Top Notes 
Bergamot
Orange
Heart Notes 
Elemi resin
Lily of the valley
Rose
Jasmine
Peach
Freesia
Geranium
Green tea
Pepper
Base Notes 
Powdery notes
Musk
Vanilla
Amber
Cashmeran
Cedarwood
Moss
Patchouli
Vetiver01/24/2019
FvSpee
249 Reviews
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FvSpee
Top Review
19
How beautiful! Something is still growing!
Eulalia means "the beautiful speaker" and was probably a fairly common female name in ancient times. I find the name itself incredibly melodious. Of course, one cannot seriously name a girl that here, but it's actually a shame. According to pious tradition, a similarly pious teenager of this name was tortured to death for her loyalty to the Christian faith under the not exactly relaxed Emperor Diocletian (who, however, had the greatness to voluntarily retire and spend his retirement in present-day Croatia, namely in Split). Thus, she became Saint Eulalia, and since this whole event is said to have taken place in the area of present-day Barcelona, she is the patron saint (among others) of this city.
When the fabric (and later fashion) store of the Taberner family, founded in Barcelona in 1843, moved in 1859 to an address that was directly at the execution site of the young saint, it became, as the company history tells, popularly known as the "Santa Eulalia fashion store," and that is still its name today, now producing exclusive men's and women's fashion for an international clientele. And since it has long been customary for fashion brands to indulge in their own fragrances, Santa Eulalia in Spain (still Spain, not Catalonia, as some would prefer) now offers a series of in-house perfumes.
Nubes is, thanks to the generosity of Anguas, the first fragrance from this brand that I had the chance to test, and it actually had the potential for me to like, if not love, it. I like the name, the interesting story, the simple bottle, and the ingredient list.
It started off quite decently: First, we encounter a very polite and urban, somewhat reserved orange against a creamy, perhaps slightly spicy background, which after a few minutes veers into other fruity regions (at first I thought of pineapple, but the peach from the list fits) while still presenting itself very unobtrusively, and yes, throughout the whole time, a small cup, perhaps more like a thimble, of green tea pops up here and there.
After an hour, the flowers start to emerge, spreading into a floral carpet after two hours, which is occasionally (quite amusingly) perked up with a bit of pepper; overall, however, everything still seems incredibly creamy muted, like under a white veil; I get the impression of "restrained power," as there is floral strength, yes, but it does not break through this diffuse milky-creamy mass at all.
Over time, this cotton then becomes so sticky and the visibility so obstructive that it really annoys me; I become irritable and grumpy and am too restless to detect any individual scent notes amidst this cloud (which is called "nubes," by the way), which increasingly presents itself as a chemically-synthetic cloud of horror, alongside a diffuse sweetness. At least my olfactory nerves perceive the scent only faintly after about five hours, for which I am quite grateful, whereas my wife's generally finer and also particularly sensitive nose for this fragrance still finds Nubes heavy, filling the room, and almost breath-stealing at this time, and she still perceives it in remnants even after almost 18 hours.
I took this experience as an opportunity to read a bit about Cashmeran, which is said to be contained in this fragrance. This synthetic fragrance ingredient is supposed to impress with its softness, fluidity, and smoothness, embedding the other scent notes softly and simultaneously providing them with a base; it is also said to have spicy and sweet aspects - one can read about that elsewhere. For me, the description fits what I had to experience here, and so my suspicion diagnosis is as follows, while I am by no means an eco-fanatic when it comes to fragrances:
Overdose of Cashmeran. Or: Accident in the chemical plant with the release of a huge puddle of sticky white cuddle fluff, which biocidally ensures that where once there were blooming meadows, only occasionally a puny orange, a few small flowers, a tea tree, and a half-dead pepper bush poke their heads through the mass.
Addendum: If you imagine the creamy embrace away, the scent resembles Byredo's "Bal d'Afrique" extraordinarily. This thought crossed my mind, and it is confirmed by a look at the fragrance pyramid: Citrus on top, flowers in the middle, musk-vetiver-amber-wood at the bottom. While the Ball of Africa seems minimalist and fragile, drawn with a very fine line, often barely noticeable and thus of peculiar cheerfulness, this work here initially applies thicker, only to hide the (relative) opulence again under veils. I am not quite convinced by that.
When the fabric (and later fashion) store of the Taberner family, founded in Barcelona in 1843, moved in 1859 to an address that was directly at the execution site of the young saint, it became, as the company history tells, popularly known as the "Santa Eulalia fashion store," and that is still its name today, now producing exclusive men's and women's fashion for an international clientele. And since it has long been customary for fashion brands to indulge in their own fragrances, Santa Eulalia in Spain (still Spain, not Catalonia, as some would prefer) now offers a series of in-house perfumes.
Nubes is, thanks to the generosity of Anguas, the first fragrance from this brand that I had the chance to test, and it actually had the potential for me to like, if not love, it. I like the name, the interesting story, the simple bottle, and the ingredient list.
It started off quite decently: First, we encounter a very polite and urban, somewhat reserved orange against a creamy, perhaps slightly spicy background, which after a few minutes veers into other fruity regions (at first I thought of pineapple, but the peach from the list fits) while still presenting itself very unobtrusively, and yes, throughout the whole time, a small cup, perhaps more like a thimble, of green tea pops up here and there.
After an hour, the flowers start to emerge, spreading into a floral carpet after two hours, which is occasionally (quite amusingly) perked up with a bit of pepper; overall, however, everything still seems incredibly creamy muted, like under a white veil; I get the impression of "restrained power," as there is floral strength, yes, but it does not break through this diffuse milky-creamy mass at all.
Over time, this cotton then becomes so sticky and the visibility so obstructive that it really annoys me; I become irritable and grumpy and am too restless to detect any individual scent notes amidst this cloud (which is called "nubes," by the way), which increasingly presents itself as a chemically-synthetic cloud of horror, alongside a diffuse sweetness. At least my olfactory nerves perceive the scent only faintly after about five hours, for which I am quite grateful, whereas my wife's generally finer and also particularly sensitive nose for this fragrance still finds Nubes heavy, filling the room, and almost breath-stealing at this time, and she still perceives it in remnants even after almost 18 hours.
I took this experience as an opportunity to read a bit about Cashmeran, which is said to be contained in this fragrance. This synthetic fragrance ingredient is supposed to impress with its softness, fluidity, and smoothness, embedding the other scent notes softly and simultaneously providing them with a base; it is also said to have spicy and sweet aspects - one can read about that elsewhere. For me, the description fits what I had to experience here, and so my suspicion diagnosis is as follows, while I am by no means an eco-fanatic when it comes to fragrances:
Overdose of Cashmeran. Or: Accident in the chemical plant with the release of a huge puddle of sticky white cuddle fluff, which biocidally ensures that where once there were blooming meadows, only occasionally a puny orange, a few small flowers, a tea tree, and a half-dead pepper bush poke their heads through the mass.
Addendum: If you imagine the creamy embrace away, the scent resembles Byredo's "Bal d'Afrique" extraordinarily. This thought crossed my mind, and it is confirmed by a look at the fragrance pyramid: Citrus on top, flowers in the middle, musk-vetiver-amber-wood at the bottom. While the Ball of Africa seems minimalist and fragile, drawn with a very fine line, often barely noticeable and thus of peculiar cheerfulness, this work here initially applies thicker, only to hide the (relative) opulence again under veils. I am not quite convinced by that.
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