Taif Imperial Duftanker MGO Duftmanufaktur 2023

Taif Imperial is one of the better rose soliflores on wood. It begins with a sour, metallic top note, which is immediately replaced by a bright, fruity rose. This lacks a little freshness, but fortunately it has hardly any sweetness at first. It has a slight soapy quality. In this respect, it is a typical oriental rose fragrance. The wood is neither green, nor dull, nor dry, but beautifully moist and creamy and complements the rose very vividly. The oud is barely perceptible, but the woody notes as a whole are beautifully balanced. So: beautiful rose, beautiful wood, what more could you want? The other notes are only there for decoration and for the most part are indistinguishable to me. The fragrance radiates strongly for the first few hours and the rose clearly dominates.

There is a small deduction for a somewhat pungent fragrance in the background. This may have to do with the cedar and ambergris, to whose synthetic substitutes I sometimes react sensitively. Getting used to it helps: After 4 - 5 hours, I no longer notice this stinging, but still very faintly pencil shavings.

At the same time, the whole fragrance undergoes a change. The rose becomes darker (i.e. loses its fruitiness) and recedes. The wood is now drier, but not dry as dust. The fragrance becomes sweeter, it smells like caramel (not burnt, but toffee) as indicated in the list of notes. In my opinion, this addition of sugar could have been left out, even though it is quite unobtrusive. The fragrance is now pleasantly round and creamy-floral-woody, without any powder. It no longer changes and you can still smell it for quite a long time.