Remember Me Jovoy 2018

This is my Jovoy Remember Me Fragrance Review on YouTube. A fragrance I sampled at Esxence in April of 2018 which I enjoyed but after I received this fragrance for this review video I even enjoyed much more. Given I was sick with a cold during Esxence so I wasn't smelling much. Remember Me is absolutely a very delicious composition created by Cecile Zarokian for Jovoy. In Remember Me you have big dominant delicious tea note, very beautiful and aromatic, spicy, cardamom note, and an overdose of creamy, decadent milky woody notes. Chai Tea Latte anyone? Make sure you order it Breve! To find out more about Remember Me by Jovoy please watch my review over at YouTube. Thank you so much.

Cozy, warm, milky yet warm and woody as well. It's not a sickly, overly-saccharine milk. The ginger and cardamom provide a nice piquancy that cuts through the vanilla, and the cedar (which I generally dislike but honestly is good in this fragrance) provides a needed depth and dustiness. If you want something warm and cozy and sweet but do not completely love gourmands, this might be good. Not too sweet.

It starts off quite piquant (ginger and cardamom will do that), and the citrus reminds me more of a bitter citrus rind than the juice. A couple hours later, and the chai takes on a very interesting earthy/nutty/wheat-y variety of tea (personally, it smelled more like barley tea than the conventional black tea). For some reason, I also get this suede-y talc-y scent during the middle that I'm not completely convinced could be a take on frangipani. Honestly, the effect is not unlike you dipped a tortilla chip in chai, which smells a lot better than it sounds. It then fades to a lactonic vanilla with a hint of wood and spice. Total weartime is a solid 6-7 hours.

Projection isn't huge. Goldilocks for someone working in an office but would still like to smell like something nice. Easily worn.

I have very fond memories of visiting Jovoy Paris Rare Perfumes just a few weeks ago. They are very welcoming even to the less fashionable fragrance lovers like me and bear no pretentions of any kind, though they are very niche-focused. You can test as much as you want without anyone bothering you. After that visit, I found out that they ship to US, and shipping is free if you buy enough. Their sample program (branded as “Try Me”) is significantly cheaper than US decanters. I am happy to say that I bought a full bottle of Remember Me from Jovoy online without any issue.

This review is based a 2 ml dabber that I bought from a US decanter before I visited the Jovoy Store, but I have updated it after buying a full bottle. I was a little hesitant when I found out that Cécile Zarokian is the nose behind Remember Me. Though I consider her beautiful creation Nishane Ani to be iconic and the flagship of the Nishane brand, I was not thrilled with some of her work with Amouage.

I have become more and more convinced that Jean-Claude Ellena is correct when he says that all the notes of a perfume exist at all times in the olfactory pyramid. It is just that their intensity varies during their life on your body. So, there is no reason to compartmentalize the notes strictly into top, heart and base. The notes listed for Remember Me are cardamom, bergamot, lemon, frangipani, tea, ginger, vanilla, wood, milk and cedarwood. It shows some development, though all these notes are always there at varying levels. For example, Remember Me opens with cardamom and citrus, but my nose picks up hints of ginger, frangipani, tea and milk also in the opening. The frangipani, tea and ginger are strong in heart notes, but you also get vanilla from the bottom and cardamom from the top. When we reach base notes, Remember Me is a vanilla with milk and woody notes. I don’t want to belabor this progression as others may smell different notes at different times. But beauty of this perfume is indisputable.

Remember Me performs very well on my skin. I love tracking the changes in the notes as it ages on me. The citrus notes disappear in two hours, but the ginger, milk and vanilla go on for 6-8 hours. The milky vanilla persists for much longer. The sillage is very good, though not monstrous.

I recommend Remember Me without hesitation. If you don’t want to spend a lot, it is also available as a 15 ml bottle on the Jovoy website. Though Remember Me is supposedly inspired by karak, a chai drink popular in the Indian subcontinent and the Arab world, I find that this perfume is a deconstructed version of the spicy chai. All the ingredients are there, but they appear at different times along the olfactory pyramid. Cécile Zarokian does a Picasso and creates a unique and innovative perfume, very distinct from the familiar spicy chai accord. The powerful citrus notes in the opening also help dissuade any illusion that this is a chai fragrance.

Jovoy Remember Me is one of, if not the best chai scents I've ever smelled. I think it works because its perfumer, Cécile Zarokian, has attained a perfect balance between lush, spiced milkiness and bitter, inedible things like citrus rind, rubber, and suede.

When I make chai, which is similar to Karak, the popular drink in Qatar that directly inspired Cécile to make this scent, minus the condensed milk, I sometimes chop small mint leaves to go into the pan with the ginger, black pepper, and cardamom - the premise being that if the pepper burns my tongue, the mint will put out the fire. A filament of something similarly fresh in Remember Me holds the steamy milkiness of the chai in check. In Remember Me, this tart greenery comes from the peppery-lemony cardamom and bergamot rind. The total effect is of something hot meeting something cooling, like when you first stir the milk into the pan of boiling tea, cloves, and ginger.

Milkiness is a risky thing in perfumery. Too much and it teeters precariously on the edge between creamy and stale, like butter left out on the counter overnight. To date, the only milky scents I've liked are ones where (i) the milkiness is a by-product of another material like sandalwood, fig, or rice, or (ii) the milky note has been countered by something bitter or brusque, like smoke, wood, or rubber. Fragrances belonging to the first group would include Amaranthine (Penhaligon's), Sandalo (Etro), and Philosykos (Diptyque), and fragrances belonging to the second would include Palo Santo (Carner Barcelona) and Leder 6 (J.F. Schwarzlose).

Remember Me belongs to the second group, in that its milk note is deliberately placed there (rather than a by-product of another material) and is effectively counterparted by a rubber-suede note and a leisurely woody drydown. This peach eraser note is actually frangipani, recognizable to anyone who owns or wears Ormonde Jayne's Frangipani, which uses a similar, if not identical, frangipani material. The frangipani is refreshingly un-sweet and un-floral, in other words. Picture the rubbery peach tea of Frangipani by Ormonde Jayne morphing slowly into the rich condensed milk leather of Leder 6, and that's Remember Me.

The tug between milky and spicy-hot in Remember Me eventually reminds me of another delightful scent, and one that's widely available in department stores: Noir Extreme by Tom Ford. Although Remember Me is far more tightly focused, both scents share a ‘scoop of vanilla ice-cream in Mexican Coca-Cola' vibe (similar to Chanel Egoiste and Roja Dove Enigma, where the combination of tobacco, spices, and a boozy, creamy element like sandalwood or vanilla creates a Coca Cola note). There's a point in Noir Extreme where the kulfi note runs too close to the sickliness of condensed milk for comfort, so it's something I could get tired of very easily. But Remember Me steers clear of this pitfall, its rubbery suede and woody notes working overtime to course-correct the milkiness.

Remember Me is a mostly linear affair, which is great if you like the central accord (as I do) and probably torture if you don't. In other words, test first. It is also incredibly rich and potent, lasting a good 10 hours before showing signs of fading, so it would work superbly as a scent for when you know you are going to be out all day, in crisp, cold weather, and you're the type of person who loves burying their nose in a scarf or jumper to get a sustaining whiff every now and then.

I can see Remember Me working well for anyone, including men, who like those big, complicated semi-gourmand fragrances that are popular these days, like El Born by Carner Barcelona. But if you're like me and have a special fetish for chai, then you need to seek this out pronto. It is richer and stronger than Omnia (Bvlgari), more natural-smelling than Paithani (Penhaligon's), and not as challenging as Chai (Baruti).

Remember Me is a milk tea scent for those who find things like Kilian Princess too sweet and girly and want something spicier. It's gourmand-ish, but with a classic perfumey feel that might make it appealing even if you usually don't enjoy gourmands.

This starts out with a lot of cardamom that feels a little dusty to me. Underneath that the green tea is quite noticeable, and also the warm base of vanilla, milk and a woody note that reminds me the most of sandalwood. The ginger adds a piquant note to the scent. It's not super fresh and bracing like it sometimes can be in other fragrances, I'd say it's more like dried ginger than the freshly cut root. I can't say that I would have identified frangipani without the notes list, but yes, there is something floral in this that moves it an inch away from a true, literal gourmand.
As the scent dries down, it becomes sweeter and milkier, almost a bit buttery. Milk and vanilla take center stage and a hint of spice supports them in the background.

The first minutes are a bit difficult to me. I like cardamom in general, but I don't enjoy the dryness it adds here. The rest of the scent is quite lovely, even more so after a couple of hours.