Oppoponax Les Néréides

Desirability: Decant

Source: Fragrantica

Les Néréides fragrances are the archetypical "the bang for your buck" scents and Oppoponax is no different. In return for the very affordable prices listed on various online stores and Ebay, you get well-made fragrances of acceptable quality, with decent performances in the sillage and longevity departments. Totally blind buy worthy I thought and I did. No regrets.

Oppoponax stays true to its name and is a fine introduction to balmy scents.  A soft oriental that is revolves around warm and sweet resins, uncomplicated and largely linear on my skin.  The scent is both cozy and light, the ingredients a sheer version of themselves as compared to their roles in more heavy-hitting resin-based scents like Calvin Klein's Obsession, Guerlain's Shalimar or Yves Saint Laurent's Opium just to name a few. 

So if you are after a sultry, intoxicating scent, Oppoponax is not it. If you would like a lighter Oriental like a subtle golden shimmer accompanying you for the better part of a day, I would recommend to try this.  

Alahine Teo Cabanel

An Oriental sprite, Alahine opens with a quick burst of citrus notes which is their only part in the story. I smell the florals but am unable to tell them apart, together they are a full-bodied and intoxicating bouquet. As delightful as Alahine has proven to be so far, my real pleasure lies in the later hours, where the scent throws off its cloak of flowers and revels in its voluptuous beauty, all spiced smoke and amber glow, sweet honeyed resins and woody musk.

 As a lover of Oriental perfumes and biased in favor of Serge Lutens, what makes Alahine different from Lutens' stable of winners is that Alahine feels like a classic French perfume using oriental notes, just like Rosine's A-Z of roses, all with a French style no matter the ingredients. Lutens' don't fly a flag, they stay true to their ingredients, name and story and are a wild and headstrong bunch, whereas Alahine comports herself in a more graceful manner with a twinkle in her eye. She isn't old but she has matured in the ways of the world and I can't see this being worn by adolescents somehow.

After an initial potency, Alahine slowly slips into a skin scent by about the sixth hour. Not groundbreaking but an elegant, well-made perfume that Oriental fans should sample. 

L'Oiseau de Nuit Parfumerie Generale

L'Oiseau de Nuit. The Night Bird has landed in my hands from a Luckyscent sample. 

Now this is good stuff. 

It opens with a smell similar to lemongrass-herbal, bittersweet and green. The medicinal part abates a bit and I smell the leather that makes me think of really buttery soft leather gloves that you never want to take off but you have to because the SA is staring at you suspiciously and the price-tag is astronomical. 

There's an animal in this scent and I don't mean the name. It smells like an unwashed beast...but I like it...in the scent that is. Not the actual beast up close, I've dated enough of those thank you.


The Odalisque, Aldophe Weisz 1884

I smell sweet smoky resins, which one exactly I can never tell, I get mixed up with the different types of balsams and resins. The official notes list labdanum and benzoin.

The scent twists and turns on me like smoke does in the air, now I get the herbal bitterness, now I get then thick resinous sweetness, then I get the leather and the unwashed beast. 

Sillage is very very good, considering I applied a little bit from a dab sample to my right elbow and I can smell this as clear as if I had my wrist stuck to my nose...that's good in my books. 

My first full bottle worthy PG scent, I may even spring for the 100 ml bottle. Definitely reinvigorated to try more!