial knowledge. Raw almonds can taste mild and nutty and sometimes have a cherry smell to them(which disappears with roasting them). Why do raw almonds smell like cherries? Well they are related, both belonging to the family of "stone fruit", genus Prunus, including nectarines and apricots. The trees get hybridized to achieve different fragrant profiles and hence you get almonds that smell like cherries and vice versa.

There are sweet almonds and there are bitter almonds.Sweet almonds are the ones we see in nut mixes and cakes. Bitter almond is poisonous and only its oil or extract are safe to use.The term bitter almond is sometimes used interchangeably with apricot kernel which bears a similar appearance and shares the same poison as well as taste profile.

 Apricot kernels are used together with almonds in the making of Amaretto and Amaretti biscotti as well as apricot preserves and marzipan. These bitter almonds/apricot kernels are rich in vitamin B17 or amygdaline, used in alternative cancer therapy. Ingesting as little as ten of these bitter almonds can result in cyanide poisoning as amygdalin releases cyanide in the gut through enzymatic action. 

The almond in Conaffetto is decidedly bitter but not poisonous as I'm obviously still typing this as I wear it. What's really precious about Conaffetto for me is that it has the bitter almond note like Mazzolari's Alessandro and retains the warmth of Alessandro while passing on the powdery dry down of the Mazzolari which was a negative point for me. Then there is a fresh and lovely orange blossom note to brighten and sugar to sweeten the bitterness but both notes playing a smaller role compared to the almond. Conaffetto approaches but never quite becomes a gourmand for which I am thankful, enjoying it the way it is, blissful and with an air of nostalgia. It has an average projection but is tenacious and lasted more than a day on clothes. 

Kate Moss' wedding dress designed by John Galliano is still number one for me.

Ambre Sultan, Serge Lutens

Feeling nostalgic tonight and decided to hang out with the one that started it all. Or the last few millilitres of my first bottle of niche perfume, my first Serge Lutens, my first Amber. Quite a few firsts. 

Up till now, Ambre Sultan is still the watermark when it comes to amber scents. It's like Goldilocks would say, it's just right. Some ambers tend to turn powdery like Calypso's Ambre, although that is a very good amber patchouli for its inexpensive price-tag. Some are too sweet and sedate for my taste like L'Artisan's Ambre Extreme which is anything but extreme, it's soft, polite and a tad boring. 

Ambre Sultan smells like ages past in a land that no longer exists or all that remains is a decrepit pile of rubble of past grandeur and a civilised life...its dryness makes me think of hostile, arid deserts that stretch as far as the eye can see, its spices transport me to multiple places at once, following my mother when I was about the height of her knees, to the market and watching the seller selecting various spices of burnished ambers, a myriad of reds and mounds of yellows, pouring the eye-watering blend into a cone fashioned out of old newspaper.

Or travelling in the Middle East and North Africa, experiencing multitudes of foreign smells and flavours that I never came across before and falling in love with newfound exoticism. The balmy coziness of Ambre Sultan that calms and reassures...it takes me back to around the time we first met, using the scent on rare, precious free evenings spent with friends or just chilling alone by a water's edge, watching the sun in it's last dazzling performance before it goes to say hello to another part of the world. 

This is the potent power that Lutens' have on me, that trigger a slew of memories and create dreams where I surf the olfactory waves to different lands. There's something pleasurable yet poignant about each Lutens' scent that I meet and Ambre Sultan is no different. Yes it is a French interpretation of the Orient but by someone who is not just familiar with it but understands it as well. 

“Some of my old memories feel trapped in amber in my brain, lucid and burning, while others are like the wing beat of a hummingbird, an intangible, ephemeral blur.” 

― Mira Bartok

El Born, Carner Barcelona

My dad loves rum and raisin ice-cream and when I first tried El Born, I wish he wore scents, I would have gotten a bottle of this for him. 

It's very boozy with dried fruit and sweet vanilla, conjuring up images of a mound of dark glossy raisins over creamy vanilla ice-cream, add rum as you please. El Born is without a doubt, gourmand without being a gourmand. Like how Frederic Malle's Dries Van Noten smells like spiced egg nog, when there's nothing gourmand in its listed notes to suggest so. 

In El Born, the rich resins and balsams give it it's boozy warmth and contribute to the sweetness created by the honey, vanilla and dried fruit notes. The sandalwood adds a creamy and rich texture, hence the ice-cream analogy. 

The scent dries to a boozy and powdery vanilla. Delicious from start till finish which is over eight hours at least. 

Rum raisin ice-cream 

Night Aoud M. Micallef

Possibly my favorite from Micallef so far. I wasn't too enamored of Mon Parfum (original and the Cristal version), I'm undecided about the bubble-gum note in Watch (Time for love) and Aoud Gourmet is nice but I prefer Night Aoud by far. Unfortunately I've read gossip that it's been discontinued but I managed to swap for an almost full bottle. 

It's a very pleasing oud/floral combination, warm, plush and has a gourmand feel to it, something akin to Aoud Gourmet, almost a fruity gourmand ( soft ripe peaches and vanilla). It opens with a blast of heady and sweet ylang ylang but the scent gradually mellows and settles into an woody-oudy-floral, touched by a glowing amber. Overall I smell approachable, even friendly.

Night Aoud projects very well the first hour or so and subsequently stays as a skin scent for about six to eight hours. Despite it's name, Night Aoud is suitable for day wear and for all occasions be it work, grocery runs or date nights. Oud based perfumes can be potent and almost overwhelming but not here where in spite of the oud, the scent remains light. I find it leaning towards the feminine side of the scale, in part due to the sweetness of the fruity-floral aspect but any self-assured male could carry this off very sexily too.