08/06/2023
PetitePinup
26 Reviews
PetitePinup
1
Deserves more credit!
I think everyone with a 100+ collection has at least one of these: a perfume you somehow rarely grab, but on the occasion that you have used her for the day you think "Why on earth am I not wearing this more often? It's lovely!"
Ard Al Zaafaran's Romancea is mine. As I've just sprayed the juice I'm wondering what's keeping me from using it more. I've had the bottle for 2 years already and the dent is only a finger thick. That's, despite my 170 bottle collection, not a lot as I often use 3 fragrances a day, and I overspray each of those (dry, perfume eating skin).
Honestly... I've not figured it out yet. The bottle is cool. It comes in a hefty, thick dark red oval glass with a leather strip that has the name of the perfume.
The perfume itself is, as my thought said earlier, pretty lovely and quite possibly unisex as well.
Whenever I smell it I envision walking into an old fashioned distillery...
We've gone below stairs and enter a giant cellar with dark wooden floors and weathered brick walls. Tte cellar is lit with faux vintage gas lamps to emphasize the fact it's been around since the 18th century. The warm light gives visitors the feeling as if they've entered another world. A world where the workers know the secret to truly age old delights. Barrels and barrels of liquor vats are stacked in rows, and on top of one another in wooden frames. As if they're boys hanging around in bunk beds.
A guide walks in front of me, dressed in simple trousers, scuffed dark leather boots, a dresshirt with a baker's hat. A large green apron covers his entire front. He looks as if he's stepped right out of a historical 19th century distillery picture. While I'm following him, I see him softly caressing the aged wood on a few of the barrels on his way to the back of the cellar.
His boots set a steady pace towards a set of vats standing against a brick wall, a small window filtering a meagre bit of sunlight from outside above it.
The gentlemen in question turns around and looks at me, leaning against a particular barrel.
"Want to try a taste?", he asks me.
I'm not really an alcohol drinker, but before I took the tour I've been told they have a true gem in their cellar.
"This the one? " I say, an eyebrow raised.
The gent grins, sweeps his well worn hat from his head with a florish and then does me the courtesy of a little bow - as if I were a Bridgerton character promenading along the cellar floors.
"Yes, ma'am! At your service. The special one. Fruits and some secret ingredients too! It'll romance your non-drinking heart for sure. "
Baker's hat turns around, and pulls a stopper out of the barrel. With a welcoming handgesture he beckons me forward. "Smell!"
I take a few steps and bend slightly over the barrel, my face over the opening he's uncovered, waving my own hand a bit to push the scent towards my nose.
Hmmm... is that...Pineapple? No, no, it seems like it at first, but it's deeper. Apricot! That's it. And something else...berry-ish. But so masterfully blended I can't exactly make out what it is.
"Definitely fruity", I murmer.
While I'm letting the alcohol fumes tell me a story, Baker's hat tells me of its creation:
"Oak of course, the vat. And we charred the inside a bit, to let loose the sugar in the wood...
Wait! "
Baker's hat hurries to the side of the vat and before I know it he holds up a liquor glass to me with two fingers of a slightly darkened liquid. "Taste and smell yourself, then you'll see what I mean."
Again I concentrate on the liquor in front of me, softly sloshing the liquid around in the glass while I turn and turn it. The woody accord is a little less strong now, but certainly still there. As before I get a fruity opening, but there is more before I get to the wooden base. Something sweet, soft. Two things, actually.
I look up from the glass: "Jasmine? Vanilla? "
"Very good, young lady!"
I've not been called a young lady in a while, but I'll take it. This scent makes me feel vibrant, young... and a little flirty even.
The liquor in my hand remains enticing. I take a few sips, a sniff...
Incredibly smooth and masterfully blended, that's for sure.
I'm pretty certain there are more notes than I can smell, as I know that lightly charring the wooden barrel will create notes of caramel, too, besides vanilla. I'm missing out on the latter. But as said: this has had time to blend perfectly.
"Nicely macerated, eh?", the proud guide asks me.
"Two years? ", I guess. I'm correct. Though I'm sure a compilation of ingredients like this would be quite nice in the beginning too. Just a little less smooth and perhaps with more obvious separation.
I hand the now empty glass back to the historically clad guide and excuse myself. Halfway up the stairs I look back at the rows of barrels, one vat at the back in particular, all the way in the dark.
That juice has properly romanced me. And I need to make sure it'll see the light more.
----
While Parfumo has apparently been unable to verify the exact notes, this pyramid is the one I encountered most frequently for the fragrance of Romancea:
Top Notes: tangerine, apricot, black currant
Middle Notes: jasmine, floral scents, caramel
Base Notes: vanilla, woody notes, musk
And in many ways it coincides with what I smell if I really put my nose to skin and try to digest the fragrance ingredient by ingredient. Overall I would call Romancea a fruity-woody perfume. These two parts are most obvious.
It has something sweet, more particularly something softly sweet, that prevents the wood from becoming too dry. I believe that's the combination of Vanilla and Jasmine. I don't get caramel, but that's sadly a note that almost always escapes my skin. It would fit the fragrance perfectly though and make it really yummy. In that case it'll certainly lean quite feminine*, or at least a tad more gourmandish. Whereas now it can still go both ways with fruit and wood being such obvious accords (*based on what's generally seen as fem/masc).
The initial fruity opening is nice and fresh and at first seems quite "yellow", for lack of a better word. After my Romancea had some maceration the apricot smell came forward a little more, and in the current dry down I get a really, really soft blackcurrant, as well as a bit of girly, fragrant jasmine.
Absolutely nothing in this fragrance is harsh, tart, indolic, spicy or dry. Nor do specific notes jump out. Everything is beautiful and smooth. Maybe that's why it doesn't entice me as much, being used to heavier stuff.
However, every single time I dó wear it, Romancea makes me happy and I get plenty compliments. Despite my liquor metaphor the perfume isn't boozy, but I do feel a little edible - like a fruity dessert with vanilla sugar on top.
If you want your own bite, Ard Al Zaafaran's juice is quite affordable. Most webshops in Europe seem to offer the 100ml bottle for about 25 euro.
Romancea also comes in handy smaller packaging, i.e. a pocketspray of 20ml (I wish more M-E brands did that! ), a 6ml perfume oil, and a relatively cheaper 50ml (+/- €10).
(NB. Fair warning: there's a flanker, called OUD Romancea, too. Don't confuse the two).
I'm truly going to do my utmost best to spray around a little more romance(a) this summer. The Ard Al Zaafaran deserves it.
And so do I!
Ard Al Zaafaran's Romancea is mine. As I've just sprayed the juice I'm wondering what's keeping me from using it more. I've had the bottle for 2 years already and the dent is only a finger thick. That's, despite my 170 bottle collection, not a lot as I often use 3 fragrances a day, and I overspray each of those (dry, perfume eating skin).
Honestly... I've not figured it out yet. The bottle is cool. It comes in a hefty, thick dark red oval glass with a leather strip that has the name of the perfume.
The perfume itself is, as my thought said earlier, pretty lovely and quite possibly unisex as well.
Whenever I smell it I envision walking into an old fashioned distillery...
We've gone below stairs and enter a giant cellar with dark wooden floors and weathered brick walls. Tte cellar is lit with faux vintage gas lamps to emphasize the fact it's been around since the 18th century. The warm light gives visitors the feeling as if they've entered another world. A world where the workers know the secret to truly age old delights. Barrels and barrels of liquor vats are stacked in rows, and on top of one another in wooden frames. As if they're boys hanging around in bunk beds.
A guide walks in front of me, dressed in simple trousers, scuffed dark leather boots, a dresshirt with a baker's hat. A large green apron covers his entire front. He looks as if he's stepped right out of a historical 19th century distillery picture. While I'm following him, I see him softly caressing the aged wood on a few of the barrels on his way to the back of the cellar.
His boots set a steady pace towards a set of vats standing against a brick wall, a small window filtering a meagre bit of sunlight from outside above it.
The gentlemen in question turns around and looks at me, leaning against a particular barrel.
"Want to try a taste?", he asks me.
I'm not really an alcohol drinker, but before I took the tour I've been told they have a true gem in their cellar.
"This the one? " I say, an eyebrow raised.
The gent grins, sweeps his well worn hat from his head with a florish and then does me the courtesy of a little bow - as if I were a Bridgerton character promenading along the cellar floors.
"Yes, ma'am! At your service. The special one. Fruits and some secret ingredients too! It'll romance your non-drinking heart for sure. "
Baker's hat turns around, and pulls a stopper out of the barrel. With a welcoming handgesture he beckons me forward. "Smell!"
I take a few steps and bend slightly over the barrel, my face over the opening he's uncovered, waving my own hand a bit to push the scent towards my nose.
Hmmm... is that...Pineapple? No, no, it seems like it at first, but it's deeper. Apricot! That's it. And something else...berry-ish. But so masterfully blended I can't exactly make out what it is.
"Definitely fruity", I murmer.
While I'm letting the alcohol fumes tell me a story, Baker's hat tells me of its creation:
"Oak of course, the vat. And we charred the inside a bit, to let loose the sugar in the wood...
Wait! "
Baker's hat hurries to the side of the vat and before I know it he holds up a liquor glass to me with two fingers of a slightly darkened liquid. "Taste and smell yourself, then you'll see what I mean."
Again I concentrate on the liquor in front of me, softly sloshing the liquid around in the glass while I turn and turn it. The woody accord is a little less strong now, but certainly still there. As before I get a fruity opening, but there is more before I get to the wooden base. Something sweet, soft. Two things, actually.
I look up from the glass: "Jasmine? Vanilla? "
"Very good, young lady!"
I've not been called a young lady in a while, but I'll take it. This scent makes me feel vibrant, young... and a little flirty even.
The liquor in my hand remains enticing. I take a few sips, a sniff...
Incredibly smooth and masterfully blended, that's for sure.
I'm pretty certain there are more notes than I can smell, as I know that lightly charring the wooden barrel will create notes of caramel, too, besides vanilla. I'm missing out on the latter. But as said: this has had time to blend perfectly.
"Nicely macerated, eh?", the proud guide asks me.
"Two years? ", I guess. I'm correct. Though I'm sure a compilation of ingredients like this would be quite nice in the beginning too. Just a little less smooth and perhaps with more obvious separation.
I hand the now empty glass back to the historically clad guide and excuse myself. Halfway up the stairs I look back at the rows of barrels, one vat at the back in particular, all the way in the dark.
That juice has properly romanced me. And I need to make sure it'll see the light more.
----
While Parfumo has apparently been unable to verify the exact notes, this pyramid is the one I encountered most frequently for the fragrance of Romancea:
Top Notes: tangerine, apricot, black currant
Middle Notes: jasmine, floral scents, caramel
Base Notes: vanilla, woody notes, musk
And in many ways it coincides with what I smell if I really put my nose to skin and try to digest the fragrance ingredient by ingredient. Overall I would call Romancea a fruity-woody perfume. These two parts are most obvious.
It has something sweet, more particularly something softly sweet, that prevents the wood from becoming too dry. I believe that's the combination of Vanilla and Jasmine. I don't get caramel, but that's sadly a note that almost always escapes my skin. It would fit the fragrance perfectly though and make it really yummy. In that case it'll certainly lean quite feminine*, or at least a tad more gourmandish. Whereas now it can still go both ways with fruit and wood being such obvious accords (*based on what's generally seen as fem/masc).
The initial fruity opening is nice and fresh and at first seems quite "yellow", for lack of a better word. After my Romancea had some maceration the apricot smell came forward a little more, and in the current dry down I get a really, really soft blackcurrant, as well as a bit of girly, fragrant jasmine.
Absolutely nothing in this fragrance is harsh, tart, indolic, spicy or dry. Nor do specific notes jump out. Everything is beautiful and smooth. Maybe that's why it doesn't entice me as much, being used to heavier stuff.
However, every single time I dó wear it, Romancea makes me happy and I get plenty compliments. Despite my liquor metaphor the perfume isn't boozy, but I do feel a little edible - like a fruity dessert with vanilla sugar on top.
If you want your own bite, Ard Al Zaafaran's juice is quite affordable. Most webshops in Europe seem to offer the 100ml bottle for about 25 euro.
Romancea also comes in handy smaller packaging, i.e. a pocketspray of 20ml (I wish more M-E brands did that! ), a 6ml perfume oil, and a relatively cheaper 50ml (+/- €10).
(NB. Fair warning: there's a flanker, called OUD Romancea, too. Don't confuse the two).
I'm truly going to do my utmost best to spray around a little more romance(a) this summer. The Ard Al Zaafaran deserves it.
And so do I!
