Parfum Privé Aftelier Parfum

The brutalism of most mainstream women's perfumes, which overwhelm you with absurd overdoses of synthetic sugary fruit and floral notes, infantilizing a mature woman into a little girl in a pink dress in a candy store, is an aesthetically objectionable form of gender determination. Conversely, synthetic-free fragrances (as well as many classics with balanced natural-synthetic proportions) are significantly less determined, as their richness of nuances allows for much freer gender interpretation. Parfum Prívé is a striking example. Sweet orange blossom and floral-apricot osmanthus would undoubtedly be hyper-feminine as synthetically influenced notes. Here, they are gender-neutral, especially since the pink pepper/pimento axis provides some cushioning, and the ambrette/amber note anchors a refined animality, from whose elegance Creed could take a page with its frequently used synthetic ambrox base (if it weren't far too expensive for such a pseudo-luxury brand). Privé creates, true to its name, a very gentle aura around the wearer - a subtly "Asian" perfume, lightly sketched like a Japanese ink drawing.