Ormonde Jayne Jardin d’Ombre and Ambre Royal

Neither of these 2016 Ormonde Jayne releases – Jardin d’Ombre and Ambre Royal – are my kind of thing, even though there are interesting and even beautiful moments in both of them. But I’m beginning to wonder if 2016 marked some kind of strategic shift for Ormonde Jayne as a brand, away from the more characterful – and some might say challenging – compositions and towards a simpler, broader aesthetic that panders to a more mainstream taste?

Because, from this point onwards, that fascinating Ormonde Jayne interplay between piquant, peppery citrus notes and opulent woody, floral, or resinous drydown seems to be, if not missing, then certainly thinner – a mission drift of the kind that you notice only if you look closely enough. I notice, in the post-2016 Ormonde Jayne output, a flattening out on the complexity front, as well as a tendency to hoist them into the air with a sticky-sweet aromachemical volume far outpacing even the boost of the Iso E Super for which the brand is well known.

It’s fine, it’s fine – there are high points and successes even within this ‘slide’, if that is what it is, (the Love Collection was more lovely than not, and the 2016 release of Rose Gold was a triumph, even if it was followed by the insipid, more department-store-ish White Gold in 2017). And I will continue to think of, and rate, Ormonde Jayne as highly as I do Chanel, Hermès, and Mona di Orio when it comes to their consistency in turning out solidly-built, classically luxurious perfume. Ormonde Jayne is and always will be a top tier house for me. But, speaking as a serious Ormonde Jayne fan and owner of about six of their fragrances, if the La Route de la Soie collection marks where the brand is headed, then I will lock myself in with my pre-2016 Ormonde Jayne perfumes and try to pretend that the house ended its run there.

Neither Jardin d’Ombre nor Ambre Royal are all that bad but compared to the perfumes in the core collection and in the Four Corners collection, they’re not that great either.  They could be said to mark the beginning of the shift in Ormonde Jayne direction towards the common denominator of popular taste for Ambroxan-driven ambers and florals, and from this perspective, they are interesting to study. Would I wear them myself? No, probably because nowadays, I tend to rank new perfumes – flurries of interest or even what I think might be ‘like’ or ‘love’ – against the gold standard of Nawab of Oudh, and when it comes down to it, I would always prefer to save for that bottle of Nawab of Oudh.

Jardin d’Ombre

It’s impossible to tell from the notes list, but Jardin d’Ombre is not a rich, velvety floriental but rather a sheer and uplifting Eau de Lancôme medley of lime and bergamot strung out over gauzy white flowers (Hedione-assisted) and a whoosh of what feels like aldehydes. There’s a tannic ‘linen’ note in the midst of the scent’s Big Lift which makes me wonder if there was a microtrend afoot for this sort of sourish, diaphanous white floral in 2016; the way Jardin d’Ombre is set up strongly recalls the cold champagne-and-copper-pennies fizz of Superstitious (Frederic Malle), also 2016.

Truth be told, these soapy aldehyded florals with their sharp elbows and chilly demeanor – Climat, Arpège, etc. – are not really my thing; I need a bit of warmth and sweetness (Gold Woman by Amouage and Ella by Arquiste are as close as I am willing to get). But I do love the cold, aerated feel of Jardin d’ Ombre at first; it smells like a freshly-laundered bedsheet whipped by gusts of mountain air, the scent of the lemon or jasmine-scented water still clinging to the fabric. There’s also a brief but enchanting moment where it smells a bit like a freshly-opened sheaf of printing paper.

Unfortunately, the sourish, papery freshness I enjoy so much fades away within the hour, leaving in its place a sullen clutch of gummy ‘white flowers’ and an amber accord so sticky that I feel like I’ve just peeled open one of my husband’s white shirts taken wet from the machine to discover that it’s gone through the wash wrapped around one of the children’s abandoned, half-sucked lollipops (flavor undetermined). Funnily enough, the gummy white flower/amber-Ambroxan accord that Jardin d’Ombre dries down to happens to be the point from which the next fragrance I’m reviewing – Ambre Royal – starts out.

Ambre Royal

This is a stretch, so bear with me – but is it possible that Ambre Royal is Ormonde Jayne’s riposte to Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s Baccarat Rouge 540? Both follow a basic formula of something candied joined to a spacey, metallic Ambrox overload that sends the whole thing shooting off into space. Both are sweet (in an acceptably masculine manner) and enormously radiant. Both fragrances affect me in an almost physical sense. Some portions leave me nose blind, while other portions drive an Ambrox-shaped ice pick into the most tender and vulnerable part of my brain. I can’t wear either of them for an extended length of time without wanting to boil my skin off to make it stop, but I did anyway, because reviews based on a quick sniff rather than a full day’s wear are only 10% of the story.

On my skin, Ambre Royal smells absolutely awful at first. I am assaulted by the scent of boiled sweets melted down and smeared over salty fishing tackle – a queasy mélange of Maltol, shiny lab musks, the sweaty, aftershavey radiance of Ambrox, and the bone-dry, faux-cedar crackle of Iso E Super. Smells like the essence of Man on steroids. But the Sporty Modern Man edition, because it sure is sweet.

But listen, this is Ormonde Jayne, and they are never just going to leave this accord hanging around all on its own like that. So, the ugliness of the initial chords gets gentled down in a bed of powdery musks, amber, myrrh, and (real-smelling) cedarwood that smells like an expensive wooden box full of antique amber resin.

The amber is not rich, but light, expansive, and nicely salty. In fact, it reminds me of the black licorice-inflected almond play-dough (tonka bean and myrrh) of Alien Absolue, minus the overt jasmine notes. I warm up to Ambre Royal at precisely the point at which I stop smelling aftershave and start smelling the anisic custard accord I love so much in the Mugler, though the Ormonde Jayne take on the theme has been lighted and aerated so much that it bears only a distant relationship to Alien Absolue’s gouty bullishness. I don’t know what kind of black magic has been employed to massage something so brutal into the shape of luxuriousness, but that’s Ormonde Jayne for you. I just wish we’d been treated to the smooth stuff from the get-go rather than having to sweat through the unpleasantly metallic ambery goop at the start.

Before I posted this review, I checked the fragrance again, this time spraying on paper – and what a revelation! Ambre Royal behaves very differently on paper than on my skin. Paper slows its roll. I’m treated to a drawn-out procession of some pretty wonderful notes that had whizzed right by me the last few times. I smell anise, red and purple berries, licorice vines, velvety musks, gin and tonic, gripe water, and a sort of creamy, candied white musk-custard accord that reminded me immediately of the amazing Musc Nomade (Annick Goutal), shot through with the cedary aftershave notes of Ambrox and Iso E Super, which are now subdued under the indolent weight of silky amber notes. Quite a different experience. If it weren’t socially unacceptable to wear perfume via paper strips taped to one’s pulse points, that’s totally how I’d handle Ambre Royal.

Source of Samples: Ormonde Jayne as PR samples in 2016-2017 (ish). This review was not required by the brand.

Cover Image: Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash