Love is in the Air House of Sillage 2012

I know it well, I know: Designated spring fragrances should not be tested in winter, certainly not during Christmas time.
But I had saved it, the last candidate from the House of Sillage, the little vial with the beautiful name "Love is in the Air."
What is not in the air for the supposed festival of love: fir branches, beeswax, mulled wine, cinnamon, roasted almonds, goose, and so on - we won't even start to read about underlying conflicts, old quarrels, hidden strife.
This time, I thought, it should be love as well, the olfactory, sprayed kind.
Not the felt, real love - that love already had its home in my arms, his smile, my lap.
But a fragrance that bore love in its name would not be wrong this time - so I thought, so I hoped...

...and I wasn't entirely wrong, because as spring-like as "Love is in the Air" seems to others, the fragrance does not develop that way for me - not on my skin.
A brief moment of young, fresh plum sweetness opens up, which requires no pyramid knowledge to name - oranges roll around in the background and could just as well be real as imagined.
Very quickly, "Love is in the Air" becomes warmer and initially sweeter, almost sugary, before floral notes layer over the fruits and temper their sweetness after a few minutes.
It could be roses, it could be jasmine - nothing is clearly defined here, which I certainly do not consider a flaw, and it is supported by subtly bitter wood.
Tropical dark vanilla appears, not listed, but distinctly noticeable to my nose and intensifying over time.
A friendly, colorful bouquet of flowers with green leaves, small branches, surrounded by a veil of dark golden vanilla.
This fits with spring, but also with Christmas time.
Because soon the plum dominates, hand in hand with the vanilla, pushing every thought of spring flowers aside and gradually transporting me into autumn and finally winter.
The plums are ripe, almost overripe, sweetly syrupy, but not mushy, cinnamon-like, even a bit boozy - I think of my grandmother's pickled plums, of their sweet, sticky red juice.

And I think back to the eighties, the early nineties with their opulent, sensual full-bodied fragrances - fragrances like "Roma," "Trésor," and "Vendetta," Valentino's blood revenge, which "Love is in the Air" reminds me of, without being its twin.
Not a twin - yet here, as with all the previously tested fragrances from the House of Sillage, I find echoes, references, assimilations that evoke memories of full-bodied, powerful, and magnificent creations that made a mark in their time and far beyond.
They were clear in their appeal and statement, sought and found attention - and for which their wearer could be anything, but certainly not shy.
Mark Buxton, it seems to me, quotes himself a bit in "Love is in the Air" with echoes of Chopard's "Mira-Bai," the little sister of "Casmir," and Salvador Dalí's "Laguna" - the fragrant children of that time, which he helped bring into the world as a nose.
Perhaps Buxton enjoys traveling back in time as well...

PS: Franfan - thank you!