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Marieposa
Top Review
40
Bali between day and night
As if to lull me into a twilight sleep, the jeep rumbles along remote tracks. Fragrant spices dry on the still-warm concrete at dusk. Cloves, aniseed and allspice between bright tobacco leaves. The women of the nearby village collect their spices with skillful hand movements before night falls. Bayrum sparkles in the cups of laughing men, dust swirls up under the wheels, the dry hay on the loading area where we are sitting. The driver must have lit a kretek. The stuffing spills out of his seat like brittle straw. Silvery threads of smoke waft through the evening air, dark rain clouds loom on the distant horizon, a cool breeze in the tropical air, perhaps from the ocean. So unfamiliar the land, but you smell of moss when I let my head sink onto your chest, of rough woods and bitter limes. Animal voices emerge from the darkness of the jungle, the song of fruit bats in the last light of day. In contrast, the wind murmurs softly in the harsh grasses at the edge of the path. The crackling of the clove cigarette, its glow like fire in the distance.
Let your fingers run through my hair, let yourself be enveloped by the scent of the moment, the calming rumble of the road between strangeness and familiarity, between day and night.
**
N.O.A.M. - short for New Oceans And Meridians - has made it its mission to take us on olfactory journeys with its fragrances, to tell stories of other times and faraway places. A real treat for people like me, whose hunger for stories is at most surpassed by their wanderlust - and I am delighted to see that the concept works wonderfully.
Even the name "Kayu Kretek" suggests that this trip is supposed to take you to Indonesia, although I have to admit that the tart, sharp lime that dominates the top note doesn't really feel like it's tied to a specific location. But soon the somewhat pungent citrus blends with a lovely, authentic note of clove cigarette smoke. It takes about fifteen minutes to reach this magical moment, at which point I involuntarily close my eyes without really noticing. Suddenly I'm back in Bali, in that remote corner of the island where people spread out spices, tea and grasses to dry in the afternoon sun on the bumpy, dusty concrete roads. I can smell lots of cloves and allspice, but also aniseed, vetiver (the leaves as well as the roots) and, just like back in Bali, a thousand other things that I can't name. Then the fragrance becomes increasingly infused with bay rum, light tobacco and hay-like coumarin before dry, dark woody notes, slightly earthy patchouli and velvety oakmoss assert themselves. A little clove smoke always hovers above all of this, creating wonderful contrasts of light and dark and an astonishing lightness in the fragrance, which always impresses me particularly when perfumers refuse to reach for the synthetic box of tricks, as in the case of N.O.A.M.
Strictly speaking, there is a little too much coumarin in the fragrance for my taste. And strictly speaking, the dark woods are a little too dry for me and the lime in the top note is a little too dominant, but at the end of the day, that's all splitting hairs, because the fragrance as a whole convinces me all round and I enjoy endlessly just closing my eyes and being back in that special place in Bali for a moment - which, by the way, can be repeated as often as you like for about half a day.
Clove
Pimento
Burley tobacco absolute
Cedarwood
Indian patchouli
Indonesian lime
Indonesian oud
Java vetiver
Muhuhu
White sage
Bay rum
Benzoin absolute
Star anise
Tree moss
Fennel seed
Hay absolute
Indonesian sandalwood
Peru balsam
Styrax
Vanilla absolute
AlexD76
