Ambre Nomade Élisire 2015

The funny thing is, when I first looked at my sample of Ambre Nomade from Elisire, it was upside down and I misread it as Amber Malone-- and you know what, it smells like a fictional character named Amber Malone, so I am just going with that. This is not what I think of as a typical amber, that powdery balsamic resin. Amber Malone is amber by way of glorious golden ginger and intense, velvety patchouli vanilla, and an unexpected aromatic freshness from sage and lavender and apple. The first time I smelled Amber M. I caught a bit of a youthful-bordering-on-obnoxious-vanilla-apricot fruitiness with a tinge of darkness that made me think she was in high school in the 2002 and had one of those scene queen hairstyles and probably spent a lot of time in serial killer chatrooms. She had the vibe of a kid who was a bit of a loner and was obsessed with true crime novels and at first, I thought maybe she was corresponding with convicted murderers in prison, but I came to the conclusion that she had a good head on her shoulders and ended up going into forensics science and has a podcast where she talks about women’s complicated relationship with true crime. Later, when I tried Amber M. again, the opulent leathery, musky resinous labdanum note is present and I think she’s gotten a book deal to write some brilliant essays regarding true stories about how vicarious interests in violent crime transformed the lives of four women and that’s when I realized Amber Malone exists to some extent-- at least as far as writing this book--and her actual name is Rachel Monroe, and Savage Appetites is a great book and you should read it. Ambre Nomade speaks to me of savage appetites for truth, for curiosity, for passion and fascination, and indulging all of these things at every opportunity.

You get out of your car at sunset and walk into the desert away from road and just smell the remnants of the sun coming off the earth. It smells warm and strangely cozy. That's the idea Ambre Nomad gives me when I wear it.

When I first spray it on it gets a little wild. It almost hurts my nose with a crazy blast of fruit and spice. However once it warms up on your body, just like the desert sand and earth, it radiates warmth and comfort. The vanilla and resin start to calm down the craziness of the top notes and they eventually make sense. A little sweetness, a bit of spice, some herbs, wood, kind of like that well worn horse blanket that always exists in someone's work truck. It's a little of everything, even some dirt, sweat and earth with the patchouli.

But at the end, it's just cozy. The bottle is beautiful, but you do have to keep it in the box. I've back handed it over with a breeze more than once. That top bit is actually cut glass and very heavy. The scent lasts on clothing until the next washing. I'll get hints of it on Oodies, my preferred clothing style for this fragrance, nearly a week after I've sprayed it. I can't say much about the silage, as this is one of those gems I rarely wear out and about. For me this is a fragrance reserved for cozy time with a hot tea and a good book.

The scent is like an extraordinary journey to the Orient, at least that's what the description says about this fragrance. I really shouldn't be testing such scents now on these warm (or rather hot) days, but they say that in Eastern countries, heavy orientals are actually worn in summer.

Well, the Orient… while today the Orient is simply a region in this world like all other regions, it was for a long time one of the greatest dreams of people living in the West. Arabia, India, or even further away, the Asian region with Japan and China… people have dreamed of all these countries for centuries,… until the white man came and instead of seeing everything, preferred to colonize everything, and then became so fascinated by some of their habits (which they still tried to eradicate…), that they partially adopted them, like the enjoyment of spices and tea. Especially tea quickly became popular. So popular that in America, in Boston, there was even a Tea Party that got out of hand… :D
(well, back then the tea was destroyed in the harbor! Waaaah!!)

Unfortunately, this scent here has no tea notes (though I always have to try to mention tea as often as possible, he he he), but it does have beautiful amber… wait, but that's not listed anywhere in the fragrance pyramid?? Oh, let me take a sniff…

The scent starts off quite heavy as expected. For a tiny moment, it smells somewhat like cough syrup, but then you start to smell the apricots. Quickly, you also catch a whiff of sultry flowers, which I associate with ylang-ylang.
Herbaceous notes come in, which are a bit difficult to distinguish, but I think you can smell the ginger better. However, I also feel that the herbs are a bit too dry.
In the heart note, it continues to smell heavy and dry, but not as sultry anymore. It's hard to describe, but especially the floral notes smell as if they have been standing under the scorching sun for a long time. You could easily imagine it as if you were walking through dry meadows and fields on a very hot summer day.
A little later, the incense joins in, which lightens the scent a bit, while the patchouli makes it a bit heavier with its earthy notes.
Over time, however, the scent becomes softer, meaning the dry-sounding notes gradually disappear, and the scent begins to smell mainly floral and sweet, with the floral notes appearing a bit sultry (though this gradually diminishes over time). A bit later, the sweetness of the scent mainly comes from the vanilla, which makes the scent even softer. In the background, the scent remains a bit earthy due to the patchouli, but later it only smells of vanilla.
As for the amber: Yes, the combination of some fragrance notes does indeed resemble amber, even if it shouldn't be listed in the fragrance pyramid. However, you can smell this more in the middle, as at the end the scent, as mentioned, smells more of vanilla.

The sillage is strong and therefore quite noticeable to someone nearby. A scent cloud will also linger.
The longevity is five or six hours, at least regarding the scent with all its notes. After that, you can add another five or six hours, but that's when the scent only smells of vanilla.

Here too, the bottle is rectangular with beveled corners. The fragrance liquid is orange/amber colored. The cap is, as usual, very nice to look at with its gem-like top part (as well as the lower cylindrical area with the orange band). A quite beautifully made bottle.

I quite liked this fragrance from Elisire. At first, I thought the scent would end in sultry floral notes, but gradually it became more beautiful on the skin.

I even tested it under the sun and found it not really suffocating in the base later on. It unfolds quite nicely on the skin in the warmth, but personally, I prefer fresher scents on hot days, so I would categorize this scent more for autumn and winter, but that's just a matter of taste. Since the scents are currently traveling in a package from one fragrance enthusiast to another (yes, yes, I mean fragrance enthusiasts like you! Still, crazy is crazy… :D), everyone can test how this scent performs on hot days.

I also think this scent can be used well for going out, but I find that it seems somewhat more feminine than unisex at times.

As I said, a beautiful scent that is worth testing.

Fortunately, today is such a gray day and fortunately the Easter Bunny was here yesterday.

Fortunately, yesterday was not a cocoa-with-cream-and-speculoos day.

Fortunately, Ambre Nomade fits today’s day all the more.

Fortunately, it disguises itself as an amber-ginger spice bomb.

Fortunately, it quickly turns into a boring vanilla gourmand.

Fortunately, I don’t have to buy it like that.

Fortunately, I didn’t miss the interesting sage note at the beginning.

Fortunately, it transforms more and more into a vanilla coffee.

Fortunately, sometimes all it takes is good weather and the right fragrance.

Fortunately, sometimes it takes more than good weather and the right fragrance.

... for that, the first spray moment feels too intense and especially too heavy on the incense. I am not familiar with oriental fragrances, but this is exactly how I imagine it: heavy and spice-laden. For a long time, patchouli and incense dominate for me. Sage and ginger join in later. Only in the drydown does the advertised apricot swing into my scent trail. I have been wearing the fragrance for a while now, still waiting for it to become the summer vanilla scent that has been mentioned several times, and I am glad that it is not 30°C outside today. I can imagine that this fragrance could become a candidate for headaches then.
For me, Ambre Nomade is an absolute winter fragrance, which I would place in the same category as Material or "Rock the Myrrh | Dries Van Noten." I like it, but I wouldn't want to wear it long-term. It is too loud for me and, in terms of longevity, actually lasts too long at times. But luckily, that's a matter of taste.