Kawa Karda Atelier des Ors 2024

This thing ain't just cardamom. It's you peeling the cardamom pod and crushing the seeds with your teeth til it reaches the back of your throat and stays in your orl zone for... Ever.

Slowly it turns into a kind a Aperol Spritz, not exactly dry, no that fizzy, not quite sirupy, but the kind you'd get in a street in Naples for 2 bucks. Cardamom? Still there.

This is a very weird fragrance. Its ingredients, very well done. Top notes? Incredible feeling. Like that first whiff of a great cardamom basmati rice you know is gonna be great. Middle and base get muddied by a "what the hell is going on" feeling. It's flat as two day old beer, and I do NOT understand the 40% concentration. I would spray this at 9am and by 12, it's kinda... Gone?

For that reason alone, it's unequivocally not worth the 400 ridiculous price tag.

The last review prior to the publishing of my 2024 rankings comes at the expense of Atelier des Ors' second 40% Extrait, that being Kawa Karda. The scent opens with a very prominent cardamom with nothing else to note. It doesn't have any oriental feel to it like Xerjoff's "Starlight | XerJoff" and it also doesn't have any vanilla to coincide with the cardamom as in Atelier des Ors' Lune Féline Eau de Parfum. But the scent does change quite a bit when you smell it on-skin.

My initial impressions from smelling it on-skin were negative: I got hints of stale bread and window cleaner. That window cleaner feel is something I recognize from Royal Crown's Celebration where the said feel comes from the way the orange is implemented into the structure. This is noteworthy, because Kawa Karda does transition into a more typical gourmand fragrance, particularly comparable to an orange panettone as in Milano Fragranze's Panettone. To me, that is the best comparable for this fragrance.

Needless to say, the €400/100ml price tag of Kawa Karda cannot hold a candle to Milano Fragranze selling Panettone at €130/100ml. The performance is leaning weak, another category where it falls short of the Milano Fragranze, likely in the 5 hour range with below average sillage. The rough aspects don't play a significant role in the drydown, but I am still denting points for it. Predictably, this entails that there's no argument for me to include this in the top blends for 2024. This collection is 0-for-2.

I can't love this scent enough, it immediately put me in a good mood... Definitely unisex, like its sibling Cocoa Kimiya which unfortunately did not hit the mark for me.

Kawa Karda opens with a sparkling cardamom, almost effervescent like the first statement says. It grabbed my attention immediately.

Then comes a coffee but this is not your typical coffee. It's fresh, slightly citrusy. It's refreshing but dark, feels like a sophisticated fizzy coffee cocktail with the right amount of cardamom and citrus. I could see this becoming my signature scent. I would love people to associate me with this scent. It's almost worth the price.

I have been searching for a good coffee scent for a very long time and have tried really a lot of different ones. Unfortunately, most coffee fragrances have always been either too sweet, barely noticeable, or just a supporting role in the compositions.
When this fragrance was released and I caught wind of it, I felt a great joy, as I was very optimistic based on the previous reviews and comments. Above all, I was very pleased that cardamom was incorporated here, as I really appreciate the combination of coffee with cardamom. Additionally, the notes only mentioned coffee and cardamom, so I assumed that this time it would truly be a clear coffee scent. Unfortunately, I was disappointed this time as well; this fragrance disappointed me the most out of all the previous "coffee" scents. The opening is the only interesting and beautiful part of the entire composition. It really starts with a powerful cloud of cardamom, and immediately afterwards, the coffee note comes to the forefront. Up to this point, everything was really good, and I eagerly awaited the progression of the fragrance.
However, the coffee note gradually receded into the background, and the cardamom note also slowly but surely disappeared, replaced by an unexpectedly synthetic sharp component that was very disturbing and surprising.
I was told that it might come from the cardamom, but that wasn’t it. Since I am well acquainted with individual notes, I was sure after a while that this was Ambroxan or something similar. That’s when my optimism began to fade, and I no longer looked forward to the dry down. When the dry down finally approached and I sniffed the fragrance again, the disappointment was immense.

Conclusion:
Anyone expecting a coffee scent or something similar should definitely get a sample beforehand. It is not a blind buy candidate and definitely not recommended as a coffee fragrance.
If you want a synthetic scent with a bit of coffee and cardamom character, then go ahead. But if you want an authentic beautiful coffee scent that is also long-lasting and carries the coffee note, you should stay away from this one.