Oriental Essence - Fleurs de L'Himalaya Rituals 2015

Fragrances, like people, often appear in our lives immediately. Some of them stay, others do not.

I generally enjoy relatively stable health. Therefore, I didn’t rush to the doctor when a stomach bug seemed to follow a strong cough. It will be fine. However, last Sunday it got really bad. I hadn’t eaten anything for days, lost almost 10 kg, and looked accordingly zombie-like. I felt extremely weak and miserable. Visions set in. I felt like I was in that magic bus where the 22-year-old civilization escapee Chris from the (true) film “Into the Wild” presumably starved to death. That scared me. My ex, who now lives in Budapest, recognized the drama of the situation and immediately drove to me in Vienna. An emergency doctor was called. He arrived at three in the morning, examined me, gave me injections against nausea, and prescribed me a bunch of medications - antibiotics, cough syrup, and anti-diarrheal medicine, which my ex immediately picked up from the night pharmacy.

In the meantime, my busy ex is long back in Hungary. But Vienna is fortunately a social city, and I manage to organize home nursing care for the duration of my illness, which comes twice a week for a good hour, shops for me, goes to the pharmacy, and helps a little around the house.

On Friday, she was at my place for the first time. Tall, slim, dark-haired. You wouldn’t guess her age of 50. She told me she is from Romania but has lived in Austria for a long time, alone with her daughter. Not an easy life either. I hand her the shopping list: pharmacy, cough syrup, and Billa - rusks, applesauce, rice pudding, instant soups, bananas, mashed potatoes; whatever I think I can eat and keep down. My main food is anyway protein shakes.

She leaves. But what is that? I suddenly catch a whiff of a fragrance in my freshly aired bedroom. Sweet, cool, and floral, it floats past me like a pink veil. My scent sensors activate. Spring, I think involuntarily. And: I know this scent - somehow lovely, romantic, graceful, and girlish. Peony! It comes to me. I’m quite good at identifying scents.

When my nurse is back, I ask her: “You smell so good. What is that?” “Rituals,” she replies, “the pink bottle.” She shows it to me. The bottle fits the fragrance well, I think. So simple, clear, and soft pink. I’m even allowed to spray the flowers of the Himalayas on myself.

While she prepares chamomile tea for me, I research the fragrance. And yes, there it is: Oriental Essence - Fleurs de L’Himalaya, a perfume from 2015. It is said to contain fragrance notes of lemon, peach, tea, calone, orchid, jasmine, and peony, and to diffuse in a base of patchouli and musk.

Calone? Yes, it exists. A synthetic, aquatic scent that is supposed to smell of sea breeze, flowers, and honeydew melon. Sounds intriguing. But why do I only smell peony from beginning to end?
Yes, the fragrance is pleasant, fresh, subtle, feminine. But under “Fleurs de L’Himalaya,” I would have expected a bit more. Of course: the pure, clear air of the Himalayas. I can somewhat relate to that here. What else could match a perfume with this floral name? Something aquatic, perhaps lily? Involuntarily, L’Eau D'Issey by Issey Miyake comes to mind. But here, with the Fleurs, there’s a swing towards “sweet,” almost too sweet.

Floral and sweet is a dangerous mix. The association with a hygiene scent is unfortunately not far off. In fact, I can easily imagine the scent as a room or toilet fragrance, as fabric softener, soap, whatever … No, I lied. For me and my apartment, I wouldn’t even like it as a room scent. It’s probably because I don’t use room fragrances anyway.

Unobtrusive, subtle, sweet, floral … No, this is not a scent that suits me. It somehow strikes me as cheap, too banal, too little “special.” I’ve already come across enough peony scents. I prefer innovative, unusual, refined, interesting, demanding, inspiring. This is unfortunately just mediocre and even strikes me as a bit old-fashioned.

I find the scent pleasant on my nurse. I myself would rather not wear it. This brings me to the question of whether the Dutch are good fragrance manufacturers. Rituals is based in Amsterdam and is thus a kind of Dutch Body Shop - also in terms of the portfolio. Elise Benat, the nose behind the Himalayan flowers, is, however, French, as far as I know.

Anyway, the fragrance seems to be popular, as it is sold worldwide in no less than 800 Rituals shops. Online, of course, too. It is also affordable. Anyone looking for an unpretentious, subtle floral scent that won’t clash anywhere, as long as it’s reasonably dosed, might be happy with it.