The Bewitching Yasmine Penhaligon's 2017

This fragrance was a blind purchase by my mother for my 22nd birthday, as they didn’t have the at the time recently released The World According to Arthur that I’d asked for, and this was apparently similar. This is a nuclear fragrance, hitting you instantly with cardamom coffee, of the Turkish variety. Strong, thick, sweet, bold. It also has a sensual oud undertone, and some lovely indolic jasmine in the background. This is erotic.

The kind of fragrance I imagine Salomé to wear as she kissed the severed head of St John the Baptist. It is best enjoyed with heavy, black eye makeup, a dark red lip, and bored expression on your face. Femme-fatale embodied.

That jasmine! She is playing with me, tricky little something! Standing right in front of me and still I did not recognize her. She lost all of her usual treats, put on a wig and a silly costume. I have never seen her in such an odd fluffy-buttery-sponge-soft yet spicy-woody appearance before.

This flower is pumped with sweet vanilla. It can hardly be called a flower anymore. Oddly sweet, rather gourmand even. Then there is this frankincense-cardamom duo. They appear more obvious, right from the start. Their rough edges are all shaven off, though, so they are struggling to drag the scent out of the gourmand opening. But they prevail. Eventually, there is a bit of an oud note in the base. Again, this note is completely softened up, turned into a skinny wobbly twig. What the heck?

And still, all of those sissy flavors combined make this an odd but, like Mlleghoul said, a fun experience. It has a tacky first appearance and then messes with it. Squishy soft on all sides, but just enough zing to make a likeable personality, albeit a little eccentric.

Well I can finally admit that cardamom is my favorite spicy note in perfumery. It has an amazing way of blending into literally any composition (gourmand, fresh, floral, woody, etc.) and can instantly add a bit of sex appeal / sensuality. In Bewitching Yasmine, it adds a warm spicy veil over a rather heavy hitter lineup of notes. The notes I pickup the most in this scent are the cardy, the Oud, and the coffee. The jasmine is there, but way in the back. It almost feels like it’s running to catch up to the rest of the other notes. The Oud and coffee add a dark and sexy feel, and the added vanilla just adds even more of that raunchiness. While the scent itself is intense, it’s not a monster projector, it could only be overpowering if you really spray it on.

Yasmine, aptly named, smells like a sensual and very dangerous woman. The type that will tempt you into doing bad things to satisfy and please her. She’s a dark haired beauty, with deeper complexion, and an insanely wicked face card. You can never tell her no, or she’ll try to hurt, or even kill you. The only kind of love she allows, is intensely physical, tumultuous, and toxic. She’s make you feel like your on top of the world one moment, just to rip of your high horse and step on you. She’s quiet and mysterious in public, but an absolutely carnal and crazy in private.

I’m not crazy about coffee notes, and Oud is a note I’ve struggled with a lot, but I think it’s safe to say I’ve found my Oud and coffee combo with this one. I’m excited to test more in cold weather. Definitely more of a femme fatale fragrance, but I could see this smelling absolutely delectable on anyone, especially if left behind on clothes through touch ;)

This is the first penhaligon perfume that I've really enjoyed and felt might actually be worth the price tag. This a decadent fragrance that opens up with a juicy almost bubblegum jasmine that is coated in spice. The jasmine mellows out and becomes more of a chai that has been mixed with coffee and is heavy on the cardamon and vanilla. I can see this fragrance being used to feel a little sleazy at a techno/gothic club or when dressing up to go on a shopping spree with your besties.

This fragrance has what a lot of other penhaligon fragrances don't, projection and longevity. This fragrance immediately projected off the skin for the first few minutes, a heavy vanilla and coffee scent. It was when you got closer to the skin you picked up on the funky jasmine. It mellows into a fragrances that projects but doesn't cloy. This fragrance also lasted 6 hours and the dry down is that wonderful spiced chai and coffee scent that entices and comforts at the same time. It is $315 for 75ml, which is very expensive. But this is the only fragrance from this line (so far) that might be worth it.

The copy for The Bewitching Yasmine from Penhaligon’s Portrait collection is kind of silly in a Regency romance sort of way “Yasmine’s sights are set on London – and a suitable match. Her fragrance is a voluptuous affair: jasmine, incense, oud. A celebration of all that is gloriously sensual. Who could resist?” But the musky shadows of this deliriously poisonous confectionery fairy tale floral reads less like a novel of manners and more like a New Wave Czechoslovakian gothic drama through a slightly sleazy and heavily decadent 1970’s lens. And if in that word salad of melodrama you sussed that I am obliquely referring to a gloriously wicked character from the 1972 film Morgiana, then we are obviously besties. If you’re not keeping up, that’s okay, we’ll visit another point of reference. Imagine the vanilla-dusted amaretto-spiked jasmine and sassafras latte of Dior’s Hypnotic Poison and lock it in a psychedelic velvet carpet bag with oud’s bitter earthy fables, and the strange otherworldly poetry of cardamom incense. Bury the satchel for one hundred years in an abandoned cliffside cemetery, dig it up, air it out, and the resulting fragrance is The Bewitching Yasmine. Or, back to Morgiana–although the actress who played the jealous and vindictive Viktoria was singularly, splendidly perfect, and no one could ever replace her…imagine the divine tackiness of Peggy Bundy in that role? That is the very essence of Penhaligon’s The Bewitching Yasmine. This is a fragrance somehow both luxurious and trashy. What do we call the intersection of these things? Self-indulgent? Sinful? None of those really feels right. And there’s something not quite right about this scent, too–maybe that’s why it’s so much evocative fun.