HS3

I recently placed an order with Zahras (horrible website, but fabulous service and products!) – a bottle of Amouage’s newest attar, Al Mas, some oud wood, some bakhoor, and a big gaudy burner. It arrived relatively quickly considering it literally went halfway around the world from Bahrain to here. It was packed well, and a nice collection of samples was included.

I bought the Al Mas unsmelled, but had high hopes for it. I was not disappointed! It’s definitely Amouage through and through, but it’s unlike their other offerings. I’ve heard reference to it smelling similar to Montale’s Red Aoud and though it’s by no means the same, I could say that if you love Red Aoud, you’d probably love this too. It has all the wonderful roses, frankincense, and oud you’d want to find, but it has a great, bright oud top note that has almost a tart, fruity characteristic to it. It’s quite unisex as well – I couldn’t see anyone having difficulty wearing it. There’s a nice dose of what seems like an earthy musk that carries through and ties everything together nicely.

The drydown is very good as well – its woody structure comes to the front and that oud opening dies back revealing a sandalwood, musk, and amber base. Being an oil though, the evolution of the scent can develop over many hours, making it that much more intriguing. There are some notes that come out in the development that remind me of something else, but I can’t put my finger on it right now. I’ll have to update when it finally comes to me.

The packaging is incredible too – surprisingly much nicer than I’d expected. It’s a gorgeously veneered box with a deep red wood, with purple (how’s that for royal!) felt lining, and a great weight in the hand. I stuck a picture of it next to a bottle of Homage at the bottom here to show how much larger the box is, along with the variation in color (it’s actually much deeper in color than it seems in the photo).

UPDATE notes: a little later, I’m getting what seems like water note – odd. Not aquatic in the usual sense, but a light air of water. A tiny hint of furniture polish too, but in a good way if that makes sense.

Amouage Lyric Woman

I recently picked up a 4ml decant of this stuff after reading on basenotes about how it works really well as a unisex/masculine and that the rose note really shined. I knew the GF would enjoy it even if it wasn’t right for me. I was pretty surprised with it after sampling. It’s not the big, spicy, innovative rose that I was hoping for. It is incredibly well made, of course, and blended very nicely with a great evolution, but I didn’t feel like it was anything spectacular or new. What I got was a fruity chypre with a very natural rose playing lead. It had all day longevity, but for my personal taste, it did lean a bit feminine with the use of the florals and sweet notes.

Parfum d’Empire Osmanthus Interdit

I have this on my hand right now – it strikes me as a very natural osmanthus with what seems almost like powdery bits of iris in the background and a crisp, natural feel to it. I have a wonderful osmanthus bush planted right by my back door, so when it’s in blossom, you’re greeted with the fabulous smell of osmanthus when you walk out the door.  This is not unlike that – it’s slightly less sweet as the bush that I have, but it’s that dryer feel to it that makes it stand out from osmanthus soliflores.

I recently ran out of my Amouage Ciel sample after a couple wears. It struck me absolutely perfect for what they market it as – a fragrance to welcome spring with. The stars seemed to align as I got an email from Luscious Cargo (they are fabulous by the way and reopening a brick and mortar store here in Central FL in a few months… I’m excited) that they had added a few scents and upped the discount on their clearance sale. I went onto their site to find an already discounted bottle of Amouage Ciel for Him in the older leaded crystal bottles, plus an additional 30% off. I knew that kind of discount on an Amouage wouldn’t find me again soon, much less on increasingly hard to find older packaging. I bought it. If you’ve never ordered from them before, I urge you to do so – their packaging is incredible. It comes filled with samples, raffia, candies, incense, dried orange peel, and lavender. It’s such a great experience to get a package from them.

The bottle is gorgeous, though the outer packaging is a bit hokey. While I really do like the newer bottles and great boxes, I feel like using plastic caps (on most… Silver is metal) and regular glass bottles seem to have a hard time justifying their packaging premiums. On this one, they also lost the azure blue color of the juice for a light golden in the new packaging, only keeping the blue in the small plastic gem in the cap (the juice looks greener in these photos than it is… sad little camera). Also, the sprayer on these older bottles is unmatched… it’s a full, luxurious spray that is really quite satisfying. Imagine a KSSSHHHT versus a PFFT. Make sense? Thought so.

Apologies for the less than optimal photos – both, BOTH of my digital cameras broke within two weeks of each other. I haven’t had a chance to get a new one yet and have all the strobes taken down, so the Sony point-and-shoot had to step in snapshot style.