As you might have guessed from my
recent series of posts, I am a big fan of the house of Ormonde Jayne. After
having invested in several full bottles and having worked my way through samples
of most of the brand’s collection, I feel like I have a good handle on the
house DNA. Indeed, one of the things that I admire most about the brand is its strong
creative control; most of the perfumes feature a signature move or note that definitively
identifies them as members of the same genus. I’ve defined this signature
elsewhere as a polished abstraction that gives you more than you were
expecting.
But if the Ormonde Jayne DNA could be defined as ‘an original idea, softly stated’, the new La Route de la Soie Collection strikes me more as ‘a soft idea, softly stated.’ For me, the first four perfumes in the La Route de la Soie Collection are a disappointing deviation from the house DNA, sitting closer to the mainstream than to either niche or masstige (however you want to define it). The perfumes, although all as high quality as you’d expect from a brand like Ormonde Jayne, feature neither the exoticism promised by the Silk Road connection nor the quiet complexity we’ve been weaned on by years of Ormonde Jayne output. These perfumes are nice, competent, and pleasant – and one is even a little trashy (in a good way) – but not one of them sparks the fierce joy that has me saving up my pennies.
My point of reference is Nawab of Oudh from the Four Corners, because it features the house sleight of hand of making my mouth water and pucker at the same time. Perfumes like these remind me of the tart, peppery Vietnamese ouds, with their perfect balance of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter – addicting at first sniff, with a world of depth hiding behind the initial pop of flavor. Compared to something like this, the perfumes from the La Route de la Soie Collection are like those plastic-wrapped sponge cake snacks and Pocky you get from Japanese stores or a dispenser – cute as hell, but disappointingly bland on the tongue. Still, it’s probable that I’m not the target market here, and that’s fine. There’s plenty for me to love in the rest of the Ormonde Jayne stable.
I like that there’s no standard
‘house rose’ note used by Ormonde Jayne – their roses cover the broad sweep
from the peach-shampoo-and-date juiciness of Ta’if to the jellied
rosewater of Nawab al Oudh, to the smoky-fresh green rose in Rose
Gold. With a name like Damask, I was expecting a purebred rosa damascena
note up top, and right enough, this is promptly delivered in the form of a velvet
carpet of soft, purple-red rose petals. A smell deep and pure enough to make
you weep.
But just as my nose is burrowing
into the tightly furled core of the rose, it disappears. Just…poof! It is
substituted by a warm, waxy apple-rhubarb-amber accord that reminds me a bit of
Sexy Amber by Michael Kors or Burberry Woman, i.e., amorphous,
barely defined fruits, berries, and flowers dipped into a vat of fudgy amber
and sticky white musk.
This all smells good, of course –
it’s rhubarb and custard in scent form, after all – but I am surprised at just
how conventional and safe-smelling Damask turns out to be. You see the name
Damask and even if your brain knows that Damascus has been reduced to a pile of
smoking rubble, you not only expect the famous rosa damascena to show up, but
you expect it to be flanked by all sorts of mysterious accents like cardamom,
coffee, and resins. But Damask is about as exotic as the Dublin.
I’m scratching my head here. Usually,
if Ormonde Jayne is using innocuous fruity floral notes such as peony or pear
or blackcurrant, then the perfumer twists them into new forms with pepper and
citrus, teasing both your brain and nose until you work out what’s been done to
them. Damask is a missed opportunity. I want to see what Geza Schoen would do
if allowed to play around with a truly urinous, leafy blackcurrant or an
acetone pear note paired to a chocolate truffle rose, for example. But Damask
smells like he’s been kept on a tight leash this time around.
Without any of that Ormonde Jayne pepper or citrus – or even oud or carnation, other more occasional Ormonde Jayne star players – there’s nothing left in Damask to carve out the more exciting shapes of the rose or the fruit. It smells silky, waxy, and rounded, but not distinct. I don’t dislike Damask per se because (a) I can’t resist a bowl of stewed rhubarb and custard, and (b) my signature perfume for many years – Burberry Woman – features the same creamy fruit-amber core, so obviously I’m conditioned to find that kind of blurry, conventionally feminine warmth inviting. It’s just that it’s not exciting in the way we’ve come to expect Ormonde Jayne perfumes to be.
Interestingly, while Levant is
billed as a fresh, citrusy floral bouquet, it doesn’t smell that floral to me,
at least not at first. If I hadn’t seen the notes list, I would have pegged the
fuzzy, mineralic opening as a mixture of vetiver, cashmeran, and citrus à
la Terre d’Hermès. It smells like rain on hot pavement. This apparition might
have something to do with the rubbery-peppery nuances of the materials used to
build the peony accord used in perfumery (and also often by Ormonde Jayne). Or
perhaps there is a bit of unlisted vetiver or cashmeran in the mix.
After a few minutes of this, the
grey, quasi-industrial fog shifts to reveal a bittersweet orange blossom note
that smells remarkably like those simple orange blossom waters the French buy by
the liter to pour liberally into their babies’ bathwater. This tender floral
note is sharpened by pepper and a curl of citrus peel, which, although billed
as bergamot, smells more like rosy-leafy pink grapefruit to me. The notes I’d
previously pegged as rubber or hot pavement now come across as a pleasant,
low-key smokiness, almost as if there were such thing as an orange blossom
water-flavored cigarette.
Levant doesn’t evolve much beyond this point, but maybe I’m laboring for meaning in a deliberately simple plot. In its bringing together of a simple, natural-smelling orange blossom water note with the clean twang of rubber-soled sneakers and a barely-there smudge of cigarette ash, Levant could be the haute luxe analog to Freeway (4061 Tuesdays), or the orange blossom version of Jasmin et Cigarette (État Libre d’Orange). All three perfumes perform the same trick of cutting white florals with soft-rubbery-ashy notes that provide just enough grit to render the scent fresh and urban rather than romantic or traditionally ‘femme’. But to be perfectly honest, not only do the 4061 Tuesdays and the État Libre d’Orange fragrances do it better, they do it for less money.
Byzance is the scent I probably
liked the most out of the La Route de la Soie collection, which is strange,
because out of all these not-very-Ormonde-Jayne-smelling scents, Byzance is the
least Ormonde Jayne of all. Perhaps the fact that Byzance is so far outside
of the Ormonde Jayne envelope that I stop expecting to find all the signature
OJ tropes and enjoy it for what it is.
A plush, dove-grey suede accord
underpins everything here. Byzance is big, luscious, and unusually for Ormonde
Jayne, exuberant to the point of loudness. It smells like a fizzy,
cherry-flavored milkshake or sherbet that’s been dumped all over a new suede
couch, causing the suede to hiss and effervesce like a Mentos popped into a
bottle of Coca Cola and shaken hard.
I honestly can’t think of
anything else that smells like Byzance, except for, perhaps, a few key portions
of Diptyque’s Kimonanthe (intense apricot syrup over Japanese incense)
and État Libre d’Orange’s Bendelirious
(cherries over champagne and face powder). It smells so outlandish that I start
to wonder if Ormonde Jayne really meant to make a perfume that smelled of pink
antibiotic syrup spilled over the inside of a luxury car, or if it was an
accident that got bottled up.
Either way, it’s fun. For Ormonde Jayne, this is punchy, hyper-gourmand stuff with a smile on its face. For those of us still trying to find that line between class and sass, this could be it.
Tanger smells French in a way
that’s hard to define exactly, only to say that French men and women tend to
favor neroli-scented eaux de cologne and soaps, and that, somehow, I associate
this particular floral note with them. Neroli is a material that smells at first
fresh (orange-scented), then green (waxy leaves), and finally soapy-musky
(freshly-scrubbed hands, white laundered cotton towels straight from the
dryer). I tend to tire easily of neroli’s insistently soapy drydown, so a
perfume so single-mindedly focused on neroli would normally be an easy pass for
me.
But Tanger makes me reconsider my blanket ban. Though I’m still not sure I like neroli enough to wear and use a whole bottle of this, I have to give credit to the perfumer for somehow managing to keep the white soapiness of the material at bay for 90% of the ride, allowing me to enjoy the parts of neroli that I love but are usually zipped through too quickly, like the dark green freshness of crushed leaves and twigs. The brief flashes of fleshy, orangey sweetness make me think that a handful of errant orange blossom petals have made it into the distilling pot. A soft, waxy amber cusps the neroli, making me nod my head when I look at the copy, which for once is completely accurate when it describes Tanger as a “sunny, golden perfume, joyful and entirely lovable”. I’d rank this as the flanker to Hermes Eau de Néroli Doré, which means that, although nice, it is a little too simple and straight forward for an Ormonde Jayne fragrance.
Source of Samples: Press samples from Ormonde Jayne PR, provided with no pressure or expectation of a review. My opinions are my own.
Ormonde Jayne set out its mission and values in its original core collection, and to this day, it remains the standard bearer for the brand. I’ve written about some of the perfumes in the Ormonde Jayne core collection before, but since I’ve been reevaluating much of my collection recently, I thought it might be useful to update or expand upon my thoughts.
In general, my unscientific belief that Ormonde Jayne is the English Chanel bears out. This is solidly-built, almost classical perfumery with a modern elegance derived from strong artistic direction and an admirably no-nonsense approach to the valuable role synthetics play in elevating naturals.
One thing I have noticed this time around is that the literal names – Champaca, Ta’if, Frangipani, and so on – are a Le Labo-ish piece of misdirection, suggestive of a soliflore-ism that simply isn’t there. Words have power, so there will always be those disappointed if the titular ingredient isn’t headlining the whole show. But on the flip side, newcomers to the brand who are able to park their expectations at the door may find their minds blown by the beauty arrived at via more circuitous routes.
Photo by Maurits Bausenhart on Unsplash
Champaca
Champaca is a scent whose appeal
eludes many. But you know what? Half the time it eludes me too. On its bad
days, many of the slurs thrown its way worm their way into my head and nag
persistently at me with the worry that they might be true – that Champaca is nothing
special, that it’s too champaca or not champaca enough, that it’s
nondescript, that it’s a dowdy green floral that Calvin Klein’s Truth
did better and cheaper. Then there’s its musky loudness, which I always forget
until I get called out on it by a colleague who is never backward about coming
forward on the subject of my perfume.
But on good days, Champaca is the
gently starched air from a bowl of Chinese greens and the damp, permeating
nuttiness of brown basmati rice. It makes me think of stepping in from a cold,
rainy afternoon in Cork or Limerick into the wood-lined hush of a traditional
Japanese restaurant, slightly steamy from condensation and humming with low
conversations.
I don’t understand the accusations of tropical yellow flowers or heady ambers in relation to Champaca. It is not even a particularly floral experience. To me, Champaca smells more like the fresh green peel of a Granny Smith apple rinsed with rainwater than a flower. Yes, technically, this all might be unexciting. The scent of an upscale Japanese onsen or spa is never really going to raise the barometer on anyone’s passion. But when I am feeling delicate, or in need of a friendly hand at the small of my back, then Champaca, with its gossamer-light bloom of starchy musks, rice steam, apple peel, watery bamboo, maybe mint, and the environmental exhalations of clean, blond wood, is what I find myself reaching for.
Photo by James Lee on Unsplash
Orris Noir
I originally invested in Orris
Noir as a poor man’s substitute for the far more expensive Tsarina, having
identified a creamy-milky, anisic iris as the underpinning to both. Now, after
taking the time to study both at leisure, I can say that while Tsarina is by
far the creamiest, more luxurious ‘white’ leather scent I have ever smelled, in
retrospect it doesn’t turn me on as much as Orris Noir, which, although less ‘beautiful’
than Tsarina, has more conversation.
Orris Noir has three or four
distinct layers. The first is a doughy iris as dense as under-proved bread
dough studded with dried fruit. A couple of years on, I now smell this as a
rosy iris bread that’s been soaked in sweet milk, like the egg-rich Easter crown
baked once a year in the Balkans. The second layer is an anisic myrrh with the
same crystallized texture as found in other myrrh scents such as Myrrhe Ardente,
albeit more golden and less overtly itchy-scratchy. The third layer is a minimally
smoky cloud of wood or incense that lifts the perfume and makes it radiant
(probably a combination of the Iso E Super and the Chinese cedar). Last but not
least, there’s a bright, fruity jasmine that fizzes as sweetly as a glass of
freshly-poured Coca Cola. Somehow, all of these elements hang together as
naturally and as lightly as a silk shawl.
Orris Noir is a fantastic advertisement for the Ormonde Jayne style of building a fragrance, in that it is composed of many different layers, all of them as light as air, but which when laid one on top of another become a dense, velvety mass. I love Orris Noir for what it is – a beguilingly soft spice oriental – rather than hate it for what it is not, i.e., noir or even orris. Indeed, if Ormonde Jayne had named it something else, Orris Noir might have gained the respect granted to other similarly soft, hazy resinous-floral orientals such as Bois d’Argent (Dior) or Jasmin de Nuit (The Different Company). This is one perfume in my collection that has improved greatly upon (re)acquaintance.
Frangipani Absolute
Frangipani Absolute is at least accurately
named, given that it smells more like the absolute than the living flower. The
absolute smells green and waxy, like a nubbin of beeswax rolled in matcha
powder; the living flower, which I had the opportunity of smelling for the
first time in Colombia last summer, smells a bit like jasmine but without the
indole and grape, and there is a buttery undertone that I associate with gardenia,
minus the heavy bleu cheese aspects.
Frangipani Absolute freshens the waxy-green heft of the absolute by filtering it through lime and linden blossom, creating the impression of hothoused tropical flowers drenched in ice water and the glass partitions thrown open to salty sea air. The brightness of this topnote is undercut later on by the lush creaminess of the living flower, embodied by an accord that smells like a dairy-heavy rice and coconut pudding made out of tuberose petals, with pools of yellow Irish butter rising to the surface. A subtly salty musk and clean cedar hum in the far background, mainly there for support in case the almost unrelenting brightness of the lime-drenched white flowers falters.
Cleverly, the perfumer has made the floral component very peachy, to mimic the peachy jasmine-like aura of the living flower. Frangipani is therefore blessed with a suede-skin note that smells charmingly like the back of a rubber watch on a sweaty child. The scent shifts between these three main accords – green-aqueous-fresh, peachy-rubber, and creamy-buttery-tuberose – without ever getting pulled too far down in one single direction. That’s some balancing act.
Frangipani Absolute is an undeniably
beautiful scent, and an interesting take on a flower that often plays second
fiddle to more powerful headliners such as gardenia or tuberose. My hesitation on
whether it stays in my collection or not stems from several different quarters.
First, the salty, quasi-aquatic
musk in the drydown reminds me very much of Lys Méditerranée (Malle), already a wardrobe staple
for me, which makes me wonder if it’s not duplicative to have two scents that represent
largely the same ‘feel’, i.e., heady white flowers drenched in dew and the
salty air rolling in off the ocean. The occasions when I feel the need for this
precise combination are few and far between, therefore surely it is redundant for
me to have two separate fragrances at the ready when this tight little niche
corner of my ‘need’ rears its head.
Second, Frangipani is so pretty
and well-presented that it makes me feel slightly uncouth in comparison.
Worse, the prettiness reminds me of the golden, solar fruity-floral ‘glazed
eyes’ affair that is J ’Adore (Dior), which is fine if you’re wearing
something you can pick up from any Sephora or Douglas, but not great if you’re
special ordering from a classy niche brand like Ormonde Jayne.
Third, the brightness of the lime-and-peach-hued white flowers feels a little too sharp and insistent at times, like when you neck that syrupy but metallic juice from a tin of canned tropical fruit. In other words, absolutely gorgeous at first but perhaps wearing a little on your nerves towards the last? Along the same lines of complaint (minor, but still), the vanilla tuberose pudding base flirts with heaviness; it clashes a little queasily with the citric acid of the lime, to the extent that it teeters on the precipice of a curdle.
Out of all the Ormonde Jayne scents I own, Frangipani Absolute is the one I agonize over the most. Do I need it? No. Does its classical (but slightly mainstream) beauty justify me keeping it? Maybe. But the fact that I swing between a yes and a no on this scent, personally, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t rank among the top tier of tropical floral perfumes I’ve had the pleasure of smelling.
Photo by Andriyko Podilnyk on Unsplash
Tolu
Despite not being wowed at first
sniff, I have come around to the pleasures of Tolu. It has a bitter, spicy
broom note that slices through the golden, balsamic sweetness of amber to
create something that is both fresh and heavy, like a flourless chocolate torte
that dissolves into fennel dust on the tongue. The kind of thing that invites
you to take a second slice, even in summer. I can see this working as a sort of
upmarket Dune. In that sense, this is definitely a floral oriental rather than
a straight up ‘golden’ amber. It certainly doesn’t maintain a strict tolu
balsam fidelity. Rather, Tolu has that sophisticated French floral-sandy feel
to it that I associate not only with Dune (Dior) but also with 24,
Rue Faubourg (Hermes), albeit with the innovation of a sweetly resinous base
to tilt it ever so slightly in the direction of Morocco rather than Paris.
The more I wear Tolu, the more I appreciate its subtlety. I used to prefer the caramelized full frontal of one-the-nose resin bombs and ambers to the almost too quiet, too ‘mixed’ cloud of balsams, orange blossom, and musks represented by Tolu. But Tolu is, I realize, a mood. It is very perfumey meaning it’s been worked and reworked to the same point of abstraction as Coco (Chanel), Dune (Dior) or even Alahine (Teo Cabanel).
Tolu is the quintessential going out perfume for nights along the Riviera, where women and men are beautifully dressed and the warm air smells like a mixture of flowers, salty skin, and the balsamic twang of Mediterranean herbs and umbrella pines lining the promenade. It’s easy to argue that there’s nothing very unusual about Tolu, but what it does, it does extremely well. I will always have space in my wardrobe for this perfumey, French-smelling take on the warm, golden balsams I love rinsed out with flowers, salt, and herbs.
Photo by Tj Holowaychuk on Unsplash
Tiaré
For a while, my interest in
Ormonde Jayne stopped with OJ Woman, a perfume I’d struggled with for years
before finally falling in love with it. That was, until one day a couple of
years ago, I fished around in my sample box looking for something crisp and
green to go well with a planned walk in a nearby castle grounds with my children
and stumbled upon Tiaré.
Its lack of anything truly tiaré-like or tropical puzzled me at first. But I remember marveling at the champagne-like quality of the lime and green notes fizzing gently around the oily but fresh white flower petals. The damp, mossy drydown proved to be a perfect reflection of the elegance of the castle lake and grounds. There is something pinned-up and Victorian in its mien – not entirely me, but rather someone I aspire to be. It was the first sample from the Ormonde Jayne sample set that I drained completely. Whereupon I forgot about it entirely.
Fast forward to Summer 2017, which is when, while sweating our way through the forests and fields of the Sologne and Loiret, I decided that, really, nothing was more French or more crisply elegant than Tiaré, and that I desperately needed a bottle of it. Tiaré would be, I’d decided, my entry point to a new life in France that, although it never actually materialized, was the Big Plan in our family at the time, to the point of flying the kids out to various French cities in an attempt to decide where we would settle.
The firm belief that a life in
France calls for a thoroughly ‘French’ perfume (as if my collection wasn’t
already 75% made up of so-called French perfume) is why I am now the proud
possessor of a totally unnecessary 120mls of Tiaré. (I am perennially guilty of
daydreaming my life forward and allowing my purchases to lead the way. In 2018,
I was so convinced that I was going to be hired by a British not-for-profit to
manage their programs in Myanmar that I got emotionally invested in Indochine
by Parfumerie Generale, a perfume based on Burmese thanaka wood. I didn’t get
the job, but you bet I bought a bottle of Indochine. I don’t even want to say
how many ‘Roman’ perfumes were necessary for me to settle into a new life in
Italy.)
Anyway, back to Ireland in these early, post-Coronavirus times and Tiaré, like Cristalle (Chanel), doesn’t really suit the damp, cool conditions. Yet I am loathe to get rid of Tiaré, because, God knows, I will probably need it for when we finally move to France. In which case, I will also need the quintessential cognac-colored leather shopper, very pointy ballet flats, a chic haircut, and a perfectly-cut navy blazer. So, I guess I’d better start shopping now….
Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash
Ormonde Jayne Woman
Woman occupies a place in my personal pantheon of greats, but the route to loving her has not been easy. In fact, I have struggled with this perfume on and off for years. I imagine that, for people like me, with biological sensitivities to certain materials, getting past Woman’s many thorns is like loving someone who is beautiful but difficult.
Initially, my nose was so sensitive to the combination of woody ambers, sticky pine, and Iso E Super that the only notes I could smell were acrid, burnt, metallic – like burnt fuses and the La Roche Posay medicated acne cream. These unfortunate associations, plus the physical sensation I had of an ice-cold shiv driving into the tender recesses of my brain, are what made me keep my sample of Woman at a safe distance from my nose, wrapped twice in cling film and double-bagged.
Every so often, over the years, I
would take out that sample of Woman and tentatively sniff. Now, here’s the
strangest thing. As my exposure to the violent woody ambers and brutal Iso E
Super used increasingly in niche increased, so too did my tolerance. I don’t
mean that I started to like them, but rather that their presence no longer
obscured large parts of a composition for me. This meant that perfumes such as Indochine
(Parfumerie Generale), Musc Nomade (Annick Goutal), and Ormonde Jayne Woman
were now ‘unlocked’ for me. I could smell all parts of these perfumes rather
than slivers.
Having said that, progress was gradual. For example, for about six months, although I could smell all parts of Woman, all depth perception dropped off after about an hour or two, leading me to believe (mistakenly) that the perfume had simply stopped in its tracks. I now believe that this was due to the type of woody ambers used, some of which have a curious side effect of making a scent seem to disappear and then come back, over and over again, throughout a day’s wear. Ambroxan can have this odd ‘receding and resurging’ effect too; I sense it most keenly in Amouage Jubilation XXV, which my husband says he wears for other people because he himself cannot smell it after an hour (to his family, it seems quite big and room-filling).
Anyway, the reason I’m waffling on about this odd facet of Woman is that reviews are the little markers we drop along our journey, in the hope that they serve as clues to fellow travelers years down the road, right? I remember smelling Indochine and doing a Google search for something along the lines of ‘Why does Indochine smell like an ice pick to my brain?’ and stumbling across Kafkaesque’s review, which was the first source of answers for me as to why some materials were physically obtrusive to my nose yet imperceptible to others. I felt seen. I hope that someone struggling with Ormonde Jayne Woman finds their way to this review and gets comfort from knowing that they’re not alone, and that there might be a rational explanation for not immediately jiving with one of the most renowned perfumes in modern niche.
There’s light at the end of the tunnel, folks, there really is. Now when I smell Ormonde Woman, I smell the whole forest, the sugared smoke of gingerbread crumbs thrown onto the fire, and the inky mass of woodland violets and hemlock rolled out underfoot, and Scarlett O’ Hara’s dark green velvet gown made out of curtains and fury.
At heart, Ormonde Woman is a nugget of amber surrounded by tall conifers and hemlock, but its mysterious appeal can’t be explained by its notes or even how we think they all hang together. Woman is one of those perfumes you submit to, body and soul, without much hope of ever picking it apart. It took me years to be able to smell all parts of it but now when I wear Ormonde Jayne Woman now, I smell it all, and what I smell makes me breathe deep and easy.
Photo by ORNELLA BINNI on Unsplash
Osmanthus
Osmanthus is not my favorite osmanthus-themed scent in the Ormonde Jayne stable (that would be Qi), but it is surely the prettiest. Osmanthus explores the softly soapy, ‘clean linen’ side of the bloom that marks it out more as vaguely cherry blossom than the pungent fruity apricot suede trope often plumbed in niche.
In fact, aside from a vaguely peachy or apricotty tinge in the topnotes, Osmanthus sidesteps its namesake ingredient and goes for pomelo peel and white petals plunged into ice water and polished to a high shine by radiant aquatic musks. It smells pleasantly cooling, like a tall glass of lemonade or the feel of fresh cotton on hot skin.
Think of it this way; if Qi is an apricot-colored suede pouch filled with green tea, then Osmanthus is a white broderie anglaise sundress and a pair of straw espadrilles strung over one perfectly tan shoulder.
All very nice but running a little too close to one of those Atelier Cologne citrus-and-cotton-musk scents for comfort. I always thought that Osmanthus would smell more ‘at home’ in the form of a body care product than a perfume, and it turns out I was right; the Osmanthus Hair Mist is lovely. Warmer and peachier than the perfume – to my nose at least – the pert, perfumey prettiness of Osmanthus makes more sense to me when spritzed through second day hair. It is still much girlier than I am, but at least in this form, it just creates the manifest lie impression that I am freshly bathed and impeccably groomed.
Photo by Valerie Blanchett on Unsplash
Ta’if
Ta’if is one of those fragrances
where I seem to be experiencing something completely different to everyone
else. People use the words ‘rich’, ‘dark’, and ‘exotic’ to describe it, which
suggests a texture as heavy as velvet – close to Lyric Woman (Amouage) or
Portrait of a Lady (Malle). But reality is miles removed. On my skin, Ta’if
reads as a sheer peppery mixed floral layered over a musky, dried-fruit base. Neither
the advertized dates nor Taifi rose show up for me, or at least not in any form
I recognize (when I see ‘Ta’if’ rose, I expect a pop of fiercely spicy, green lemon-and-lime
sharpness announcing a tannic rose).
In fact, I’d rank Ta’if alongside Rose Noir (Miller Harris) and Tobacco Rose (Papillon) as rose fragrances that bill themselves as one thing and then deliver another. Clearly, the sheer amount of admiration and positive reviews out there for Ta’if and Tobacco Rose demonstrates that it is possible not only to get over any cognitive dissonance related to their names, but to love them wholeheartedly for themselves.
On me, Ta’if is mostly a blowsy peach and orange blossom chiffonade, interspersed with brief flashes here and there of something that might be interpreted as a tart, green rose. The peachy-powdery feel of the fragrance makes me think of something functional I used to use when I was a teenager, like the Impulse O2 body spray. The dry down is a slightly powdery musk with a streak of dates running through it, which doesn’t tilt too literally in the direction of any one particular note. Rather, one is bathed in a fluffy miasma of musk, fruit, orange blossoms, and caramel that reminds me of some of the prettier ‘pink-smelling’ dry downs in designer perfumery, such as Coco Mademoiselle, or Elie Saab.
Source of samples: Based on a sample set generously gifted to me in 2015 of the niche perfumer store in Dublin, ParfuMarija, I subsequently bought bottles or partials of most of the above. The Osmanthus Hair Mist was kindly gifted to me by Ormonde Jayne PR a couple of weeks ago, along with a Petits Fours box of samples of four of the La Route de la Soie collection sent to me for review (review is upcoming). My opinions are firmly my own.
