Jomas

Let me tell you a story about stupidity and snobbery.

For a long time I'd been on the hunt for the perfect orange, a juicy, bitter-peeled orange, a bit old-school, a little masculine leaning, a bit tart.

I've also known Verde d'Arancia for a long time. I don't know how many times I went into a dm-store just to smell it, how many times I wanted to buy it. Did I get it? Hell no! How am I supposed to pick up a 13 Euro perfume when the number of places in my wardrobe is strictly limited? No way! Surely there's one at 200 Euro+, the ultimate orange, just waiting to steal my mind and the money off my card.

I had big fantasies about Tauer's 09 Orange Star. Recently, I got to test it. It's interesting, I like it, but from the first sniff I realized it wasn't what I was looking for. And that's when the epiphany hit me: Hello, stupid, what the hell are you looking for when perfection is right under your nose? Are you really so dumb that it would bother you to pay only 13 Euro (even 10 if I had ordered it online) for that perfume you really want?

So I ran off to the nearest dm-store, from where I returned home with my perfect orange. Me happy!

I don't know what a horse race is supposed to smell like, because I've never witnessed one in person, but I can't imagine anything else than dust blown by unleashed hooves, jockeys in a frenzy, tanned leather, noise, tension at its peak and bettors' nails bitten to the flesh.

Derby smells different. Of wild horses quietly descending the slopes at the foothills of the Iranian Damavand, in the whisper of the clear, fast-flowing waters of the Haraz River, amid the flowering galbanum shrubs that color the mountain yellow.

The mountain is left behind, and the horses stop beside endless fields full, full of hay bales. Forgive me, Mr. Serge, but I've never encountered such a note of hay even in your Chergui!

What more is there to say? Instant love! Can't wait for my bottle to arrive...

A well-balanced fragrance, intended for oud lovers who are not so keen to be living on the edge. An elegant agarwood accord, which has thoroughly cleaned out its stable before showing itself in public, ultra-woody and almost black, heavily smoky, slightly medicinal at times.

I don't smell cumin, at least not that body odor for which it's famous, and saffron is responsible, I think, for the herbal whiff - I associate saffron with the smell of marigold, probably because of the fakes in the spice sets bought in various Turkish bazaars.

The rose is more of an impression, and the castoreum non-existent, though I somewhat preceive an illusion of leatheriness, which I attribute to the patchouli-cistus team, however.

Perhaps rather masculine but wearable by anyone, perhaps mainstream rather than niche, but that's no bad thing. It doesn't excel in terms of longevity and projection, but it's not fleeting either. Nice!

Two to three minutes of Glade Gel Air Freshener - Muguet, followed by two to three hours among soaps - let's call them Saponificio Artigianale Fiorentino Fiorentino Mughetto - strategically placed in the clean linen cupboard. Bonus – a few tablets of Aroxol mosquito repellent.

I do not experience it as unpleasant, on the contrary, these are familiar scents that most of us, myself included, have willingly surrounded ourselves with at some point in our own homes. Would I, however, spend a buttload of money to smell like that myself? Hell no!

A beautiful, delicate floral, initially green, then becoming increasingly white. Seeing the hyacinth listed, I was expecting something relatively heavy, with an animalic undertone, but that's not the case at all.

The opening is downright vegetal, as if you're crushing white and purple petals between your fingers. What bothers me a little in this opening is the metallic whiff that overlays the botanical lushness. Interestingly, that metallic feeling lasts way longer if I apply the fragrance in the evening, immediately after showering, on still warm skin, than if I do it in the morning, while drinking my coffee.

Eventually the white flowers take over, I can clearly smell tuberose and orange blossom. They are clean and creamy, with no noticeable indoles, no mothball odor, and no chewing gum stuck in their hair.

Good performance, worth considering for floral lovers.