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Musicandarts
3
An excellent perfume that defies descriptions
I have very fond memories of visiting Jovoy Paris Rare Perfumes just a few weeks ago. They are very welcoming even to the less fashionable fragrance lovers like me and bear no pretentions of any kind, though they are very niche-focused. You can test as much as you want without anyone bothering you. After that visit, I found out that they ship to US, and shipping is free if you buy enough. Their sample program (branded as “Try Me”) is significantly cheaper than US decanters. I am happy to say that I bought a full bottle of Remember Me from Jovoy online without any issue.
This review is based a 2 ml dabber that I bought from a US decanter before I visited the Jovoy Store, but I have updated it after buying a full bottle. I was a little hesitant when I found out that Cécile Zarokian is the nose behind Remember Me. Though I consider her beautiful creation Nishane Ani to be iconic and the flagship of the Nishane brand, I was not thrilled with some of her work with Amouage.
I have become more and more convinced that Jean-Claude Ellena is correct when he says that all the notes of a perfume exist at all times in the olfactory pyramid. It is just that their intensity varies during their life on your body. So, there is no reason to compartmentalize the notes strictly into top, heart and base. The notes listed for Remember Me are cardamom, bergamot, lemon, frangipani, tea, ginger, vanilla, wood, milk and cedarwood. It shows some development, though all these notes are always there at varying levels. For example, Remember Me opens with cardamom and citrus, but my nose picks up hints of ginger, frangipani, tea and milk also in the opening. The frangipani, tea and ginger are strong in heart notes, but you also get vanilla from the bottom and cardamom from the top. When we reach base notes, Remember Me is a vanilla with milk and woody notes. I don’t want to belabor this progression as others may smell different notes at different times. But beauty of this perfume is indisputable.
Remember Me performs very well on my skin. I love tracking the changes in the notes as it ages on me. The citrus notes disappear in two hours, but the ginger, milk and vanilla go on for 6-8 hours. The milky vanilla persists for much longer. The sillage is very good, though not monstrous.
I recommend Remember Me without hesitation. If you don’t want to spend a lot, it is also available as a 15 ml bottle on the Jovoy website. Though Remember Me is supposedly inspired by karak, a chai drink popular in the Indian subcontinent and the Arab world, I find that this perfume is a deconstructed version of the spicy chai. All the ingredients are there, but they appear at different times along the olfactory pyramid. Cécile Zarokian does a Picasso and creates a unique and innovative perfume, very distinct from the familiar spicy chai accord. The powerful citrus notes in the opening also help dissuade any illusion that this is a chai fragrance.