JoanaPaula
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Tropical ripe yellow fruits
My perfume friend Marina Ivanova invited me to write my opinion about this perfume. As I had an easily accessible decanter (in my father's collection), I accepted the double challenge of writing some notes about a single experience with a perfume for which no public reviews are available. The challenge is doubled because this perfume has some unusual notes...
SIAM 1928 is a Thai niche perfume brand founded five years ago by Nutt Wesshasartar. According to the brand's website, SIAM 1928 defines itself as a producer of "fragrances created under the concept of Art of Alluring Scent, which is about Thai stories telling from the past to the future, history, legends, culture, tradition, art and travel".
Durian fruit, Mung bean and Pandanus are announced as the opening notes.
The smell of durian is very strong and has been described as a combination of sulphur, sewage, fruit, honey and roasted and rotting onion. There are 'only' 44 aromatic compounds in a durian, including some that contribute to the scents of skunk, caramel, rotten egg, fruit and soup seasoning... what a mix! Durians are banned from public places in several countries because of their very unpleasant odour.
The Mungo bean looks like a green pea and has a mild, slightly nutty and earthy taste.
The pandanus (known to me as the hala fruit) has a taste that can be described as floral, sweet, grassy and vanilla.
The "suspect" here is clearly the durian, because its smell is (really) offensive. Of course, this is not the case in this perfume. In fact, the smell of durian is easy to detect, but in the form of a sweet and fruity scent. In fact, it smells like jaca (also known as jackfruit, a Brazilian fruit that looks exactly like durian but is twice as big. Jaca smells invitingly sweet and similar to other tropical fruits such as mango, pineapple and banana. The smell of Jaca is inviting and not overpowering, unlike the smell of Durian.
The scent of Golden Hour is warm, sweet and refreshing. It is quite exotic. It's all about tropical fruity accords like jackfruit (it smells of tart banana), mungo (nutty facets), pandanus (sweet vanilla facets) and mango (peachy and piney facets), with added nuances of milky coconut. It's a joy to wear. It smells like a tropical holiday :-)
SIAM 1928 is a Thai niche perfume brand founded five years ago by Nutt Wesshasartar. According to the brand's website, SIAM 1928 defines itself as a producer of "fragrances created under the concept of Art of Alluring Scent, which is about Thai stories telling from the past to the future, history, legends, culture, tradition, art and travel".
Durian fruit, Mung bean and Pandanus are announced as the opening notes.
The smell of durian is very strong and has been described as a combination of sulphur, sewage, fruit, honey and roasted and rotting onion. There are 'only' 44 aromatic compounds in a durian, including some that contribute to the scents of skunk, caramel, rotten egg, fruit and soup seasoning... what a mix! Durians are banned from public places in several countries because of their very unpleasant odour.
The Mungo bean looks like a green pea and has a mild, slightly nutty and earthy taste.
The pandanus (known to me as the hala fruit) has a taste that can be described as floral, sweet, grassy and vanilla.
The "suspect" here is clearly the durian, because its smell is (really) offensive. Of course, this is not the case in this perfume. In fact, the smell of durian is easy to detect, but in the form of a sweet and fruity scent. In fact, it smells like jaca (also known as jackfruit, a Brazilian fruit that looks exactly like durian but is twice as big. Jaca smells invitingly sweet and similar to other tropical fruits such as mango, pineapple and banana. The smell of Jaca is inviting and not overpowering, unlike the smell of Durian.
The scent of Golden Hour is warm, sweet and refreshing. It is quite exotic. It's all about tropical fruity accords like jackfruit (it smells of tart banana), mungo (nutty facets), pandanus (sweet vanilla facets) and mango (peachy and piney facets), with added nuances of milky coconut. It's a joy to wear. It smells like a tropical holiday :-)
Joop! Homme, sticky-sweet and fuchsia-coloured!
"Joop! Homme" is a fragrance that I like and usually recommend... but hardly ever wear! Its fuchsia colour and typical provincial drugstore bottle shape create a negative reaction in me that discourages me from choosing this fragrance for my morning sprays.
The opening has citrusy and floral tones. These quickly evolve into a sweet floral panorama, with an excellent heliotrope note standing out. The sweet and heavy spices, together with a seductive combination of sandalwood and patchouli, make this perfume to have a more masculine base and drydown, even if I consider this fragrance to be unisex.
Its strong projection combined with its gourmand flavour, encourages me to recommend that you be frugal with the trigger.
The "fairer sex" usually likes gourmand scents sprayed on men, but this perfume threatens to be sometimes an exception to that rule, at least for some women I know. The fragrance feminine floral side, together with its fearsome projection, makes many ladies hesitate to show enthusiasm for someone who overdoes the spritzing. "GOOD" and "A LOT" don't go hand in hand here. Beware of "TOO MUCH".
Message to the Joop!Homme owners: let's limit ourselves to a couple of sprays, which will certainly be more effective than the traditional half-dozen sprays.
"Joop! Homme" has some similarities with Creed's "Original Santal". As the Joop! bottle only costs 1/10th of the Creed's equivalent price, it's an obvious suggestion for the less well-off or the more cheap perfume wearers. What's more, the Joop perfume offers better performance and can't be considered a clone, since it appeared on the market 15 years before its more elitist "Alter Ego".
My personal opinion: Do I recommend it? Yes, to anyone who likes sweet oriental fragrances. The only thing I would advise again is to be careful with the gauging. Less is better than more!
Suggested Music: Joan Baez singing "Sweet Sir Galahad"
JoanaPaula
The opening has citrusy and floral tones. These quickly evolve into a sweet floral panorama, with an excellent heliotrope note standing out. The sweet and heavy spices, together with a seductive combination of sandalwood and patchouli, make this perfume to have a more masculine base and drydown, even if I consider this fragrance to be unisex.
Its strong projection combined with its gourmand flavour, encourages me to recommend that you be frugal with the trigger.
The "fairer sex" usually likes gourmand scents sprayed on men, but this perfume threatens to be sometimes an exception to that rule, at least for some women I know. The fragrance feminine floral side, together with its fearsome projection, makes many ladies hesitate to show enthusiasm for someone who overdoes the spritzing. "GOOD" and "A LOT" don't go hand in hand here. Beware of "TOO MUCH".
Message to the Joop!Homme owners: let's limit ourselves to a couple of sprays, which will certainly be more effective than the traditional half-dozen sprays.
"Joop! Homme" has some similarities with Creed's "Original Santal". As the Joop! bottle only costs 1/10th of the Creed's equivalent price, it's an obvious suggestion for the less well-off or the more cheap perfume wearers. What's more, the Joop perfume offers better performance and can't be considered a clone, since it appeared on the market 15 years before its more elitist "Alter Ego".
My personal opinion: Do I recommend it? Yes, to anyone who likes sweet oriental fragrances. The only thing I would advise again is to be careful with the gauging. Less is better than more!
Suggested Music: Joan Baez singing "Sweet Sir Galahad"
JoanaPaula
Surprise!... a joyful musky surprise!
I currently have five Khadlaj perfumes and I have to say that I have the best opinion of all of them. They all have a very acceptable or even a very good presentation, which is rare among Middle Eastern perfumers. The sprays are great and the overall quality is above average, especially if you also consider the inexpensive price.
Ombre Notes is no exception and only makes me want to try other Khadlaj perfumes. I began by characterising it as ‘reminiscent of 540 Extrait with a woody twist but also less sweet, less almondy, less intrusive, less performant, less showy, less Kurkdjian and a lot less expensive. It's been a week since I wrote that sentence and I don't know if it still makes sense to me, except for the comment about the attractive price.
To begin my exploratory journey into this perfume, I started by looking at the opinions of some Youtubers. No two opinions were alike, except when they said that Ombre Notes was excellent and didn't seem to be a clone of anything well-known. I completely agree. It's an excellent perfume and doesn't seem to be a clone of anything I know, even if one can conjure up a very slight resemblance to two or three olfactorily unrelated fragrances. Great! It's a new olfactory DNA for me, and a really pleasant one at that.
Some commentators found it dense, heavy on the oud note and almost intrusive... For me, it's a clean perfume, with an almost discreet silage and almost no trace of oud, although with a woodsy dry down. I haven't seen any references to its versatility or the compliments it can generate. For me, it's one of the rare four-season fragrances I know, wearable day or night, effective in a wide variety of situations, and generating pleasant comments wherever I carry it. In my house, which is usually a small discordant assembly when it comes to fragrances, it was unanimous this time: ‘That perfume is very good!’. The ladies said it had a feminine slant, while the men were sure of its masculine footprint. Well... for me it's totally unisex.
It opens musky and slightly citrusy. It remains musky throughout, but before long a note of caramel becomes quite noticeable. One might judge it as a sweet fragrance, but it's only marginally sweet in my opinion. The base becomes more woody (due to a cedar note? a little oud?) and amber. The sillage is only normal, although the longevity is above average. It projects with greater intensity for an hour and a half and in no way behaves like an intrusive perfume. Let's just say that its performance is ‘just right’. In short, it's not a complex fragrance but it's very well blended and a pleasure to wear.
Note: My initial impression of a certain closeness to BR 540 DNA was certainly due to the omnipresent musk and caramel notes.
Ombre Notes is no exception and only makes me want to try other Khadlaj perfumes. I began by characterising it as ‘reminiscent of 540 Extrait with a woody twist but also less sweet, less almondy, less intrusive, less performant, less showy, less Kurkdjian and a lot less expensive. It's been a week since I wrote that sentence and I don't know if it still makes sense to me, except for the comment about the attractive price.
To begin my exploratory journey into this perfume, I started by looking at the opinions of some Youtubers. No two opinions were alike, except when they said that Ombre Notes was excellent and didn't seem to be a clone of anything well-known. I completely agree. It's an excellent perfume and doesn't seem to be a clone of anything I know, even if one can conjure up a very slight resemblance to two or three olfactorily unrelated fragrances. Great! It's a new olfactory DNA for me, and a really pleasant one at that.
Some commentators found it dense, heavy on the oud note and almost intrusive... For me, it's a clean perfume, with an almost discreet silage and almost no trace of oud, although with a woodsy dry down. I haven't seen any references to its versatility or the compliments it can generate. For me, it's one of the rare four-season fragrances I know, wearable day or night, effective in a wide variety of situations, and generating pleasant comments wherever I carry it. In my house, which is usually a small discordant assembly when it comes to fragrances, it was unanimous this time: ‘That perfume is very good!’. The ladies said it had a feminine slant, while the men were sure of its masculine footprint. Well... for me it's totally unisex.
It opens musky and slightly citrusy. It remains musky throughout, but before long a note of caramel becomes quite noticeable. One might judge it as a sweet fragrance, but it's only marginally sweet in my opinion. The base becomes more woody (due to a cedar note? a little oud?) and amber. The sillage is only normal, although the longevity is above average. It projects with greater intensity for an hour and a half and in no way behaves like an intrusive perfume. Let's just say that its performance is ‘just right’. In short, it's not a complex fragrance but it's very well blended and a pleasure to wear.
Note: My initial impression of a certain closeness to BR 540 DNA was certainly due to the omnipresent musk and caramel notes.
Underrated?
Underrated perfume?
I really think it is!
Its name means "Two Ouds" in Arabic. Of course, this fragrance only uses just a little bit of these two types of oud, whatever they are. Such an enlightening name immediately scares away lovers of "freshies" who abhor smoke, strong wood and the possible smell of barns... in short, any type of "orientality".
To my nose, the scent is somehow quite unique in a good way. It has a smellable resemblance to 3 remakable DNAs, namely "Alexandria II (Parfum) | XerJoff",
By the Fireplace and 
Ôud Bouquet. These 3 potentially inspiring perfumes are fragrances with a well-established "market status". But will Oudain inherit some of this acceptance? So far, no! Because it has no explicit affiliation with any of the mentioned inspirers, it is not touted by any YouTuber as a fantastic and cheap new clone. The WEB has been, so far, the main sales-generating marketing tool of the Lattafa Group.
Oudain also unexpectedly presents a sillage below average for its type of notes, so it will never build its path to the global market by imposing itself as an "olfactory bomb". But there are many perfume enthusiasts who will even prefer an ethereal demeanor in a sweet & oudy & smokey & spicy & warm fragrance, rather than dealing with an intrusive, gourmand and woody grenade.
.
So I can summarize the advantages of Oudain as:
- Are you in the mood for a cheap oriental fragrance of above-average quality?
- Do you want an oriental fragrance to use in your office and in countless other situations where you don't want to draw attention with an intrusive smell?
- Do you want to please and surprise your friends with an oriental, warm, smooth and velvety scent?
... If so, just order a bottle of Oudain!
I really think it is!
Its name means "Two Ouds" in Arabic. Of course, this fragrance only uses just a little bit of these two types of oud, whatever they are. Such an enlightening name immediately scares away lovers of "freshies" who abhor smoke, strong wood and the possible smell of barns... in short, any type of "orientality".
To my nose, the scent is somehow quite unique in a good way. It has a smellable resemblance to 3 remakable DNAs, namely "Alexandria II (Parfum) | XerJoff",
By the Fireplace and Ôud Bouquet. These 3 potentially inspiring perfumes are fragrances with a well-established "market status". But will Oudain inherit some of this acceptance? So far, no! Because it has no explicit affiliation with any of the mentioned inspirers, it is not touted by any YouTuber as a fantastic and cheap new clone. The WEB has been, so far, the main sales-generating marketing tool of the Lattafa Group.Oudain also unexpectedly presents a sillage below average for its type of notes, so it will never build its path to the global market by imposing itself as an "olfactory bomb". But there are many perfume enthusiasts who will even prefer an ethereal demeanor in a sweet & oudy & smokey & spicy & warm fragrance, rather than dealing with an intrusive, gourmand and woody grenade.
.
So I can summarize the advantages of Oudain as:
- Are you in the mood for a cheap oriental fragrance of above-average quality?
- Do you want an oriental fragrance to use in your office and in countless other situations where you don't want to draw attention with an intrusive smell?
- Do you want to please and surprise your friends with an oriental, warm, smooth and velvety scent?
... If so, just order a bottle of Oudain!
Is it expensive? Well, it smells like!
I like Oud perfumes where the quality of the ingredients is always recognisable. The price usually goes hand in hand with the quality. I've never had a number of these perfumes because I have to pay the high prices that are always asked. I've always liked Oud Satin Mood. Kurkdjian's style is very evident in it. I'm the proud owner of a 50 ml bottle and I try to save it as much as possible.
Naturally, I've tried many oud scents tentatively inspired by it, but I've never been entirely satisfied with the results... until now. Despite all recommendations against blind purchases, I ordered Zimaya Impulse Oud. And as the name suggests, I decided to buy it on impulse.
Right from the opening, I realise that it's a different kind of rose oud because of its remarkable softness. The rose and vanilla appear as an orange glow painted in pastel colours, just as an oriental rose should be. Is it the influence of violet? Well, it doesn't smell like candy-like sweet violets at all. The scent is radiant and never vulgarly gourmand. As the fragrance progresses, Impulse Oud becomes sweeter and perhaps more feminine. However, its beauty also manages to grow. The woody notes are never too prominent and appear hand in hand with the amber and benzoin chords.
The result is surprising. It is "probably" very close to its inspiration. I only write "probably" because I don't care now whether this Zimaya is similar or not to the Kurkdjian's fragrance. I like it for its attributes.
Naturally, I've tried many oud scents tentatively inspired by it, but I've never been entirely satisfied with the results... until now. Despite all recommendations against blind purchases, I ordered Zimaya Impulse Oud. And as the name suggests, I decided to buy it on impulse.
Right from the opening, I realise that it's a different kind of rose oud because of its remarkable softness. The rose and vanilla appear as an orange glow painted in pastel colours, just as an oriental rose should be. Is it the influence of violet? Well, it doesn't smell like candy-like sweet violets at all. The scent is radiant and never vulgarly gourmand. As the fragrance progresses, Impulse Oud becomes sweeter and perhaps more feminine. However, its beauty also manages to grow. The woody notes are never too prominent and appear hand in hand with the amber and benzoin chords.
The result is surprising. It is "probably" very close to its inspiration. I only write "probably" because I don't care now whether this Zimaya is similar or not to the Kurkdjian's fragrance. I like it for its attributes.
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