Naja Vero Profumo 2017

Although Naja was intended to pay tribute to the snake and its various symbolic attributions, I can solemnly attest to its chameleon-like capabilities. In certain aspects, Naja’s game of textures evokes the sinuous and slithering body of a snake, while in others, the ever-adapting nature of a chameleon to its surroundings.

At first glance, it may seem like a predictable fragrance, but as you wear it, you come to realize that it becomes less definable. Again, Vero drew inspiration from the classics (Caron’s Tabac Blonde) and produced something new and singular, very much ahead of its time. There are many ways to interpret Naja: a honeyed tobacco, a soapy leather, or a powdery floral all seem perfectly viable options. It is all of that, and some more, and one might experience each of these personalities at various times. Wearing it, I seem to pick up the leathery nuances most, while analyzing it on the skin, it presents more of the powdery and floral facets of the linden flower and the honey.

It always starts with the melon and linden blossom duet, swiftly supported by one of the key players, the honey. And while Vero has consecrated her love for using honey in other compositions, it is the first time that she relinquishes her beloved passion fruit for an equally vivid melon accord. Here, the juxtaposition of the watery and fresh melon over the leather reminds me of Le Parfum de Therese, except that in Naja, the leather is highly tangible. The melon sits further in the background. The linden flower accord is more prominent, powdery, and sweet with a characteristic lemony zing, and cleverly blends with the note of honey. The other most important player on my skin is the leather accord. It is not mentioned in the note pyramid, and I assume it is more of a facet that results from the pairing of Osmanthus absolute, tobacco, and Vero’s musk cocktail. One other thing I want to emphasize is how different it feels from the usual leather accords I have encountered. It comes across as creamy, unctuous, and soapy. When I say “soapy,” my mind goes to those homemade lard soaps that use only salts and no perfume. They have a very distinctive smell, which is both fatty and salty. Therefore, picture an unctuous, fatty, at times salty leather. Sinuous and slithering, just like a snake. I do not pick up the osmanthus and the tobacco notes individually, but I believe they intermingle to breed this new species of leather. Finally, the honey is equally important. A very naturalistic smell of honey, texturally accurate, slightly animalic, and only moderately sweet. The musks are cleverly used and not as overtly impolite as with other compositions, such as Onda, Rozy, or Rubj.

I think Naja is one of those fragrances that will be experienced slightly differently by each individual. I have not yet read two identical impressions from people who have tried or written about it. Moreover, it may present various aspects at different times and to varying degrees, depending on how much one chooses to apply. For Vero, Naja was meant as a tribute to tobacco, and yet I get none of it. For me, it is a unique take on leather, which makes strong use of honey and is pulled out of the mundane, treacly waters by clever use of linden and melon, both of which imbue a fresh, zingy spark to the composition.

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A creamy, blond tobacco floral sluiced with the iodine-like astringency of melon rind. Naja reminds me of Le Parfum de Therese and Diorella, not in the way it smells, particularly, but because they all take dense, saturated materials and pass them through a sieve of something salty and aqueous, giving them a luminescence that is particularly French. The dense tobacco of Naja is leavened by this salty, wet fruit note, and underpinned by a bitter, doughy suede note fleshed out with the apricot skin of osmanthus flower. Pulled in two directions, sometimes it feels airy and dusty, other times, thick and chewy.

There is also a sharp spice to Naja that is immensely appealing, something hot, slightly smoky, and carnation-like, but although I can understand the references to Tabac Blond and Habanita, Naja is far stranger and more modern than either- in other words, a creature of its own time.
I sense a dusty, pollen-ish honey texture here too, unsweet and slightly floral, which I conclude is coming from the lime blossom. I don't know if the effect is deliberate or not, but it is this slightly bitter, dusty honey that links Naja to both Onda and Rozy.

To my nose, there is none of the citric brightness of lime that others seem to be picking up, just the slightly green floral tang of linden honey and that salty, wet fruit note that is too blurry to define as either a melon, an apple, or anything else specific. What I love the most about Naja is its surprising sturdiness, its sense of substance. In each of my wearings, I visualized Naja as a dense square of osmanthus-tobacco lokhoum, striated with saltwater and dusted with an inch-deep layer of green pollen.

Like MEM, Naja is an El Bulli meal full of little trade-offs between texture and taste that will prick your saliva buds and fire up all five of your senses. And like its creator, Vero Kern, Naja is as elegant and fierce as a single slash of Russian Red across an otherwise unmade-up face.