Imel

It rises strangely airy from my arm, with a spacious portion of all the aforementioned innards; thick, slightly sweet, and heavy, the notes weigh in the air.
The listed ingredients are discernible from the start, provided you know them, for this fragrance is well interwoven. Although rough and angular, no accord unnecessarily screams or blares around the corners; even though the scent comes through penetratingly and with a loudly swollen chest.
Inside, a spicy, bright sharp coriander note nestles against quiet but dark patchouli and incense tones. The labdanum resin along with amber strives to be both pillow and blanket for all these notes, so to speak, enveloping them and making them sluggish and pleasantly warm as amber del Nepal begins.
Dirty, tarry accents of amber traverse this spicy, narcotic cloud, and I find this peculiar way of a fragrance appealing.

The coriander takes away some of the heaviness of the scent, not that it becomes lighter in the immediate sense, but the peppery sharpness gives the fragrance a smoky, perhaps even ethereal character. This discordant scent image resonates well with the buzzing tones of labdanum, and I perceive the idea itself as almost innovative.
However, it seems to me that it is all excessively much, too much coriander, too much amber and labdanum, and far too much of too many remnants that one can still discern in between.

As the scent progresses, it refines itself with some honey-like notes, it becomes sweeter but even heavier, almost clumsy now. Amber del Nepal unfortunately behaves somewhat awkwardly with so much olfactory weight, it pulls it downwards at every corner; thus, the scent begins to settle after a short time, or rather, it starts to congeal.

Now a chocolate-like patchouli, along with incense clamor, emerges from a belly of labdanum. The incense here is not ethereal but heavily burdensome and shrouded in deep spicy tones. The notes become increasingly difficult to perceive, everything blurs into one; when individual aspects do emerge, they are soon swallowed again.
Thus, amber del Nepal, after half an hour of scent progression, collapses into a pudding-amber bastard.

One cannot speak of top, heart, and base with this fragrance, so one can begin reading this commentary wherever one wishes. It is a conglomerate where coriander and amber are predominant in the top, labdanum resin in the heart, and patchouli in the base.
Essentially, I am not a great lover of such overwhelming fragrances, yet I somehow like this one a little; it has something heavy about it, it is simple and even awkward, corpulent and almost decadent, coarse and scratchy, yet inside incredibly soft and cozy.

Les Zazous (Swing Youth), "Les zazous were a fashion movement in France during the 1940s. They were young people recognizable by their English or American clothing, showcasing their love for jazz."
As a great jazz lover, I had high expectations for this fragrance.
The scent arrives, as expected, lovingly crafted.
A tangle of flowers and fruits rises up, soon warm notes bloom. The lavender, then. So aesthetically ethereal and swingingly staged, the dandy sometimes striding, sometimes dancing. Sometimes calm, sometimes affected, but always flirtatious.
Les Zazous grooves.
The fragrance is at once a sigh and a shout. A hop and a slow waltz.

A warm, almost overly sweet note of sandalwood and amber becomes the bed of a soft rose. This flower rolls around there with the lavender in the sheets and lounges a bit afterward while the lavender has already fallen asleep. Only its faint breath on the arm can be felt. Eventually, she nods off and dreams of amber and vanilla, he of much sandalwood and a hint of vetiver. Unfortunately, she never wakes up again.
So they continue to dream together forever.

Back to the essence. The aura of this fragrance is most beautiful in its base.
A light sweetness, tenderly pressed by woody nuances of sandalwood, sways with the amber in its arms and nearly sweeps the little vetiver off the dance floor. However, upon closer inspection, it brings a bit of crinkly charm to the gathering. It is the little wrinkled woman in the corner that everyone chuckles about.
The big band no longer plays, Ella Fitzgerald is hotter, and the delighted audience drifts away. What remains is an empty dance hall with an older janitor with a pipe in his mouth dreaming of joy for life, desire, and exuberance, of lightheartedness.

One day, as I always do, I started as naively as possible, when a horde of exquisite new releases made their way to Parfumo. Leading the charge were roaring comments, hymns, and wonder songs. And in this multitude of fragrances, it is hard to find a starting point. Since even the samples at ALzD are incredibly expensive, I initially dared to try just one single fragrance, naturally opting against all the gourmands; spring was on bare feet and it should be fresh and cheerful.

I only remember that the expectation was high, the friends were numerous, and it was early morning, the jasmine tea was brewing, and the trees began to stir.

Nio by XerJoff starts very juicy with bergamot and neroli, both clearly recognizable, they present themselves as extremely potent, but along with the spice, a harmonious whole pours into my nose. Almost opulent, the top note is magnificent. The spicy accents of bitter orange are supported, which prevents the citrus aspects of the ingredients from becoming too loud and garish. Above all, it smells delicious; I would say, drinkable, nothing more to say.

In the transition to the heart note, the fragrance becomes drier, it loosens up and loses its opulence. At times, I think I smell something floral, just very lightly and shyly. In contrast, the pepper becomes stronger, increasingly pushing itself into the air, and from now on, the fragrance loses more and more strength and fullness. It becomes downright sober, dry, and colorless. The cardamom tries to catch the pepper a bit and is also responsible for the transition from the top note to more and more pepper. At some point, only pepper can be smelled, pink pepper, of course. However, we are also moving towards the base, as the twitching and scratching of the pepper note begins to slowly darken.

Where it began sprightly green, it is now becoming darker, earthy, how else could it be. Although you can't smell anything concrete from the listed base notes yet, they announce themselves with a buzzing and creaking. There is also a slight sweetness in it that I can't quite place; it is not really a concrete aspect of the fragrance, more of a foundation to prevent Nio from appearing too meager.
Above all, it is now woody, earthy, and remains green, but not like the dark green of complex patchouli scents, nor the dark green as it can be smelled in Guerlain's Vetiver, and not the mossy, blue-tinted dark green of Grey Flannel. Alone on a woody base, it is a dry but velvety green, perhaps a pastel dark green. Although a balsamic warmth emanates from the base; less a warmth of embers and amber scents, but a warmth of steam. However, the lifeless woody character remains.
Above all, the pepper can still be smelled, even this late the fragrance is dry and crystalline. It seems to me that the base cannot settle down yet, although everything urges it to do so, the spice of the pink pepper rustles through the underbrush. On one hand, one might find this innovative; on the other hand, it really gets on my nerves.
Moreover, it is simply bland; I mean, there could have easily been one or two more notes.
As Nio fades, it only gets lost deeper in the underbrush, the steps become slower, the legs shorter, and eventually, it disappears into the earth.
Later, at that very spot, some juicy vetiver blades climb up the cedar tree.

Overall, Nio is unfortunately unremarkable. This fragrance simply leaves nothing behind, and more could have been made of it. Although it is well put together; you can clearly feel the craftsmanship, and the fragrance materials are noticeably natural and high quality. I don't want to lament about luxury brands, but as high-quality as these fragrances may be, an ELdO fragrance, a Harris, or Tauer have always been a greater pleasure for me.

I want to say pepper once more at this point.
Pepper.

One tries to avoid the tedious evenings of the days, especially carelessly, and then one encounters the machinations of so-called eccentrics who, it seems to me, can no longer express art within themselves.
I believe Revolution was born out of a search.
So Lisa Kirk tells of her quest for the scent of revolution.
Chasing after the understanding in the subtext of the naming, one does not get caught up in images of romantic political adventures fighting for the freedom of all, nor does one get lost in dull slogan hymns or street polemics.
Ulrich Lang's Revolution must be described as spectacular and above all breath (stealing). The scent is an example of artistic genius swept along in passing, amidst perversion and grotesque madness. Thus, the top note opens a deep hole, filled with tremendous disgust, acquired from the misunderstanding of two self-mocking emotions. On one hand, disgust; on the other, bizarre wonder, reflected in the image of my own grimace. An olfactory grimace slowly sees itself over my face, into my nose, and winds around my brain with a completely new experience of mirrored scents that know how to parody and stage themselves. Revolution is nothing but theater. Just like everything that came before and everything that follows Revolution. Therefore, one must approach the matter with humor.
I think I am just, at this very moment, no less succumbed to decadent nausea than many others who are currently testing A*Men, or Le Male, or any of the strokes of genius from Etat Libre d'Orange.

As for the scent itself, it has never been anything else.
The top note opens, dripping with the dirty primordial slime of the worst odors. I primarily perceive the smell of a well-used smoking room, interspersed with the stench of old sweat, underlaid with a lot of civet and a lot of leather. Along with the incense recommended by Kankuro, which takes away a bit of the harsh, damp, ingratiating nature and makes the scent appear rougher and drier. The woody components are difficult to filter out like all the elements of the fragrance, but they become particularly recognizable in the later development of the scent. Personally, I would guess cedarwood.
While the top note is still saturated with intensity, it slowly and very evenly loses that intensity. The development does not perform loops and turns but rather steadily follows the intended conclusion. Not much happens in between. Therefore, it suffices to describe the scent in two parts. Once its beginning, once its conclusion. The heart note and everything in between is a shifting mixture.
I perceive the base, unlike Kankuro, primarily through dry woods; I miss a typical vetiver note. I must admit at this point that I am disappointed the longer the scent develops on my skin. It reveals little new, and while some scents can be particularly beautiful in their straightforwardness, one cannot say that about Revolution. Revolution is not beautiful unless one is receptive to the aesthetics of ugliness. Eco's treatise on this is very pleasant to read and observe. Here, just as a recommendation.
Only very slowly does a musk note squeeze into the picture, breathing a bit of liveliness into the scent, which has somehow seemed morbid and dead from the start. Fortunately, this fragrance has avoided excessive patchouli; it would have become a tombstone rather than a monument to the revolution.
Towards the end, it becomes quite nice.
Animalistic is the scent throughout its development, but be that as it may, the scent is neither attractive nor does it have a rutting factor. It is animal, but not stallion.
Overall, the overall picture is extraordinarily homogeneous and lovingly patched together. Although this entire structure appears bare and pale, it is nonetheless extremely complex and manifold, and one learns to endure the disgust for the fascination.

One feels how Revolution suffers under the yoke of self-presentation, even if it allows itself to shake a little and weakens towards the end. Precisely for this reason, it is probably authentic. The scent radiates calm and coolness, while simultaneously exuding fear and shame. I cannot put the smell into words; the scent produces images and emotions too strongly. I also do not think that the scent can be grasped in this way; it explains itself more in images.

Sometimes I see only a long-abandoned room before me, with only forgotten things standing in the corners that are perceived as unusable and burdensome. Remnants that slowly rot and regurgitate the disgust of lost time in their sight. As a child, I lived in the village and sneaked off in search of adventure into old abandoned villas. These houses are no more beautiful inside than outside, but they allow a child to let the rooms run wild in their imagination.
Sometimes when I sniff at my wrist, I remember old war movies where the camera work was still charming and the image quality was still factually unembellished, in which soldiers lie bleeding in a barrack, the bursts of assault rifles can be heard outside, and one sees humans as animals crawling over the ground surrounded by the roaring of other animals.
Sometimes the scent demands its tribute, as a cult work it wants to be, and I experience Mr. Ernesto Guevara as he sits somewhere in the jungle among monkeys and all the animals in a hole in the ground, too cramped for all the sweaty men with their beards and Kalashnikovs on their backs. And as he stands there before a map, rambling on about plans.
I also miss some images. Lisa Kirk managed to portray Revolution in a one-sided manner, and she surely did not want to consider all the diversity and has given us a glimpse with "Revolution".

The scent seems worthy of a comment, but it does not help much because it is very difficult to create an idea of it. Even after Kankuro's impressively fitting presentation, I was absolutely surprised and would have expected something completely different.
The scent is, by the way, not wearable and as a smell is ordinary, as a perfume unusual.

Oud Immortel opens very herbal and camphor-like. The similarity to Byredo's Baudelaire is astonishing, although both need to be approached differently. They deliberately bear the same signature. However, Oud Immortel is less fruity. The juniper berry is replaced by citrus notes, allowing for a rather pseudo-fruity nuance. The incense is more dominant at the top, but quickly fades away, providing a good and successful transition to the heart note along with the floral-leaning cardamom. The scent quickly becomes round and smooth. A giant of patchouli dominates the heart note, buried and sprawling over a delicate hint of rose scent. I have no idea what Brazilian rosewood smells like, but if one refers to the floral scent, the sturdy delicacy of this fragrance becomes clear, elegantly endured and carried by a rose. Oud Immortel is more unisex than Baudelaire. This is already indicated by the comparison of both fragrance pyramids; however, it is not just a feminized version. What Baudelaire lacks is the elegance that has escaped the gloom. A grace that Oud Immortel carries with it. Perhaps the fragrance should have been named Poe.
Papyrus seems to be present in both fragrances. Unfortunately, I don't know what it smells like. Those who compare both scents may get an idea of it or try Guillaume's interpretation of papyrus again.
Oud Immortel is a fragrance that develops very quickly. Before you know it, you have the base note right in front of you. But as is typical for Byredo, no new doors open in the base; instead, it slowly feels its way out of an opening that you could already see with the top note. Perhaps some flexibility and spontaneity are lacking here. However, the fragrance lacks nothing. It is evenly rounded but not angular. It has no unpleasant quirks, but unfortunately, no surprises either.
If I had to describe the base note as here, I would simply call it "moss." Now, that's not very imaginative, not only because it stands right before "tobacco leaf," but also because it sounds boring and is quickly worn out. Exactly, that's all I wanted to say. The base is a scent, musty woody, both dry and herbaceous at the same time. More than the two indicated fragrance notes, unfortunately, the scent does not reveal. And the oud is more expected than sensed. Nevertheless, the base has a cool liveliness.
As an oud interpretation, it is no less interesting than Accord Oud, although more pleasing. This fragrance, "Oud Immortal," is more of a companion than a bearer of agarwood, while Accord Oud is less a cry of creative perspective than Immortel Oud is a lament: "Buy me!" As a pair, both fragrances are therefore innovative; one is out of date with a tendency towards melodrama, being a work of art, and the other a duller version of Baudelaire that can be sold. So, for those who have missed smelling the flowers of evil until now, Oud Immortel offers another chance. And for those who found the former too musty, they should go and buy Blanche or any other nonsense or try Oud Immortel.