To be frank, 90% of the perfumes I smell are disappointing, if not downright awful. Which is why I’m starting a series dedicated to reviewing (or should that be ‘roasting’) the duds.
The Arabian Heritage Collection by Areej Le Doré is a deliberately minimalist collection, focused on the three materials that are not only critical to Arabian or mukhallat style perfumery but happen to be the recurring motifs of each Areej Le Doré collection – ambergris (Al Ambar), oud (Al Oud) and sandalwood (Al Sandal). As always, when I smell an Areej Le Doré collection, I try to evaluate what I am smelling through the lens of audience (who is this for?), identity (which hat is Russian Adam wearing now?), and the newcomer’s virgin nose (how would an ordinary person experience this?).
Confession: I am not fond of cedar as a note in perfumery. Perhaps because these days it is so often paired with vetiver and Iso E Super to produce that piercing sucker punch of ‘woody-fresh’ masculines that it has become tainted in my mind, or perhaps because the essential oil itself can be pungent. I can count on two fingers the cedar-heavy fragrances I love – Feminité du Bois by Serge Lutens and Cèdre Sambac by Hermès – but now, perhaps, I can tentatively add Kashmir as a third.