ClaireV

Al Hajar Al'Aswad Royal is a big, bold floral built over an oriental base of sandalwood and musk. Florals-wise, I get a boatload of purple, almost fruity jasmine (not the indolic, night-flowering variety), neroli, bergamot, and also later, creamy, sweet orange blossoms. The initial sweet fruitiness of the florals is intense, but it teeters at the edge of syrupiness without ever falling in, and eventually the white musk dials it all back down to a pretty acceptable level of sweetness. There is a creamy woodiness that rises up from the base to further cushion the fruity floral accords, but it is very subtle and I cannot peg it definitively as sandalwood.

At one stage, the scent was radiating this sweet, subtle orange blossom and white musk duet that was both delicate and complex. It made me wonder why people spend so much money on By Killian's Love (Don't Be Shy), when there is something of this quality on the market. But then I remembered the price tag for this - around $800 per tola was the price I was quoted, although I also saw the price of $699 in an online catalog. Anyway, if you have cash to burn and like super girly, musky florals, give this a whirl.

A delicate, translucent suede consisting of a series of cool grey and blue notes - violet, hawthorn, heliotrope, maybe some unlisted iris - all daubed on as if in a watercolor. There is something cool and hollowed-out about the leather, as if a note of air or water has been floated up through the scent. It feels somehow anisic or salty. I would even go so far as to say vegetal or savory, rather than sweet. To see such a denatured, subtle, almost salted version of a violet here is both a surprise and a pleasure.

Cuir d'Ange has an odd but memorable opening. It is immediately and unmistakably cuir - a soft, supple leather that, for once, does actually smell like fine leather glove, unadorned by any other note. But there is also a surprisingly papery or rubbery tone, like a leather glove that has been left inside a paper supplies closet overnight.

Fans of soft, cool-toned leather or suede scents will love this one. If we arrange all the leather perfumes of the world on a scale of one to ten, where ten is a harsh, full-on, belts-and-buckles leather like Bandit or Rien, and one is a soft, floral suede like Bottega Veneta, then Cuir d'Ange is comfortably around the one mark. It is soft, like Guerlain's Cuir Beluga, although it differs greatly from that scent in that it does not have a creamy vanilla feel or any hint of almonds. However, both Cuir Beluga and Cuir d'Ange do share one slightly salty, fresh note in their core - in Cuir d'Ange, this note just adds to the overall translucency of the scent, whereas in Cuir Beluga, it stands out a sole note of freshness in the larger pool of vanilla and heliotrope.

If anything, Cuir d'Ange has more in common with James Heeley's gorgeous Cuir Pleine Fleur. I think it must be the slightly bitter, aromatic note of hawthorn that connects these two in my mind. Wearing them side by side, I can tell that Cuir Pleine Fleur is far more animalic and dense than Cuir d'Ange, but that there is a pleasingly bitter, watery, almost herbal note that connects them, and of course, the soft of softness we always associate with suede. Outside of the soft leather or suede category, Cuir d'Ange has a watery, white musk feel that runs quite similar to Ellena's own work for Frederic Malle, specifically L'Eau d'Hiver (and much later, Heaven Can Wait).

And yet, for all of the watery, cool feel of Cuir d'Ange, it is not an insubstantial perfume. Though the sillage is low, dropping to a skin scent within a couple of hours, the scent itself had what I can only describe as a 'presence', meaning that I am aware of it on my skin throughout the day. Jean-Claude Ellena once said in an online interview that Hermes is 'une maison de l'après-midi', roughly meaning a house that creates perfumes suitable for daytime wear, and not for purposes of seduction or other night-time intrigues. Cuir d'Ange is the perfect embodiment of this type of perfume.

To begin to appreciate the complex smell of aged oud, I had to reach back into the prehistoric part of my brain, unlock a little door, and just stand still for a while to let it all in. Initially, I did not find the aged oud in Jewel Blend at all easy to like or understand. In fact, I was so bothered by what I thought of as a hot, sour, rotting-wood smell that I couldn't see past it. But it is a compelling smell, this aged oud, and I found myself testing it and re-testing it over a period of two weeks.

Finally, it all clicked into place for me. One day, I decided to apply a tiny amount, let it rest, and not smell it too closely for the first hour. I applied a small smear to the back of my hand. And as I went about my business, small but persistent wafts of something deeply woody, warm, and spicy began to hit my nose. When I put my nose closer to my skin (tentatively, I will admit!), although I can't say that the basic smell of aged oud had changed, but instead something in me changed so that I could perceive the smell in a different way. It is possible that my mind simply became more open. Now what I was smelling was dark, mysterious, damp, woody, but also sweet and sour at once, and later on, warm, full of spices and amber.

I actually found this experience transforming in a way, so relieved was I to finally see the full beauty and complexity of the aged oud. Freed from the negative associations I'd had at first, my nose began to appreciate and identify the warm, salty-sweet amber that appeared after the aged oud died down a bit. On subsequent wearings, I started to appreciate how Jewel moved seamlessly from this warm, sweet-sour, intensely woody, dusty, ancient-smelling oud accord to the warm, salty amber one without missing a step. But more than anything, I appreciate Jewel Blend because it opened that door in my brain so that I could finally start to properly appreciate the other aged oud blends and pure oud oils in my sample pack.

Although the perception of the price-value ratio is a deeply personal thing, I would have to ask why anyone would pay the asking price for Roja Dove's Amber Aoud which costs 345 GBP or 434 euros for 30mls, when Jewel Blend exists. I think I would rather invest 280 euros for a tola (12 mls) of Jewel Blend by ASAQ which contains real aged oud, and is a great, complex amber-oud blend.

Rouh Al Aoud is easy for a beginner to like and to understand. It is a lightly-aged oud oil, blended with other notes I believe, such as some spices, rose, and a touch of musk. But really, it is the sweet oud note that shines through here - soft, balmy, deep, 'brown' all over, but sweet and nutty. Because the oud has been lightly aged, it does not smell rotting or sour or barnyard-y. In fact, there is nothing remotely challenging about this oud to the typical Western nose. The pleasure and satisfaction in smelling it is immediate and uncomplicated.

The texture of this is a thing of pleasure too. At first, it is dense, sweet, and compact, but then it loosens up, spreads out, and reveals hints of rose and spices. It manages to be both balmy (creamy) and powdery at once, giving off a 'mouthfeel' that is close to the sensation of biting into a marron glace, with syrup dripping down your chin and powdered sugar getting up your nose. I am also picking up a powdery, sweet cherry tobacco leaf note here too. It doesn't feel either too male or too female, despite all my mentions of sweetness or powder. It has a deep sweetness that comes from the oud wood itself, or the tobacco note, or the spices, but it is a natural sweetness, not a saccharine one. Guy friendly, as well as girl friendly, I feel confident in saying.

If anyone is looking for an oud oil blend that is accessible and not challenging, then this is the one for you. It is a pleasure to wear and to smell - deep, honeyed, tobacco, sweet (Cambodi I think) oud, musk, subtle spices, a shy rose. Anyone who likes Chergui would like this too. Highly recommended! I would love a bottle of this myself!

CoSTUME NATIONAL 21 is what you'd imagine robots in a lab in far future would come up with if asked to produce a cashmere sweater scent, and they only had access to a boatload of synthetics and a handful of 'vintage' natural materials. On the surface, it's warm and fuzzy, but there are dark currents and sharp edges underneath. I like it because it's exactly the kind of thing I want to wear when I want to feel comforted but don't want to be lulled into complete torpor.

This fragrance has layers and layers, not all of them easy to make out, so I'll start at the top and work my way down. The opening is fruity, spicy, and woody, like a spoonful of mandarin jam spiked with dusty saffron and cinnamon. The mandarin rind and saffron combine with woody accents in a way that suggests booze. In fact, every time I put it on, I'm reminded (initially) of the orange rind and rum opening of Idole de Lubin. Immediately, though, it moves on from the boozy opening and this spoonful of fruity puree is dropped into a warm glass of milky white musk and sweet amber, and stirred through.

Cashmeran, tonka beans, and vanilla join the party, and this whole layer becomes a white noise of fizzing but creamy white musk, orange-tinted milkshake, vanilla custard, sweet amber, and cozy wood accents. The texture is a thing of wonder - almost fuzzy to the touch, warm, silky, expansive - and yet, put your fingers to the wool and you will feel little spikes sticking out.

In fact, 21 would be a soporific, over-simple gourmand treat were it not for the incredible base that the robots put together to fit underneath the cashmere sweater layer. Somehow, they stumbled across a small cache of organic, vintage materials on some planetary outpost, probably stuff used to make men's powerhouse colognes in the 1970s - vetiver, moss, patchouli, clary sage, cedar, and caraway. The base provides a bitter, mossy, earthy counterpoint to the vanillic layers floating on top of it, and the scent is all the better for it. In fact, there is a musky, mossy feel to this that recalls the dark undertow of Caron's musky Third Man, minus the fougere-ish elements of courmarin and lavender.

The overall effect is therefore of a thick blanket of fuzzy, synthetic, sweet 'white noise' overlaid on a natural-feeling, organic base of mossy woods, musk, vetiver, and herbs. At once light and dark, natural and synthetic, female and male. The drydown is a protracted affair of salty, mineralic moss and a masculine musk. It's a truly modern marvel of yin and yang. The robots done good.