Chai Baruti 2014 Extrait de Parfum

Baruti Chai impresses me. Considering it has so many things in it that have the potential to overwhelm (e.g. cinnamon, pepper, leather), it never does. It could be a study on the subtle use of spice in perfumery. If Opium, Cinnabar and Jungle l'Elephant are rough, Chai is smooth and polished.

Chai is more like a suggestion of the beverage, rather than the literal beverage. This is preferable to me because as much as I adore authentic masala chai, I'd rather not smell like I bathed in it. Instead, what I get smells like strong sandalwood and something wonderfully smoky, like a singed piece of bark. The perfume is marvelously sandalwoody on me, and I am baffled that there is no mention of woods anywhere on the internet because it is perhaps more sandalwood on me than anything else (works for me!).

There is something like mint in it, but it blends beautifully with the other notes, perhaps to imbue the scent of fresh, green cardamom husks. I don't actually detect any cardamom; one of my favorite spices to cook with, I am quite familiar with the scent. I also notice fresh ginger from time to time as well as gentle hand of Saigon cinnamon and a hint of savory black pepper.

Then there is my favorite part--one of the most perfect and gorgeous *non-vanillic* creamy accords I have ever smelled, and I can not get enough of it! It smells like a cup of warm, sweetened milk. It was at the 10-hour mark that I felt there could be any vanilla at all.

It projects well enough for my liking for hours, though never a sillage monster, heavy, or cloying. Longevity is excellent.

I don't take this as the literal scent of chai, nor did I ever expect it to be based on the notes, which list things that I have never seen in any authetic chai recipe, much less drunk: leather, rose, musk, cocoa. It does not even read as gourmand on my skin, rather a floral-woody-musk.

In any case, Chai is a definite winner that makes me curious about the rest of the line.

Yes this does have the ingredients of a proper chai served on the streets in India. It does smell of it too. Reminds of an Indian restaurant in London that used to dry fry the spices in a pan and waft it around the restaurant to entice customers. I really love the Baruti Perverso but this one is a bit too gourmand for me. It needs more refinement and more interesting base notes. It lasts but is more a skin scent for a long time. The other thing I ask myself is, when would I wear it? On my own to bring back memories I would suggest.

Smoky cinnamon, spicy tea, cacao and leather. This is Chai; a perfect warm/fresh composition which is the very scent of this time of year. Chai is bitter leafy, spicy, and pseudo-animalic (musky-like). It's like tea leaf soaked in Serge Noir.

Opens with faint metallic post-rain soil smell imparted within the spice theme. The spicy theme is on cinnamon but cloves drive is madly smoldering. Then cacao and milk and pepper, very brilliant pepper. You apparently feel cacao powder in the smell...
Good longevity, self-covering projection. It's rather a personal scent around you.
7/10

on first spray, you get a big hit of cinnamon and pepper—it kind of reminds me of those spicy cinnamon candies (i forget the name). but that fades quickly, turning into a creamy, cardamom-y vanilla with cloves and faint spices still lingering in the background, very lactonic. as it settles, the tea note really starts to come through. i can definitely pick up some ginger too. overall, it’s super comforting—exactly like sipping on a warm cup of chai (with a hint of rose water).

I wanted spicy, cinnamon, chai, and that is what I got - the opening wasn't quite it, but it very quickly dried down into precisely what I expected. There's a fine line between the inviting but mundane Christmas store Potpourri and the intoxicating depth of real chai spices, and this scent walks that line very well.