Gloire de Dijon Kamila Aubre Eau de Parfum

Uncommented Scents No. 184

Kamila Aubre and her eponymous brand can be broadly categorized between artisan and natural fragrances. She describes herself on her website as follows: "Kamila Aubre is a photographer, independent botanical perfumer and aromatherapist. All of the fragrances use a slow movement approach - mindful practices, connection with the objects and materials, choosing quality over quantity and micro batches and / or limited editions. The perfumes are made of 100% natural and sustainable aromatic materials." Slow movement approach: This is fundamentally appealing, and it is consistent that the perfumer and brand owner personally and warmly responds to inquiries on her homepage.

Many related brands can currently be found in America, which can lead to shipping, delivery times, and customs fees becoming a real problem. Belgium (Heist-op-den-Berg between Brussels and Antwerp) is much closer and thus the postal route within the EU is correspondingly uncomplicated.

Anyone dealing with Kamila Aubre's fragrances should first have a love for natural scents, whose characteristics are not easy to describe, even though I, along with several other users here on Parfumo, tested, categorized, and rated hundreds of natural fragrances about six to seven years ago (the blogs about this can still be found on the page of user Fluxit, to whom I extend a heartfelt thank you from a temporal distance for his dedicated compilation of the results, the management of the test selection, and the organization behind the scenes; it's a shame you are no longer active @Fluxit). Broadly speaking, the scents smell somewhat aromatherapeutic, and synthetic ingredients are generally absent; essential oils from health food stores are a good reference point - and each perfumer has their own signature: Kamila Aubre's fragrances often remind me of fine tea blends made from herbs, tea leaves, and woods.

Clear categories for classifying natural scents do not exist, partly because different standards apply in America than in the EU, not to mention Asia or Latin America. However, at the time, we perceived the commitment behind the respective brands to be generally high, and the desire for a different fragrance world of vegan, handcrafted scents connected with a sustainable philosophy was usually clearly palpable, particularly with Kamila Aubre, who was not yet in the spotlight back then.

After various reviews and statements about Kamila Aubre have already appeared here on Parfumo, which I recommend reading, here is an attempt to approach Gloire de Dijon Eau de Parfum.

The inspiration for Gloire de Dijon Eau de Parfum is a poem by D.H. Lawrence, the first writer in English literature to come from a working-class background (see Wikipedia among others on D.H. Lawrence). Gloire de Dijon is considered one of the most beautiful love poems in literary history: "While down her sides the mellow golden shadow glows," Lawrence writes about the beloved woman he observes in the morning. Even though the fragrance leans towards this homage to female beauty, it does not seem to me to be solely feminine, which is confirmed by its categorization as a unisex scent (see above).

I was drawn to the wondrous combination of porcini mushrooms, various tea types, and vetiver with white rose, which promises a unique olfactory experience between tea ceremony and forest clearing. This note of porcini mushrooms is particularly beautifully expressed in one of my favorite natural fragrances: "Cepes and Tuberose | Aftelier," which I highly recommend. Here in "Gloire de Dijon (Eau de Parfum) | Kamila Aubre," the note is more subdued and cannot initially be considered in isolation, but one may find it plausible. The tea notes are initially prominent, blending with iris and floral tones, and the longer the fragrance remains on the skin or scent strip, the more vetiver can finally be identified: a bitter green note with almost hay-like tones. Additionally, there is also a hint of a woody-earthy note that may be associated with the porcini mushroom. However, the associations with the forest are not to be understood in the sense of a rustic geosmin-earth note, pine resins, or leaf greens, but rather of a drier, herbaceous, and sweet nature, as if one were in a forest clearing where the last sunlight gathers just before dusk. Sounds cheesy? It might be, - but also romantically beautiful.

The other fragrances from Kamila Aubre are also recommended for testing.