6 years ago
This was originally part of my review of ~Lily~ by Roja Dove. I've had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Roja Dove 'fumes, but the trend has been towards my mellowing greatly anent them.
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Wearing a perfume epitomises the principle of °simply doing° without °seeking result° expounded in the ~Bhagavad Gita~ & practised in Zen Buddhism. The best way to wear a perfume is to just put the thing on & then immediately forget it, and to just let it come to you in its own time. This is particularly true of 'fumes like these Roja Dove ones. At the risk of seeming a bit stuck up & elitist - but, simply, they ^are^ advanced perfume wearers' perfumes! I recently read about someone who financially self-evisceratingly bought ~Haute Luxe~ (a ^far^ more costly Roja Dove 'fume than this one), went about angling for compliments, and was ^absolutely devastated^ when someone said "it's alright, I suppose". The perception of a perfume is so very delicate & fickle a process that even the perception that someone ^wants^ or ^expects^ you to like it can radically change what you perceive. If only he could have restrained himself: at some point in time some little tentacle of 'fume would have extended itself unto someone, caught them at unawares, and perhaps they would have said "whence that ^awsome divine^ aroma!? Heaven, perchance?".
I resolutely ^never^ angle for compliments, or in ^any way^ prompt anyone to perceive my perfume. Sometimes I get them, and they are invariably weighty ones. Sometimes I can even see in advance that they have just caught an unexpected whiff of something that greatly pleases them. On a molecular level, perfume is ^colossaly^ profligate - an obvious parallel is, well, it's fairly obvious really - I'm talking about insemination. Or any kind of semination, for that matter. What proportion of perfume molecules actually reach their mark?
Last night I ^did^ get ^a^ compliment. It's not surprising really, coz I was veritably honking of the stuff. It's seriously powerful stuff, if you can just ^let^ it be! And one might bear in mind that the spray mechanism tends to be ^particularly^ well-made on Roja Dove perfume bottles, and doesn't dispense a large amount per spritz.
I'm wondering what to put on now, coz I'm going to the Sunday afternoon concert at the Whitworth Art Gallery; and, you know, I think I'd better use it again, as I'm still honking of it. What a remarkable transformation! I've gone from being cross at it for seeming to be rather a damp squib to being cross at it for not letting me try a different 'fume the folliwing day by virtue of its being too puissant!
Even before I'd begun to °get° these Roja Dove 'fumes, I always did perceive that there is a certain °solidity° to, & stamp of quality on, them. It's a bit like, say, you're traversing some swampy land, & the creeks have foot-bridges across them: and one creaks a little as you walk across; the next maybe sways a little; and then you come to one that walking across is like walking on solid ground - it doesn't creak or sway or anything. Many people say that when they try them, they simply are not ^awsome^ as a 'fume in that price-backett °ought° to be; and I agree that's true in a sense: but imagine you have heard Beethovens violin concerto, and you are totally °blown away° by the sheer sublimity of the melody & lyricism of it, as well you might be; and then someone tells you that Beethoven's late string quartets are the consummation of his genius, as indeed they are. If you go to them expecting what the violin concerto delivers, but yet more so, you will be profoundly disappointed! The late quartets evolve music into a different direction: melody and lyricism are consummated in the violin concerto, and there is nowhere further for them to go; but the late quartets are explorations of the uttermost potential in melody & harmony, unconstrained by preconceptions of patent beauty or, what is °gorgeous°. And I think Roja Dove's perfumes are parallel to that, in that they do not ~seek after~ being ~yet more gorgeous~, but rather explore uttermost potential in ^olfactory^ melody & harmony in a way similar to that in which Beethoven's late string quartets explore that in ^musical^ melody & harmony.
And I think that is why people are often bitterly
disappointed when they try a Roja Dove perfume (& they often are, as a trawling of reviews will reveal). They expect a yet sweeter & more mellifluous olfactory °singing° than that they had thitherto heard - but that is just not the direction in which these perfumes take it.
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I try not to be stuck-up about the price of a perfume. Some people say a good perfume is worth every penny. I do not concur - it feels far to much like playing into the hands of the perfume manufacturers to say that. I say, rather, they know what good thing they are onto with their economies of scale, and their vast webs of connections with suppliers of raw materials (if you go to Laos, or wherever, & say "I'm A. Tad-Brisk, & I'd like to buy some oud oil please" you'll more likely than not get a bucket of tar with maybe a few drops of oud oil in if the dealer feels a little pity for you; but if you go saying you're an executive of Prada or Yves Saint Laurent ... (but even then ... !)), and their lavishly equipped research facilities at which they can explore the 'tree' of blends in an orderly way, and extend its ramifications almost indefinitely without it tumbling into a chaos of unwashed vessels (just try doing _that_ in your kitchen!) -- and strike a VERY _VERY_ hard bargain!! Still, when I am exploring the purse-friendlier offerings I think "there's no boot in those high-end ones, really ..."; but when I then go over and try something like Eclix, by Tiziana Terenzi, I then think " ... oh! but yes there is!". The upshot is that I do have a certain number of high end perfumes; and I would _not_ swap them for their equivalent in medium price-range ones! No way, José!!
But are the one's I've mentioned, apart fræ ~Haute Luxe~, which I don't have & probably never will (I think if I were ever spending minlet on 'fume that kind of profligately I would probably get ~Nebulous~ by Boadicea the Victorious, or some of Ensar Oud's Japanese Zen Temple sinking-grade oud incense), actually what uw mean by ^ultra^ expensive? I think not! but that the ones just-mentioned in parenthesis are. And if they aren't, then what is?!?