White Aoud Montale

My husband says it reminds him of
a `Bar-mitzvah`
It makes him feel sorounded by kissing aunts :-)

I LOVE it.

After the initial medicinal blast
it softens to a delicate Aoud ,smooth and creamy
base that's magical and comforting.
With an apealing mix of vanilla, rose,
jasmine, cardamon, labdanum

I love the rose in Montals perfume-Exquisite.
I especialy adore it in Aoud queen roses-sublime

Old houses in the Deep South have a particular scent to them. They smell woody, but they also smell musty in a distinctive way as a result of the oppressive humidity especially during the summer months. They smell a bit like rotting wood, but also a bit like dust. The opening of Montale WHITE AOUD very well captures that scent. I am not sure what is creating this effect, but the light aoud note may be one contributing factor.

The roses are perceptible as well initially, but they seem far away, like dried petals pressed within the crumbling pages of old books. The overall olfactory experience ends up reminding me of my grandmother, a bona fide Southern Belle. I realize that this makes it sound as though I am calling WHITE AOUD an "old lady perfume", but this particular instantiation of that idea is very different from what most people appear to mean by the expression. No aldehydes and no oak moss here. Nor does this smell anything like SHALIMAR or L'HEURE BLEUE, which some have remarked is the dominant scent of senescent women in retirement homes.

As WHITE AOUD dries down, the "old house in the South" effect fades a bit, and the rose and patchouli come forth much more. I like some other rose-patchouli perfumes better than this one, but WHITE AOUD is nice for the trip down memory lane which it affords.

One of the best releases of Montale.

Opens with a medicinal oud that remains for a while.

The drydown is simply a wonderful blend of roses surrounded by vanilla with hints of saffron and patchouli. The oud settles down at this point.

Unisex and sexy.

Sillage, lasting power and projection are high.

Updated January 2014

The color white in the title and on the bottle captures the character of the scent very well. This is a dusty white cloud of saffron, rose, and vanilla, like a delicate Indian pudding freeze-dried, pulverized and made aura. For once, the medicinal oud used by Montale doesn't bother me, and indeed I think the sweet, dessert-like properties of the fragrance need its antiseptic, 'hospital corridors' sting to provide lift and make it airborne. There is a cheap rosewater smell to the fragrance that I find moving and nostalgic, perhaps because it reminds me of the Roberts 'Acqua Distillata Alle Rose' rosewater facial toner I used in Italy.

Due to the dusty dessert saffron, rose, and vanilla, there is a slight familial resemblance to Safran Troublant, one of my all-time favorite fragrances, and a definite point in its favor. I enjoy the sting of the medicinal oud and the way it takes the central rose-saffron-vanilla accord out of the straightforward gourmand category. But most of all, I find this sweet, milky oud pretty, easy to wear, and thoroughly enjoyable from top to end.

I swear: That’s it for me with Montale tests for a very long time.

With "Aoud Night," there was actually a decent scent from this line recently (although I'm not entirely sure if wearing it more often wouldn’t lead to nasal fatigue or even numbness for me).

The pattern with Montale is somehow always the same and simple: Almost everything that sounds oriental is mixed together, stirred, then a generous amount of rose oil is added, sometimes even gourmand elements are mixed in - and then a sillage is conceived that reaches even 10 meters against a North Sea wind.

I am stunned - "White Aoud" confirms that the "Dark" variant was rather the half exception that proves the rule.
A penetrating floral opening that somehow comes across as synthetic, hairspray-like. It could - once again - be due to a mediocre saffron that veils everything in a plastic-like manner. Be that as it may - an Arabic potpourri presses and pushes that urgently needs sorting and structuring.

Cardamom, oud, various woods and spices - the jasmine and rose petals swirl around in it and press against the nasal walls. It’s sweetly woody, floral, waxy, annoyingly saffron-like (and that with endurance!), and this lasts for many hours, very penetrating, very voluminous.

I have often had my issues with the often clumsy, loud, and blatant scents from Nasomatto, where the nose is often "matto," but Montale evidently does not fall short in this regard. I don’t want to write more about it....