Les Nombres d'Or - Rose Etoile de Hollande Maison Mona di Orio 2012

I am unfamiliar with the creations of Mona di Orio, so I was gratified to receive a large sample of Rose Etoile de Hollande as a gift with a recent souk purchase. Being a huge fan of Rose, my initial testing of this lovely fragrance leads me to believe that I have been remiss in not investigating this house.

I tend to enjoy my Rose fragrances slightly spicy and definitely 'blousy'. Offerings like Guerlain's Rose Barbare (my all time favorite Rose) and Eau Protection by ELd'O are up there with classics like YSL's Paris, PW's Tea Rose and newly released Declaration d'Un Soir by Cartier. Rose Etoile de Hollande adds one more dimension to the ever changing kaleidoscope of Rose based fragrances I enjoy.
This fragrance, however, presents my nose with more of a classic take on this exalted flower, probably due to the addition of Aldehydes up top, sparkling away as is their wont to do! I generally dislike fruit in fragrances, but the Peach note here is not bothersome ... rather giving this creation a soft fuzziness, like caressing a perfect specimen of the fruit between one's hands. I do find that the spiciness here could have been a little more pronounced, but then Clove can be overwhelming and it has been used in just the right quantity here.
Many of the notes in Rose Etoile de Hollande seem to play a fixative supporting role ... things like Patchouli and Leather here are not leads but simply there to bolster up the very beautiful climbing Rose that has been implemented in this fragrance. Unfortunately, the relatively heavy base notes in this composition become strident too soon imho, trampling a little roughshod over what could have been delightful. My favorite part of this creation is the first hour or so, after which Rose Etoile de Hollande becomes sluggish and altogether too heavy.
I'm not sure how much the late Ms. Di Orio had to do with this fragrance, my research leading me to believe that it was launched after her untimely death as an homage. I have to agree with my fellow parfumisto below, Drseid, that this composition does feel unfinished, however beautiful the first impression of it may be.

In closing, even though this fragrance is marketed as unisex, I very much doubt that the average male would find it appealing.

Rose opens with primarily a peach and aldehyde combination, with just a faint whiff of the rose from the heart notes peeping through. The peach remains into the heart, with the rose growing stronger coupling with a very strong almost cherry and almond smelling floral heliotrope. Rounding out the heart notes of interest is a distinct geranium note that melds with the heliotrope, aldehyde-laced peach and rose notes to create a somewhat odd combination that has a mild medicinal vibe to it. Amber and benzoin from the base add a moderate amount of sweetness to the scent, but nothing too overboard. Projection is above average with superb longevity.

I was so happy to hear that this rose scent was being released well after the untimely death of the great Mona di Orio, but I had to wonder in the back of my mind if this would truly be what Mona would have released if still alive or was Rose an unfinished composition now unleashed on the public after her death with no one left to complete it properly... We will never really know, but I fear it may have been the latter as I just don't get the same vibe with Rose as I do the other scents in the Les Nombres d'Or line. It is very aldehyde and peach heavy, with a lot less rose than you might think or want in a scent with the name Rose Etoile de Hollande. The aldehydes also give the scent a somewhat medicinal chemical vibe that when combined with the peach and heliotrope comes off as something I liken to a light semi-sweet cherry and peach cough syrup with a rose undertone. That result is far from the great heights Mona achieved with most of the Les Nombres d'Or line. I guess I am going to choose to believe this was not a finished product, but in its current state I rate Rose Etoile de Hollande a very disappointingly below average to average 2 to 2.5 stars out of 5. Not recommended and not a good representation of what Mona was capable of, IMO.

What a complex creation! Mona di Orio ROSE ETOILE DE HOLLANDE from the collection Les Nombres d'Or is probably misnamed, but nonetheless praiseworthy.

The perfume opens wafting a bit of aldehydes and waxy rose and so immediately evokes memories of Guerlain CHAMADE. Shortly thereafter, however, the composition commences on a rather labyrinthine journey through leather, amber, balsam, and a variety of other blended notes which pretty much shroud the rose in darkness. Upon emerging from the dark mid-stage of this perfume, I find the drydown to offer for the most part a very pleasant-smelling fuzzy peach--not the juicy inside flesh, but the outer skin. It's a dark fruity-chypre peach, similar to the one in Guerlain MITSOUKO, against all expectations.

No one can say that ROSE ETOILE DE HOLLANDE is boring--at least not if they pay close attention to its wildly unpredictable development trajectory--but I'm sure that, because of the name, lots of people have been disappointed by the only minor role played by rose. I recommend this perfume to anyone who likes the original MITSOUKO. Although the peach note is probably closer to that of Annick Goutal PETITE CHERIE, all of the dark back-up notes conspire to create to my nose a pleasing fruity-chypre effect.

This is an excellent perfume, and having tested a few members of Les Nombres d'Or (though this is my first review of any of them), I definitely see why so many people love Mona di Orio. I had never tried any of her perfumes when I read the cruel and excoriating dismissal of this woman's entire oeuvre in The Holey[sic] Book. Once again, Turin was wrong, in addition to being incredibly rude.

May Mona di Orio rest in peace in the knowledge that many people appreciated her efforts and creativity very much.

I am a rose addict, and I smell no rose! I smell no peach! No sweets, just heliotrope! Not a rose fragrance akin to Creed Fleurs de The Rose Bulgari nor Montale Deep Roses.

Roses, for the first time:
June. Strolling through the garden in the morning before work and burying my nose in the blooms. Here, full, rich Damask sweetness, there, deep, dark rose-red scent, over there the idiosyncratic myrrh note of English roses; elsewhere - among yellow, soft pink, or white flowers - light, fresh aromas with fruity undertones, ripe banana, white peach, sweet-spicy apple, a hint of orange.

After work, slipping into elbow-length, thorn-proof gloves. Bring out the shears, cut off the wilted ones. After the task is done, dipping my hands, which smell of leather and greenery, into the bucket full of petals, swirling the scents. Roses, roses, roses, now underlaid with a hint of earth and hay, drier than in the morning, more fragile, more perishable.

A June visit to a foreign garden. In the rose bed, herbs are growing. Not just lavender, which is often paired with roses, but also thyme, marjoram, hyssop, savory, rosemary. Intentional, says the gardener: pure rose scent can tire with its sweetness; in contrast to the harsh bitterness around it, one perceives it much more intensely.

Roses, for the second time:
She is a famous unknown, the climbing rose 'Etoile de Hollande', which served as a model for Mona di Orio's olfactory plant portrait (one specimen of it, so it is said on the company's website, was encountered by the perfumer on the wall of the house in Provence's Cabris, where she worked for a long time). Many rose lovers are familiar with the variety by name. Yet it can hardly be found in any garden, hardly anyone - myself included - knows more about it than the description and images in the database www.helpmefind.com. For collectors, with a tendency towards snobbery, precious garden space (and a climbing rose requires a lot of it) for an ordinary tea hybrid in even more ordinary scarlet? Oh no, it must be rarissima, half-forgotten varieties, delicate little darlings needing pampering. And unusual colors, mauve, bluish violet, coffee brown, almost black red.

Roses, for the third time:
Rose perfumes? For me, a constant frustration. Heavy, sugary, soapy, synthetic, piercing, ostentatious, loud, vulgar, over-seasoned, stilted, banal, proper, yawningly dull, girlishly cute to the point of being frightfully coy - everything I absolutely cannot stand has been present over the decades. Never the rose scent I love. I had long given up the search for it, skeptically I took the sample in hand.

And then the surprise: This is it.

Rose. Loveliness without sweetness, strength without heaviness. Fresh-fruity notes mix in, but very softly - the color question is immediately clarified: no Damask deep pink, no black velvet, no white, no yellow, this rose blooms in a bright dark red. At first, it cannot quite assert itself, playing only one of two (or three?) main roles, alongside earth and dew-soaked green. Quickly, the floral aroma becomes clearer, without losing its transparency. At the same time, spiciness awakens, as one knows from other Mona di Orio scents (there it is, the gardener's wisdom, that bitter contrast aromas do good to the rose scent ;-)...). Even afterwards, the rose is never alone; it always has companions. Identifying them individually is, of course, difficult for me, as they are always intimately intertwined with each other and with the rose scent into a complete "picture." At the beginning, I perceive "June morning," see above; a few hours later, it is "June evening," also see above. In between and afterwards, there is a midday-glowing rubble wall, chalky and dusty; dense twigs with raindrops from a thunderstorm on them; leaves on the ground, earthy, musty; long shadows in the light of the setting sun; and finally, a mild summer night, into which the wonderfully soft, warm base seems to merge, still rosy, but no longer "plant-like" tinted, but resinous-balsamic.
Throughout the entire - long! - duration, the scent is exquisitely balanced. Perfect. However, not in the sense of cold, sterile florist rose perfection. Mona di Orio's olfactory rose has flaws, here a little aphid, there an insect bite hole, here a bloom that has already passed. So be it, tomorrow new buds will open. And the day after tomorrow, next week, next year...

Louce spoke of "woven fabric" in her comment on Mona di Orio's oud scent. And that the fragrance notes listed in the pyramid are not important by themselves, but only as companions to the main note, as its "version." It is similar here. Although a musical comparison seems more fitting to me. For the scent is not static, but constantly in motion, a process in time: The "companion" notes orchestrate the central note and develop it in the process - a small motif cell grows into a theme, whose expressive and tonal potential is unfolded and explored. (In colorful, but small ensemble, chamber orchestra: The scent is clearly perceptible, yet it remains close to the body.)

A rose perfume? No. More.
The scent tells a life of roses. A life. Life.

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At the same time as ordering the fragrance, I placed a second order - for the rose 'Etoile de Hollande'. The bottle has long since arrived, but the plant will take a while: At rose nurseries, the harvest begins no earlier than mid-October. By then, I will have found a suitable spot in the garden. And next summer, I will know whether Mona di Orio's rose portrait is more naturalistic or more abstract ;-).
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Addendum 31.10.13:
Today I planted the rose 'Etoile de Hollande'. May it come through the winter well and then bloom in June :-).