Alma Nera Ars Mirabile 2016

If I'm not mistaken, Alma Nera means black soul. Not a bad name for a perfume, but I would olfactorily associate it more with something like Black Afgano - a dark, mysterious scent that radiates a profound aura.

In contrast, Alma Nera by Ars Mirabile, a fragrance label that presented itself at this year's GAoP in Düsseldorf, is more of a slightly kitschy Halloween - if not even Carnival - version of the theme.

Sure - anyone starting with sweet orange and rather cheap rum can't be taken too seriously. That would still be somewhat acceptable for me if the included clove didn't take up so much space that almost everything else gets pushed flat against the wall. Nothing against clove (the one with the garden carnation is not correctly listed!), but it must be well-measured; otherwise, the scent takes on a rather unpleasant stickiness reminiscent of grandma's unclean kitchen.

Certainly, the whole thing also inadvertently reminds one of Christmas, and especially rose and jasmine give this soul more fluffiness than one would expect.
But it only really gets interesting in the long-lasting and skin-close finish when soft chocolate notes sneak in seemingly out of nowhere and mix with vanilla and amber.

Then we are indeed more in the gourmand than in the mystique corner, but that's absolutely fine, although I'm not sure if that was actually the intention during creation.

Regardless - Alma Nera is essentially a nice little scent with a sweet warm Christmas radiance, which, however, personally does not please me too much due to the over-stimulation of clove. Once again, the saying holds true: "Less is more"!